BTEC National Diploma - Pass or Fail ?

I did the same course last year and I pretty much did what he is doing right now. I can remember that you had to pass all the core units and were only allowed to "fail" one or two units depending on what they were but its a pain in the ass if you do fail them. Luckily I passed all the first units and got distinctions throughout all the second year giving me a distinction, distinction, merit. :D

Your son should be able to give you a rough idea if he has passed or not as the grades are given to you as each coursework is assessed.
 
BTEC is internally marked by the lecturers and sent off for verification.

Certain Units would have had to of been completed to progress to year two, he would have done a mixture of units. Some would appear in both year one and two, others only in either or.

If he has completed the necessary units, then it will be down to the tutor to decide if he can progress. If he hasn't, then I believe he cannot.

And I'm pretty sure the date for grades to be verified has passed.
 
TS7 said:
I'm presuming that the situation won't be too different with BTEC.
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My BTEC course was very different, most things were up to the tutors, they just had a certain amount to teach through out the 2 years, how and when they done it was practically up to them, they could give you all the coursework for a unit on day 1, or spread it out, up to them.

Because of this the people who had handed in their work and had it marked finished a few weeks early on the first year, it was flexible like that. I remember 1 student who didn't complete everything and had to do it on the second year along with his second year units too. But I'm glad I got everything done, as the second year became harder. I finished with nearly top marks in the end.

teulk - Your son needs a reality check, I hope he likes flipping burgers.
 
Will be up to the lecturer whether he progresses. However, going on my experience of lecturers where I work if they was a lack of effort and he constantly missed deadlines it's more then likely they will tell him he can't return for the 2nd year.

In previous years he may have had the option to transfer to a National Certificate group (Less units) but the funding agency have cracked down on this over the past year.
 
teulk said:
We game him an incentive when he was in sixth form (which he dropped out of) by buying him a moped if he knuckled down, we offered to buy him a car if he stuck in and knuckled down on his BTEC. I even told him that if he failed the course (back in december) due to a complete lack of effort on his behalf then i would kick him out - i know that he is my son and i should stand by him and support him but he has to stand on his own two feet and grow up, at the moment he just has no appreciation for the consequences of his actions. He has a 1yr old son and he cant even see that what he does now at college is not only his future but its also his sons future.
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Sounds like he hasnt had to work hard to get anything. I did a Btec and If I’m honest I handed in most of my assignments and course work late but finished with distinction first year and merit second. But the difference was I had 3 different crappy jobs and had no help from no one, it was a nightmare. Not saying everyone is the same but i seem to find that some people who have all the help and support just abuse what they can as they think that’s what they’re entitled to.

Cut him off, give him a lession in life and hope he grows up and stands on his own two feet. I think he needs to learn what life is about the hard way and then he might understand how great you have been to him.
 
Duggan said:
Not saying everyone is the same but i seem to find that some people who have all the help and support just abuse what they can as they think that’s what they’re entitled to.
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I suppose this works two ways. For me it had a bit of an opposite effect. I'll admit, I'm very spoiled, an unbelievable amount. However this has always pushed me to work harder it's sorted of added more pressure. My parents have given me everything and more and I don't want to let them down. I also want to be in the same position in the future to give my children everything my parents give me. However saying that, I am extremely lazy :p However I know what my priorities are and do what needs to be done.

Cut him off, give him a lession in life and hope he grows up and stands on his own two feet. I think he needs to learn what life is about the hard way and then he might understand how great you have been to him.
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You've tried being nice. Now maybe it's time to be a bit more strict.
 
He knows his current results, dont listen to him when he tells you he doesn't.

You know each result as you pass/merit/distinction each unit.

Ask his tutor what he has scored for the 9 units covered in the first year, then you'll know how he has done.

Sounds ovbious, but this is how you'll find out.

IIRC you need to pass at least 6 out of 9 units to progress onto 2nd year, they also look at attendance etc for consideration.
 
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Vix said:
I teach on the BTEC and our results went through to the Board a fortnight ago. So yes, a pass or fail would be known by now.

We gave students deadlines to complete units, and had the criteria that progression to year 2 was only possible if year 1 was complete.

However, I do believe it is discretionary so it might be worth speaking to the tutor. Although the ones that peed about in their first year and did not acheive will not be given year two progression on my courses!
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+1 on this, you need to pass year 1 before you start year 2 simples :)
 
my friend did an enginnering one and it was upto tutor if he did the second tear. he did pass but only just passed so they refused him
 
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BTEC in IT here.

Theres 3 qualifiactions you get.

Years completed (and passed)

1) BTEC National Award
2) BTEC National Certificate
3) BTEC National Diploma

You cant fail year one and blag onto year 2 like you can a university degree as the first year is a recognised award in itself.

The course has 4 gradings

Fail
Pass
Merit
Distinction

He needs to at least get a pass for all modules to pass the relevant course, then any marks are averaged to give a final overall grade (so 2 passes and 3 merits should results in an overall merit).

If hes looking to get into university, he should only need to do the first 2 years to get enough UCAS points to apply for a uni course, although most unis will ask for a minimum of a merit to gain entry. I got onto a computer science degree with a distinction BTEC National Certificate in IT, an ECDL certificate and a CLAIT stage 2 certificate.

teulk said:
My son is quite happy to sit in his room and play on his xbox 5 days week and work 8hrs at the weekend. Hes 19yrs old ! Oh and maths was one of the units/assignments he had outstanding in the last week. Just to put it into perspective, he was still doing assignment 1 in the last week
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Without trying to sound offensive, his gaming habits mean sweet stuff all while at college, its university when you really need to pack in with the fun side of life. I used to easily do 6 hours of gaming a day while I was on my BTEC, and I still came out with 10 distictions and 2 merits (and I was doing CLAIT and ECDL courses while doing the BTEC). Its a matter of determination and pride more than anything, if he wants to do well then he can do so.

A simple motto to live by is 'never say never' (ive youve seen American Tale you may recognise it). A good mate of mine went through school with me, went through sixth form with me and through college with me, then went to university, at which point he would look at an assignment and say 'I know i cant do it so im not going to bother wasting my time'. Needless to say, he failed year 2 then dropped out when he attempted his second year for the second time. Its not that he was a stipid bloke, he came out of college with a distinction as I did, but he didnt have the determination to want to solve a problem and gave up too easily.
 
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I havent read through the thread but ive just finished my first year doing BTEC National Diploma in Sport. I presume its the same thing.

Because theres no exams each unit is worth a certain amount of points:
FAIL - 0
PASS - 6
MERIT - 12
DISTINCTION - 18

All these are then added up to determine the final grades that you will come out (the points are UCAS points). So if you are in the top bracket you achieve a DDD (Distinction, Distinction, Distinction). These grades are equivalent to 3 A Levels.

Your lad will have X amount of points so far from his first year and you can project what hes on track to achieve, i think this year i have achieved 140 points on my BTEC so if i match that next year after another 9 units i will get a DDM (Distinction, Distinction, Merit). And with 140 points i could quit the whole course now and still walk away with PPP (Pass, Pass, Pass) even though i have only completed half the course. So im sure your lad is fine, its pretty hard to fail a BTEC course from my experience so far, also ive found teachers are very lenient with deadlines. I think some students are chosen at random to be externally marked so these will have to be in and you wont get a chance but others you may be given more time depending on circumstances to complete the units.

If your lads IT BTEC is the same as the sport which i presume it is, all that above is right and i dont think you've got much to worry about! Hope this helped!
 
BTECs really have the worst system ever, you can do all the pass points, all the distinction points and all but one of the merit points and only get a pass for that unit. That caused me no end of frustration because the assignments tended to be very vague.
 
Nah that sounds about right.

I did first year of BTEC before I changed my mind and studied something else and I did absolutely bugger all and passed with a Distinction in all my modules lol.

Just call college registration and ask them.
 
I just finished my BTEC national IT practitioner course and got an MM overall.

In my college, if you failed 1st year they chucked you out for good. But It's seriously easy to get away with a pass... I finished over 80% of my work in the last week of the course.
 
TS7 said:
I suppose this works two ways. For me it had a bit of an opposite effect. I'll admit, I'm very spoiled, an unbelievable amount. However this has always pushed me to work harder it's sorted of added more pressure. My parents have given me everything and more and I don't want to let them down. I also want to be in the same position in the future to give my children everything my parents give me. However saying that, I am extremely lazy :p However I know what my priorities are and do what needs to be done.



You've tried being nice. Now maybe it's time to be a bit more strict.
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I agree with you there I know people that had everything as kids/teenagers and they have worked hard to get somewhere later on. It all depends on the person but in my experiance I seem to know more people that take the peee when getting handed stuff on a plate so to speak. People need to learn that if you want something it has to be worked for otherwise if they dont, Mummy and Daddy are always there to help them or buy them stuff how are they going to get on later on in life. I mean unless your lucky enough to not have to worry about money but the bank of Mum and Dad can only last so long.
 
I nearly got kicked off my BTEC ND in ICT this year.

Basically I forgot to hand in two units that I had finished a few months ago, I wasn't being lazy but I was dumb enough to stay up all night so I was very tired, when I left college that day I got told moments before leaving to hand in my work before the cut off later that evening but I forgot and went to sleep instead.

Nobody said anything to me afterwards really so I assumed I could hand it in whenever as long as it was done by the end of the course. However my tutor told me, a week before we broke up for summer that I had to hand it in at the end of the TERM or I'd get kicked out!

I was pretty surprised by this, I was lucky that my lecturers were alright with it and marked my work happily. Won't be missing anymore hand ins though I tell ye!
 
Lecturers are really lenient with BTEC National Diplomas, I didn't do very well on my first year despite being one of the better students in the class, I wasn't in a very good place but I got the help I needed thanks to the college.

If I remember correctly, you can still pass a BTEC if you completely fail 3 units. I had one teacher I didn't like at all because she had some bias against me, probably because she had no idea what she was doing, I decided to not even do that unit and focused on the others.

Usually the lecturer decides if you're cut out to go on and do the second year, I wouldn't worry though.
 
Yeah you can fail some units but some are mandatory, the reason I got close to being kicked off is because it just so happened the two units I forgot to hand in were mandatory! ;__;
 
I did the exact same course and it's a joke. Anyone who's relatively competant with a computer will not be challenged at all.
Between the first and second year there was one guy on my course who was told he couldn't come back and thats because he was a pain to the teachers so they didn't want to teach him again.
Half the class had outstanding work due to the way work is marked on the BTEC and badly planned classes by the tutors.

As for the car, moped and kid business it's parents like you that really get on my nerves (mainly due to the state of my family, I realise a lot of parents help their kids out financially to a degree and don't have a problem with this to a reasonable level, as long as they've earnt it).
Mine haven't given me a penny towards any costs, they wouldn't even sign the damned EMA form. Yet I've still got a nice car and a decent social life through hard work.

I'm 19 too, and in a typical week I'd spend 2 and a half days studying towards my degree, between 25 and 30 hours working and still manage 4 MMA sessions, 3 gym sessions and usually at least one night out.
I like computer games, but they come behind all that, in any spare time I get (probably why I get "PWNZORD" online).
Like someone above me posted, you've tried being nice, now try giving him a kick up the ****.
 
I don't spend any time studying and get distinctions/merits, it really is a joke. I spend most my time at college browsing the Internet too.

I'm still shocked this is a qualification that gets you into uni.
 
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