College-on-the-net?

[paulr]

Anyone completed or has any feedback about the course content on these courses, good,bad or indifferent?

Looks like my local college (Selby) is no longer doing the 'AS' course, short of money!

Wheres last weeks diary? Business is still poor, anyone know the score to Saturdays match against Portugal?!!!

[keiths]

I signed up with COTN last year, and did The A-level exams in June. The site content is pretty good with the course divided into reasonable size chunks that you can cover in 1-2 weeks (depending on how energetic you are). There are quite a few links in each lesson that you need to follow to other sites to get further background material (although it must be said that not all of them are still current), and you need to do a fair bit of the recommended background reading either from the "Archaeology Coursebook" or from one of the other recommended texts such as Renfrew & Bahn. Apart from the on-line content each lesson has a tutor marked assessment that you can submit via email and is returned, usually within a week or two with comments and suggestions for improvement. All in all I think the course is fairly good and should get you through the A-level if you are fairly diligent.

Having said that I came across the AS level course at Selby college just after Christmas and signed up for that, alongside the COTN course, even though it was half way through, and I didn't regret it for a moment, having a taught lesson each week was a real boon, and Charlie (the tutor) is an excellent teacher. Unfortunately having done AS this year, we are going for A2 in the next academic year (assuming that we can get enough people), which is why there is no AS level.

One possibility if you were feeling up to it would be to do AS level with COTN, and the A2 at the same time with the Selby group. Unfortunately the A2 level is regarded as building upon the AS level material so you aren't allowed to take the A2 as standalone modules, however IMHO if you have some background knowledge of archeaology you would be able to cope with the A2 content. I should point out that doing both AS and A2 together is a fair amount of work and you do need to be willing to commit to the time and effort involved.

One other thing with COTN is that you have to arrange your own exams as a private candidate, which is easier said than done, and you may have to spend quite a while on the phone trying to find somewhere that is willing to take you, in the end I was able to arrange mine at Scarborough College who I must say were very helpful, but it did require some travelling on the exam days as I live in York.

Anyway if you want to ask me further about COTN or anything else about taking the A-level drop me an email at [e-mail] and I would be happy to talk further either by email or telephone.

[kateb]

The AS will be running as part of local community education here in Harrogate with John Buglass teaching as long as the class can get 10 members. I know at least 4 people have expressed an interest, but the publicity won't come out until next month, so other than the price I know nothing else. John marks the AS paper 2, and when he taught me I got 100% on module 1 and 2, but sadly dropped 6 marks on the Religion and Ritual paper.

I tried college-on-the-net for A2, but feel out with the tutor, when I said I wanted to concentrated on learning some bits by myself rather than following the syallbus and ended up as an external candidate. Although the course is reasonable and there is a lot of material my advice would be if you already know a fair bit about archaeology it is worth considering teaching yourself and entering as a private candidate which is what I did in the end.

[msimpson1964]

Hello Paul,

Further to what Keith said, one of the Selby candidates is sitting the AS papers in January 2007 at the college. She was unable to do the exams in June this year, so as well as learning the A2 next term, she will be doing the AS exams in the winter, so Selby College will still be a centre where you can presumably book to do your exams. Sadly Keith (hello Keith by the way, good summer?) didn't learn about us until he had already booked at Scarborough.

Kate, did you complete your A2?

Cheers
Mark

[kateb]

Yep, but I only took the exams this June so I won't have the result until August. It was quite funny because I ended up in an exam room with 8 psychology students and 20 trainee accountants with all the papers starting and ending at different times. John verified my coursework for me and reckoned it was an A or B if it was the worst B grade I need something like a C in one paper and no marks in the other to get a B, so fingers crossed should get an A.

Now studying at degree level part-time.

[msimpson1964]

Good for you Kate

Its a long haul until August isn't it? I'm waiting on the Module 2 and 3 results. Got a solid Grade B (middle of the range) for Module 1, I'll be happy with the same and delighted with better from 2 & 3.

Know what you mean about the exam room. Selby is a sports hall, and our night school class ranges in age from 15 to 75! Thirteen of us in with the college kids taking their maths, business studies and accountancy exams. Strange experience!

Cheers
Mark

[kateb]

Well good luck to everyone waiting for results. Less than a month to go. I hope you get what you want/need.

Hope it is ok to make this post Toby, but it is not commercial and is generally in the interest of archaeology. The AS in Archaeology will run from September on a Thursday night for 25 weeks at Harrogate High School here in Harrogate. Nine people are needed to make the course run and it will cost £115 + an exam fee of approximately £38 should you wish to enter the exams. There is going to be no publicity for this course at all as the school can't afford to run any apart from a brief article in the Harrogate Advertiser should they choose to run it (mad, but true how can you recruit students without publicity). If anyone is interested they can contact the course lecturer John Buglass on [e-mail]

[msimpson1964]

Did they run an AS last year Kate? Are they running an A2 this?

Paul (who started the thread) may be interested, depending on how he fancies a weekly trek to Harrogate and back! I'm sure he'll check in soon

Under a month? Only just! I'm looking to nip out on my lunchtime on August 17th to see how I got on, as the College postal service is slow, to say the least.

Cheers
Mark

[kateb]

No the course ran as the old level and then AS and A2 for nearly ten years through Harrogate college at the school. The GCSE also ran, although this would have been the last year for it anyway. The year before last was the last year as the college cut the course off. The course is starting up again through community ed with another four a-levels. The government has pushed further education into crisis through cutting funding to concentrate on the 14-19 year olds. However separate funding has been now been gained to run the courses, obviously if there are not enough students they won't get off the ground. If the As runs then the A2 will probably run next year. The course has been well supported for the ten years it ran and one of the first A Level student through now has a Phd and teaches at Bradford Uni. If the course runs well there is a possibility that Bradford Uni may run some of its certificate courses in Harrogate and Whetherby. Some of them look really interesting (the stuff I am studying at the moment is better than nothing but is more arts than science bases), so I will admit to have a vested interest in seeing the course run, but it is well taught and in the tens years only two people failed!

Less than a month, sounds so much better tho doesn't it?

Kate

[Pam]

The provision at Leeds University for Certificate and BA history and archaeology courses on campus and across the region (including those that used to be run in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ilkely, Skipton etc) has been the victim of some extremely short sighted budget decisions. York Archaeological Trust supported those courses by providing part time class tutors and a field course. Now Leeds Uni has pulled the plug it would be really good if Bradford (or York / York St John / Leeds Met) could be encouraged to take up where Leeds Uni left off....

I notice that Kate mentions lack of publicity for the Harrogate A level courses - well, we had the same problem at Leeds - they had to cancel classes due to low registrations, yet they had done virtually nothing to publicise the courses........

[msimpson1964]

Selby College issues a booklet in the local area with course information from about the start of August usually. There are banners around the town advertising the college and adult education too, so I can't say we don't advertise. But take-up on many courses last year was poor and quite a few didn't run. I went for the GCSE Archaeology, which had run very successfully the year before, but there wasn't enough people to run that course. And if those of us that had turned up hadn't mostly upgraded to the AS Course, that wouldn't have run either, and neither GCSE or AS are available 2006-07.

As things stand now, we are just on the limit for commited members for the A2. Any extra people who have AS but not A2 would be most welcome (sorry Toby, I know I mentioned this elsewhere!).

And yes, Kate, less than a month does sound better

Cheers
Mark

[msimpson1964]

Just a quick update to let anybody who is interested know that Selby College is currently accepting course applications. Since Monday eight people have signed up for Archaeology A2, at least five of which are people who completed the AS last term. The other three may also be returning students, I don't know yet!

And it is now just a week until those AS results come through. Eek!

Almost forgot to mention, the course is £170 (not the £135 quoted in the booklet, they forgot to add the exams fees) and runs 7pm to 9.30pm Thursday evenings from 14th September

Cheers
Mark

[kateb]

How did you do then?

[msimpson1964]

Fine Kate, thanks for asking

Got an A for both exams, along with the B that I got for ACH1 in January, enough points for an overall A Grade for the AS!

The whole class did well, from what I've learned from various members via e-mail, more than half achieving an A Grade. One got a maximum score for all three exams!

We could still use a couple of extra members though to ensure the A2 gets off the ground...

Cheers
Mark

[kateb]

Congrats. Evening classes always seem to score the higher marks although I have heard one theory that schools tend to put students in for Archaeology who are too thick for Geography & history. I got my overall A and 100% in paper 4 - worst mark (tho still a A) was for my project, but will have to wait until it comes back in December to see what I did wrong. Happy as I was self-taught.

There is a prize for the top A-Level mark of £500 donated by the society of Antiquities, it sounds like there is someone in your class who could be in line for it if they do as well at A2.

Hope you get your extra members. Evening classes are a real mes this year. I think I will be doing a none examined arch class at Whetherby School (through Park Lane college) on Tuesday nights just for fun, but again depends on numbers.....