The Death of AS? Schools and Colleges Rush Towards Fully Linear

Less that one in five Year 12 students taking A-Level courses in 2017/18 are being required to take an AS exam in their chosen subject, according to an online poll of A-Level teachers. Almost three quarters of departments surveyed have now gone "fully linear".

Over 1,100 A-Level departments across six subjects responded to the poll which asked whether they planned to enter Year 12 students for AS exams in summer 2018.

The results of the poll are shown in the table below.

On average, 73.8% of departments who responded confirmed that they had moved to a purely linear approach, with no students at all being entered for AS in 2018.

This percentage was highest in A-Level Politics, one of the last subjects to be reformed, where the first linear exam papers will be sat in June 2019.

For subjects such as Psychology, Business & Economics which were in the first wave of reform, the percentage of departments that have gone fully linear is now around the 73-75% level.

Only 18.5% of departments are intending to enter all their Year 12 students into the AS exams, although that percentage rises to 25% for A-Level Sociology departments.