Classrooms of confusion

The reform of the sixth-form curriculum has left teachers scrabbling to know what they are doing. Anne McHardy calls for clarity from Estelle Morris

I watched my Year 11 daughter the other day ask a family friend who is head of English at a nearby secondary school, "Well, what will be happening next year? Will I be doing AS-levels?" The look of bewilderment on his face opened up a chasm that I had been trying to keep covered since last June when, for a fleeting moment, Estelle Morris, as the incoming Education Secretary appeared to be abolishing AS-levels.

It was clear quickly that she was only proposing a bit of tinkering with the length of exams; setting in motion a review of the Holy Grail of Curriculum 2000, but not one that was expected to junk said Grail.

When the Blessed Estelle made her pronouncements two of my sons were sitting AS-levels, one because it was his chronological turn, the other because he took some disorganised gap time. Now both are in the throws of A2s. But they and we are calling them A-levels.

We have forgotten that A-levels have gone for good and that this year's exams really are as new as last year's ASs. Our friend left me in no doubt. "I am scrabbling to know what I am doing." He is long in the tooth and is teaching on the assumption that he is aiming at an old A level standard. It seems the universities are working on the same principle. One of the biggest puzzles with my sons was what the universities would make of ASs. The older one is applying for an art foundation course. The younger only sat three of his four ASs, dropping one when an extra coursework was sprung on deadline and getting uneven results. We worried about his UCAS applications. It appears to have been unnecessary. He has applied to five Russell Group universities and has offers – albeit for As and Bs – from all. On what basis we do not know. His GCSEs perhaps. Or teacher assessment. We cross our fingers.

For my daughter, crossed fingers may not be enough. The universities sang froid will not change the confusion for my daughter's year, sitting GCSEs now, about what the sixth form holds for them. The further we move from A-levels the more the change must impinge on the universities.

Remember that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has a Year 11 son, just as last year he had one of AS-level age.

The Green Paper on 14 to 19 education that resulted last February from parts of Ms Morris's enquiry showed that the Government's intention still is to widen the curriculum, with students taking sciences and arts subjects and to further restructure the exam system, with vocational qualifications getting equal parity with academic ones.

Wonderful. I watched a professor of social sciences, a man of high seriousness, light up the other day, talking about wood carving. There, I thought, is someone who should have done GNVQs. I always wanted my children to be liberated from the straight jacket of "real" A-levels. But at the same time I do not want them to be confused or disadvantaged by having taken photography or car mechanics at GNVQ rather than Latin at A2 and finding Oxbridge frowns on non-academic subjects.

Until we know how universities and employers will judge whatever the Green Paper eventually spawns, we will all continue to suffer unsettling confusion, knowing that no teacher is able to tell us with certainty what our children will be aiming at two years from now. Could Ms Morris and Co. consult, decide, test and implement fast and inform us unequivocally and soon?

education@independent.co.uk