A handful of leading public schools have this week confirmed their decision to road test a new alternative to A levels that has been developed in Cambridge, beginning in the next academic year.

Winchester, Eton and Rugby join a number of colleges in piloting the Cambridge Pre-U examinations from September 2008. The move reflects growing concern over the potential of A levels to challenge and distinguish the most able students. The Cambridge Pre-U examination is an attempt by Cambridge International Examinations to respond to the complaints of leading schools that modular examinations and unlimited resits have led to a focus on exam success rather than rounded education.

Dr Kevin Stannard, CIE Director of International Curriculum Development, said that by offering the Pre-U schools “will be making a strong statement about the value of learning over testing. Cambridge Pre-U has been designed as a coherent two-year programme. Candidates who take the exams after two years of study will have additional levels of maturity and understanding, and will have a real sense of how it all hangs together. Instead of a ‘learn it, forget it’ culture, Cambridge Pre-U offers educational value, rather than training for exams.”

The Cambridge Pre-U diploma is a linear, two year course, with exams taking place after the first year only as a “progress check”. The diploma includes a Global Perspectives project, which covers the challenges confronting young people in a modern world environment. The exams will be graded using a detailed scale, and it is expected that the top band will allow for an extra grade which measures achievement higher than the new A* mark at A level.

The development follows outcry last week over a new report by the Sutton Trust which revealed that a student who attended one of the top thirty independent schools is twice as likely to go to Oxbridge than one who attended one of the top thirty grammar schools, even if they have the same A level results. However, Cambridge University admissions have issued positive comments on the proposed syllabi, stating that the “emphasis on open-ended, challenging, synoptic assessment” is welcomed, but the Pre-U examination will not receive funding in the maintained sector until approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, leading to concerns that the new system will serve to increase the divide in university admissions.

This week CIE attended the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference in Bournemouth to persuade principles of the benefits of the Pre-U. The response to the scheme from schools has so far been mixed.

Keith Pusey, Director of Studies at Winchester, told Varsity that his school was “very happy” to be taking part in the trial examinations. “Many of our heads of department are interested in the specifications and in some cases they have been chairmen of panels drawing up these specifications so we’re very much in the vanguard of this exam which we regard as educationally beneficial”.

Martin Stephen, headmaster at St Pauls School, sees this divide as a cause for possible failure of the Pre-U. “Many initiatives where the Independent sector tries to go it alone have been attempted, but they have all failed.”

Emma Inkestar