I was chatting with a friend whose DC goes to a very well thought of Independent school recently about GCSE's and it seems that this well respected Independent school uses IGCE's and a number of other exam bodies for the GCSE courses and that despite the fact that State school GCSE exams now don't include course work the almost all of my friend's DC's courses include coursework which for her DC is brilliant because her DC has dyslexia and this means that for the most part it gets over the processing speed problem. And all of her DC's A levels will be IGCSE which include coursework.
My friend then continued on to tell me that the University of Buckingham have opened a new Private Medicine Course and that her older DC after not being accepted 2 years in a row onto conventional medicine courses starts on this course in January this year. She then went on to tell me that the cost of this is £37,000 a year! Oh and apparently it is condensed so he will qualify in 4 years as opposed to 7.
My point in posting this is that this absolute and undoubted discrimination. If you have money you can buy your GCSE's and A levels and buy your way onto a Medicine course and then start earning money earlier too having bought your way into a higher salaried job with a lesser education.
Up until this moment I had always thought that things evened out a bit for our YP when they hit University.

I’m not sure about the rest of what your friend said but there is no such thing as IGCSE A levels (the clue is in the name .) Your friend is either wrong or winding you up. Stressful times for you atm Eccentric and FWIW this friend sounds worth giving a wide berth.
The only A Levels I am aware of that involve course work at Art and DT.
It is not only private schools that allow those with money/social capital to buy their DCs’ educational advantage. Selection of all kinds mitigates against the disadvantaged.
As for the University of Buckingham, which has been churning out degrees from 2 year courses for several decades now, I have never understood the appeal. Which hospitals is it aligned with?

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mad?

Uni of Bucks med school does teach undergrads and the course is 4.5 years long, not widely dissimilar to the standard uni course of just under 5 years. Not sure where the 7 comes from (probably including FY1 and FY2 which everyone has to do).
Ghastly amount of debt and probably not worth it.

Not sure about 'qualified in 4 years instead of 7'? The 'normal' route through medical school, without an intercalated degree, is 5 academic years to MBBS / MBChB, so Buckingham only knocks of the first term of the first year (gives you time to try your hand at day trading or some other activity to raise money towards the £31 000 pa balance of your fees, perhaps?). Then you still have to do your Foundation Years, the same as any other medical graduate.

Re clinical attachments, the website says

Amongst our partner hospitals are Milton Keynes University Hospital, St Andrews Hospital in Northampton, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust and Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Cross-posted with HM. Great minds and all that...

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

Thank you for the correct information. That makes it seem slightly less unfair. This forum is so helpful.
Hermanmunster. It is stressful mainly for my daughter. I am quite laid back about her results but of course want to do my best to get her what she wants. I was happy to let my older daughter opt out of education because that is what she wanted but it seems so unfair when one has a child who wants something so badly and works so hard that they might not achieve it because of a system that doesn't cater for their needs.

Most of the non Science new A levels have coursework.

Dd1 did English, History and Music which all had coursework and dd2 did History Music and Geography which all had coursework.

Dd1 also did an EPQ which is all coursework and presentation, no exam at all.

They chose the subjects they were interested in and did not select any of them by whether or not they had coursework.

I would have much rather they had not done A levels with coursework as the agony was sooooooo prolonged but I can clearly see how it is better for some students.

So my point is that state school students can choose to do all three A levels with coursework if that is something that will help them.

As for medicine degrees all the students in both of my dd's years who applied got offers and then places.

For the past two years at least it has been the second most common degree course after History.

So it seems that the pressure on Medicine places has eased a bit. DG

That's interesting. DD1 History and DD2 English had no coursework.

I agree with all of that. DD2 did Art A level, more work than the other three put together.

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mad?

I think DD has coursework for her A level Eng Lit.

I obviously got the IGCE A level bit wrong but it is certainly true to say that GCSE's don't have course work and that this ladies DC does have course work at this level. I agree that for some course work is a pain but for those with dyslexia it levels the playing field a bit because they have more time to complete things to the standard that they are capable of. This is why the problem has been highlighted at such a late stage for my DD she can't do things fast she does them well when given time but when her time is limited she simply can't do what is required. So course work would be a god send. If you are all right about coursework at A level then brilliant but my understanding of A levels in state schools is that they will be exam only now. I am open to and hopeful of being proved wrong.

Eccentric,

I have just told you that Music, Geography, English and History A levels all have coursework.

My dds sat these A levels in June 2017 and June 2018.

This is not a figment of my imagination!

Coursework was added back into these A levels in the latest revisions of the A levels.

You can go and look at the AQA , OCR and Edexcel specifications of these A levels for yourself online. DG