Changing the lives of post-16 students with clearer and fairer exam papers

By Aga Heisig
Published 04 August 2023

The College of West Anglia (CWA) is guided by the ethos of 'changing lives through learning' and is one of the largest providers of education and training in the region. They provide various vocational courses, apprenticeships, A-levels, degrees and part-time recreational courses.

Aga Heisig, a Programme Manager at CWA says:

I am very passionate about helping learners discover their potential and where it might take them. Seeing the light bulb moment for them is the best part of my job.”

Aga explains how using our exam papers have helped her students achieve a grade 4 with AQA and now feel more positive about their futures.

How the curriculum is structured by CWA

Our learners are only with us 32 weeks of the year and we must squeeze a two-year curriculum into that time. We have a tight structure to our programme where we’ve identified the top 15 areas that we need to focus on in order for our students to achieve a grade 4.

When our learners arrive with us, they often come from a school that has already used AQA for assessment so when they start, they already have some familiarity with the style of the papers. We also found that AQA fitted nicely with our curriculum, which helped remove any potential workload issues as we switched.

Setting the context for the student

When students come to us, they’re often disheartened and totally disengaged from maths as things haven’t gone as well as they would’ve liked. In their minds, they’re convinced they can’t do maths. It helps a lot that AQA papers focus on basic skills early on, giving a sense of encouragement. It is really key for learners to be able to easily demonstrate what they know but students can find it challenging to focus on context topics like DIY if they don’t have a point of reference, for example, never had to paint a wall or measure a skirting board.

With AQA, the context questions in the improved papers are more relevant and up-to-date but they are also kept in balance within the paper. It’s one of the key reasons why we decided to change and let our students take a look.

It's all about the numbers

It can be scary thinking about changing exam boards. As a teacher, you establish a long-term relationship with a mark scheme and have a good knowledge of what’s needed to teach the curriculum. We don’t want to destroy all of our work and start again. We did our research and once we made the change, the results really underlined our decision, and we’re really happy for our students.

The national pass rate for November 2022 series was 23% and we achieved 41% across our largest-ever cohort. The clear papers really made a huge difference. For my team and me, it’s always about the students and what it means for them. And their lives are changed when they achieve the grade they want.

On hand support

For us, it was such an easy transition. The leadership and effort of AQA’s Account Managers was really important. They answered every, and any, question and I always knew that there was someone that I could get in touch with to get help.

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Author

Aga Heisig

About the author

Aga Heisig is a Programme Manager at The College of West Anglia and has been teaching maths for nine years.

The College of West Anglia

Based at multiple sites across Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, the College of West Anglia focuses on developing school leavers' skills and talents to prepare for work or university.

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