Not Every Student Learns the Same way. We Need to Normalise this Difference

I often find myself saying “I failed my A-levels,” when what I actually mean is I got two c’s at a2 history and politics and a B in AS sociology. I also didn’t do well in English literature, psychology or economics.

I took so many classes because I started year 12 with four subjects, English literature, history, politics and psychology. I got D’s in English and psychology, dropped those two, and went on to year 13 carrying history and politics to a2. I picked up AS sociology and economics, with the intention of staying for a third year to finish these. I got a B in AS sociology and a D in economics.

I then realised that I did not want to stay for a third year to complete sociology and attempt to retake economics, and I might be better off going to a FE college and completing a BTEC instead. So I did that after year 13.

It makes me sad now that I considered C’s failing. Mostly because I’d been told how brilliant I was for my entire life, and I hadn’t realised that this was partly because the adults in my life had extremely high expectations of me, and I only knew a few children who were my age, so I didn’t have many people to compare myself to. I was used to being one of the best, if not the best, student in my very small class, and I had expected this trend to continue when I started year 12 at a new school.

Was I capable of more than C’s? Maybe, probably. I was also extremely depressed and my attendance at school was very low. I wasn’t coping, in every possible way. I’d come from a tiny school of less than a hundred pupils, all with some kind of visual impairment, to a huge school where there were over a hundred students in my year group. I had no confidence, refused to carry a cane, and felt confused and unhappy about my place in the world. The change of schools had been my choice, I knew I needed it, but I hadn’t anticipated just how difficult or disruptive it would be. It seems that nobody else had considered this either.

The reality is, even if I had been comfortable and self-assured, A-levels just didn’t work for me. I was expected to conform and be able to learn in a very specific way, and that way of learning is not something I’m able to do comfortably. I was at a good school and the teachers were great, but A-levels expect you to be a certain type of learner and if you’re not, and especially if nobody recognises this, you are going to struggle.

It sounds strange, writing this down, but I’m now really, really glad this all happened. I went to the FE college and I learnt a lot about advocating for myself. I used my A-level experience to guide the kind of support I’d receive there. And it meant that by the time I came to applying to university, I was a little bit older.

I ended up starting university when I was 21. I took a year out after completing the BTEC and travelled, living in Spain for five months. That experience also taught me a lot about myself and helped me realise that I needed to have the courage to try new things when I went to university.

So I didn’t fail. Not only because C grades aren’t failing, but because I found out in the end what I wanted to study, where I wanted to study it, and how I learn best.

I didn’t read a single textbook when I was an undergraduate. I realised that books are something I love, but in an academic context the design of them is often overwhelming and complicated. I couldn’t easily find page numbers or pull out quotes, even when I found the book in a format I could read. If the book wasn’t readily available as an accessible eBook, I’d have to use time and energy arguing with publishers to get my hands on a copy.

I read journal articles. I read book reviews. I read excerpts and single chapters. I read everything I could get my hands on, everything that worked for me. And I didn’t fail, more than that, I did well. Sometimes I studied from home. Some classes were too loud and chaotic, and I found I couldn’t focus or sit still. So I took my work home and studied there instead. I created, with the help of extremely accommodating and understanding lecturers, an environment that supported my specific learning style, rather than trying to force myself to be someone I wasn’t.

We hold A-levels up as some kind of gold standard. If you don’t do well at A-levels, you’re not a good student and you don’t belong at university. Even if nobody says it out loud, I think most sixth formers feel that this is what their teachers and parents believe. You get your three, or maybe four a-levels and go off to university at 18, unless you take a gap year and do something meaningful and enriching. This system works for some people. But not everyone is ready at 18. Not everyone is mature enough, sure enough, confident enough. I know I wasn’t.

But I have also realised, almost ten years too late, that I’m not a bad student, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. So I don’t find most classrooms a particularly good environment to learn in, unless the group of students is very small. I hate reading textbooks and I completely failed to understand at A-level that the exam was not asking me to debate particular topics, but to write down specific pieces of information that would get me a certain grade. Funnily enough all of the things that made me a terrible A-level student make me a great university student. I have endless curiosity, I like to read widely, rather than getting all of my information from one book, I know how to navigate journals and search for the information I need. I ask questions, always questions.

I’m not the best student to ever grace the halls of the university either. I think it’s fair to say I’m average. And that’s ok. Maybe, if people had told me I was average from the start, I wouldn’t have felt like I was a failure when I received two C grades that had taken almost everything from me to achieve. Equally, if people hadn’t pushed me to believe that I was capable, would I have continued trying even when things were really hard? I don’t have the answer to that.

The reality is that not every student learns the same. We can either try and force every student to fit into a box and teach them that if they don’t do well in this setting they will never do well. Or we can make sure that from a young age, students are exposed to all the different options that are available to them. We can normalise trying new things and changing our minds when we find something doesn’t work for us. Saying that a particular course or resource doesn’t work for you doesn’t make you a bad student. All it means is that you need to access the information a different way. We, as a society, lose out in the end if we discourage capable students just because they think textbooks are pointless and find solitary learning the most effective way to study.