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Advanced Extension Award

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The Advanced Extension Awards were introduced in 2002, in response to the British Government's Excellence in Cities report, as a means of testing students at the most demanding standards found across the world. They are aimed at the top 10% of students in the British A Level tests, and are designed to allow students to "demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills to the full". They are assessed completely by virtue of external examinations.

Why is an extra qualification necessary?

With so many students attaining the top grade at A-Level (25.3% of all subject results in 2007 were graded at an A), it is becoming increasingly difficult for employers and universities to differentiate between the best students. The AEAs, to an extent, do a good job of separating these students.

Are they successful?

The awards seem to be doing their job of identifying the top students. Indeed according to EducationGuardian.co.uk, in 2004, 50.4% of the 7246 entrants failed to achieve a grade at all. This indicates that the awards truly are fulfilling their role in separating the elite. Only 18.3% of students attained the top of the two grades available, the Distinction, with the remaining 31.3% of students receiving a Merit. However, only time can tell whether this set of results is attributable to the qualification's youth, and therefore the lack of experience of teachers and small bank of past papers to refer to.

In addition, not all of the 'best' students take the AEA as some see it as an increased workload (both for teachers and students), and as it only occasionally forms part of a conditional offer from a university, many students see it as somewhat pointless. In addition, in some colleges and sixth forms, only students who are applying to Oxbridge are allowed to sit the exam[citation needed].

Since the 2005/2006 application year, a Distinction has been worth 40 UCAS points, and a Merit worth 20 points. Bearing in mind that a grade A at A level is worth 120 points, this adds to the arguments against the AEA being a worthwhile use of school's time and resources. However, it is also the case that the Advanced Extension Award requires no knowledge of academic material beyond the syllabus of its corresponding A-Level subject and thus rewards the student with a better understanding and appreciation of the material which the A-Level does not fully examine.

Available subjects

References

See also

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