Special 5-Term or 1½-Year A-level Course
Mindful of the fact that students from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and some other countries end their academic year in November/December, tutorial colleges run a special 1½-year or 5-term A-level course for students from these countries. Students from other countries can and do join this course. The course starts in January and students join these colleges immediately after their O-Level exams and December holidays. They skip 1 term and cover as much as possible of Year 1 or AS-Level work in 2 terms, instead of 3 terms. They are able to do this easily and successfully because of the following reasons:
- UK students study fewer subjects than Singapore JC students; usually just 3 or 4 subjects without General Paper, second language, H3 papers and Project, as shown below:
SingaporeUK
General Paper
Not required
2nd Language
Not required
1st A-level subject
1st A-level subject
2nd A-level subject
2nd A-level subject
3rd A-level subject
3rd A-level subject
4th A-level subject
Not required but allowed
H3 papers
Not required
Project
Not required
Compulsory CAs/CCAs (Commendable, but takes up a lot of time especially if the JC is keen to win national awards
Not compulsory
- Students get extra lessons or make-up classes.
- Class size is small, often averaging 12 per class or lower and students get personal attention from teachers.
- Not giving different weights to different levels of difficulty helps students to gain higher average marks.
- If necessary, students can re-sit without any penalty.
Incidentally, note that almost all UK universities, including even Oxford and Cambridge, normally require only 3 A-Levels for admission and do not require GP.That said, if you are very strong, you should do 4 subjects, especially if you aspire to enrol in a popular subject such as medicine or law, or if you aspire to get into a top universities like Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial, etc… where competition is very stiff and where sometimes, they do ask for 4 subjects.
In some colleges, students studying in the 5-term course will not take all their AS units in the June exams as they are unlikely to have been taught all the units in all their 4 subjects by June. For example, a student taking say, Maths, Chemistry, Biology and Economics may be taught all 3 units in Maths, 2 units in Chemistry and 1 unit each in Biology and Economics. He will therefore be allowed to take all these already taught units in the June exams. He will thus obtain an AS grade for Maths and Chemistry (which has only 2 AS units), and only the unit mark/grade for 1AS unit in Biology and Economics. In the first term of his Year 2 or A2 studies, i.e. from September to December, he will be taught his remaining 1 unit in Biology and Economics and will take the exams for these 2 AS units in the January exams to complete his full AS units and to obtain an AS grade for these two remaining subjects. Then, in June, he will take all his A2 units to qualify for his full A-levels in these 4 subjects. This is advantageous to students as it makes their Year 1 or AS year exam load lighter.
How the Special 5-Term A-levels in UK Compares with A-levels in Singapore in terms of Duration
If you are in Sec 3 in 2011
Singapore |
UK |
||
Jan-Dec 2012 |
Sec 4 |
Jan-Dec 2012 |
Sec 4 |
Jan-Dec 2013 |
JC1 |
Jan-June 2013 |
Yr 1, A-levels |
Jan 2014 |
JC 2 |
Sept 2013 -June’2014 |
Yr 2, A-levels |
Mar 2015 |
Results out |
August 2014 |
Results out |
Sept 2015 |
Enter Uni |
Sept 2014 |
Enter Uni |
If you are in Sec 4 in 2011
Singapore |
UK |
||
Jan-Dec 2012 |
JC1 |
Jan-June 2012 |
AS or Year 1, A-levels |
Jan-Dec 2013 |
JC2 |
Sept 2012-June 2013 |
A2 or Year 2, A-levels |
March 2014 |
Results out |
August 2013 |
Results out |
Sept 2014 |
Enter University |
Sept 2013 |
Enter University |
Note that in both cases you save one year and begin your university studies one year earlier than your cohorts who do their A-levels in Singapore. This saving of one year and starting university studies one year earlier however does not hold true for Singapore boys who have to do NS. This is because in 2010, Parliament was told that this gives students going overseas an unfair advantage over boys who go to local JCs. A girl is not affected as she does not have to do NS.