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Optimism and Obstacles: Navigating the Future of UK Education 2026
Future of UK Education 2026:Much has been said about how many children have lost teaching and socialising time as a result of lockdown, which is true and, sadly, may be even worse than we thought. It is reassuring to see that the economic impact of the pandemic is turning out not to be as bad as it was previously assumed it was going to be. However, when it comes to children, there is a very wide variation in the degree […]
The St Andrews Secret: Benefits of Small Group Tutoring for A-levels
Benefits of Small Group Tutoring: One of the factors attributed to the success of St Andrews is their teaching, especially the way they reacted to lockdown. Yes, like other universities, they moved their teaching online as a result of COVID-19, but they did small group teaching in a way that their students feel is better than other top universities. At Excel, we can very much relate to what St Andrews did well during COVID lockdown. This is because, at the […]
The Prestige Myth: Finding the Best Universities in the UK for Employment
Best Universities in the UK for Employment: In its almost 30-year history of ranking universities in the UK, The Sunday Times has placed a university that is neither Oxford nor Cambridge at the very top. You should be forgiven for thinking it may be a Russell Group university, but it is not one, and it is not even in England. The top university, according to The Sunday Times, is St Andrews in Scotland. I will later highlight the success factor […]
The Number One Question: How to Motivate Teenagers for Exams?
How to Motivate Teenagers for Exams: Dear Caring Parent I trust you and your family are making the best of the summer and that your son/daughter is looking forward to the start of the new academic year in September. I know we are only in the first few weeks of the summer break and everyone, including we parents, and the children just want to have a rest for the time being. This is especially important given the disruption to work […]
The Aftermath of Inflation: Navigating A-level Grade Deflation 2026
A-level Grade Deflation 2026: A seventeen-year-old, with a national swimming award, and predicted grades of A*A*A has been rejected by Liverpool University and this is just one of many. According to The Guardian newspaper’s education website: “… Eve could have expected a string of top university offers in an ordinary year.” There is nothing ordinary about 2020, as COVID-19 meant school closure and GCSE and A-level grades having to be awarded by teacher assessment. This led to inflated A-level grades, […]
Seeking Fairness: How to Appeal A-level Grades in 2026
How to Appeal A-level Grades: Here is a short story of Charlie, who was awarded A and B in Maths and Further Maths, respectively, in his A-levels by his teachers in 2020. His actual predicted grade in these two subjects was A* A*, so he not only missed out on gaining admission to Warwick University but has to carry these grades though his life, with all the ramifications for job prospects and other important issues. Just to prove to himself […]
The Path to the Top: Improving GCSE and A-level Grades in 2026
Improving GCSE and A-level Grades. Many young people who are in their final GCSE and A-level years have been studying diligently over the Easter break, and they are doing this in preparation for teacher assessment in the next couple of weeks or so. In most good schools where students achieve top grades year in year out, the headteacher and staff have decided to do some sort of teacher assessment – call it a test, mini-exam or whatever you like. In […]
Beyond the Classroom: The Benefits of Online Tutoring for Students
Benefits of Online Tutoring for Students Closure of schools, caused by the lockdown as a result of the pandemic has forced society to learn how to utilise technology in solving a very big problem – loss of learning by children. However, before we get too excited about how brilliant online teaching technology is, and start thinking that this is the way for the future, we should perhaps look at things from a wider perspective. I’m not speaking about the fact […]
The Exam “Merry-Go-Round”: Are GCSEs and A-levels Getting Easier?
Are GCSEs and A-levels Getting Easier? – Yes, there will be exams, no, exams are cancelled, actually, there will be a test… For awarding exam grades at GCSE and A-level in the summer of 2021, a proper exam or test or some sort, which is marked externally, is the fairest for GCSE and A-level students. This will help to mitigate against unfairness and to ensure uniformity in standard. For a level-playing field, due to missed teaching time and the inconsistency in the […]
The Academic Marathon: Navigating Linear vs Modular Exams
Linear vs Modular Exams: The recent announcement by the government that GCSE and A-level examinations will not take place this summer should not be a surprise to many people, given the raging pandemic and the inconsistency in the quality of education young people from different schools have received. One thing that this has created, however, is the confusion in the mind of many teenagers, as some of them, and perhaps some parents too, wrongly interpret this situation as “no assessment”. […]
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