‘It’s about time we broke down the barriers between university and pre-university’

Lovely to meet you, Helene. Tell me a bit about yourself.

I'm a Chartered Psychologist, with a background in teaching, Secondary Education. When I first started teaching back in 1979, I taught PE and History. Then when my children were young, I took my degree in Psychology and an MSc in Psychology and Education. I got halfway through a PhD, and for one reason and another, it's been put on hold… whether it's ever completed, I don't know! 

I retired from teaching about six years ago, but that doesn't mean I've stopped being involved in psychology education. I taught A-level psychology for 23 years. Over that time, my class size ranged from 10 to 12 initially, to classes of 35-40, with over 100 in each year group. This was nothing unusual for those teaching psychology.

Psychology started as an A-level in the early 70s and has grown from a cohort of 91 candidates to today's 78,000+ excluding the Scottish Highers, WJEC and the IB entries. There are now seven awarding bodies in the UK plus international awarding bodies that use UK specifications. The number of young people taking A-level Psychology continues to grow year on year.

Did your experience lead to your involvement on the Education and Training Board?

Absolutely. In 2014 I was elected Chair of the Association for the Teaching of Psychology (ATP), where for four years I gained considerable knowledge and experience on the teaching of pre-university psychology. Once I retired, I still wanted to put this experience to good use, so I applied to join the BPS's Education and Training Board, working with its first Chair, Juliet Foster and latterly Niamh Stack.

Almost immediately, I was given the remit of improving the BPS engagement with schools and colleges. We set up a focus group and quickly set about producing the BPS Teachers Toolkit. In the last couple of years, we have successfully run a series of pre-university webinars and established a memorandum of understanding between the BPS and ATP: both parties agreed to work on joint initiatives to share knowledge and create opportunities for continuous professional development for psychology teachers.

If you are a member of the ATP, there is a special access code to join the BPS as an E-subscriber, and for a small sum of £6 gain access to some BPS materials. In addition, we are involved in ongoing discussions, such as around psychology as a science.

Last year we did several free webinars for teachers and students – primarily pre-University, although there is a degree of crossover to undergraduate psychology as well. Topics included transition from school to university, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI, wellbeing, and some careers-focused webinars. This year we have already completed a Meet the Psychologist webinar where the attendees met with a Health Psychologist and discussed Health-related careers. February saw a Maths in Psychology webinar – why we use statistics in psychology, and maths anxiety, with Professor Victoria Bourne and Catherine Van Saarloos from the Advanced Mathematics Support Program. We are also planning a webinar on revision strategies. 

I have heard that higher education institutions don't really want you to have done A-level psychology.

You've hit a sore point here, as there appears to be a lack of understanding, in my view, about the value of A-level/Higher level psychology. The specifications have all had University input. Some have had some of the red-brick universities involved in their development. It's about time we broke down the barriers between university and pre-university… we need to be working together. We get a good percentage of young people coming through with A*, A, B… with 57 per cent of those entered gaining A*-C.

This shows that young people do have a particularly good grounding in Psychology. Even some of those getting Es still have a good grounding, as the way psychology is taught in schools and colleges today prepares them for what's going to come at university. That old idea of, 'will they really understand psychology when they get to university because they wouldn't have been taught it properly?'… For obvious reasons, I find this belief a little offensive.

The present-day mode of teaching in schools is not spoon-feeding students. That's not the way it works in secondary schools anymore. There is an awful lot of independent learning, research analysis and critical thinking, that is implicit as well as explicit within the A-level or higher-level specifications. It is so frustrating when my own students have told me that their first year at University studying Psychology was basically useless… they didn't learn anything new.

Some even said that their lecturers felt that what they'd learned at school or college was all irrelevant, incorrect … that's tough when it comes back to you as a teacher, from the past students who have all succeeded at a high level before university. Even more concerning here is the academics' opinion of my ability to teach psychology. Would they like to hear this of their teaching? How would it make them feel?

What do you think is going to shift that? If the higher education institutions themselves have been involved in the criteria for the courses, is it just a certain generation of lecturers in higher education who still hold outdated views?

It's probably a mix of things, including that old-school belief that what you've been taught before doesn't really apply when you get to university. The only way to break it down is to get a small group of pre-university teachers and heads of university departments together, and really talk it out. I am not the only person who hears those comments from their past students and I really appreciate how difficult it is for a lot of teachers to hear this… they are being damned when their students go to university by the academics, they're hearing 'all your teachers have taught you all the wrong things'. This does not create harmony. I know I haven't taught them all the wrong things and I am pretty sure others haven't either. This just shows almost a lack of respect for the value of what's come before.

In terms of that value, how far would you push it? I've heard that some on the Board argue for making Psychology A-level a requirement for Psychology study at the degree level?

Yes. For Maths, they want you to have Maths A-level, so some might argue that if you're going to study psychology, you should have A-level psychology. My thinking, along with that of many on the ATP committee and their members, is that requirement may be a tough ask but it would be creditable if 'desirable' could be used. What harm would that do? Let's meet halfway here. If we can't have it as a prerequisite for entry to a degree-level course, then surely it could be desirable. 

Why wouldn't they do that?

I don't know. The comments I have heard is that they don't want to discourage young people who haven't taken Psychology. However, this term is used in other course requirements or even job applications, but it doesn't put people off applying for the course or applying for a job. And the argument that not all schools offer Psychology is no longer valid as Psychology is the second most popular A-level in England.

It's not like you'd be asking for any kind of fringe subject to be a requirement.

Exactly. Psychology's growth continues; the number of students entering GCSE is still very small and this could be because at the GCSE level, psychology is classified as a humanity and not a science which it is at A-level. That's a dichotomy which needs addressing. Young people and their parents will go to Open Day for Sixth form or university, and be gripped by what they hear.

However, because of a lack of knowledge and understanding some parents will ask the teachers, 'is Psychology an academic subject?' I was a little gobsmacked the first time I heard this, but quickly found I had a large group of parents listening to the scientific nature of psychology and then wanting to take the subject themselves!

I think it helps Psychology as a subject that students often have teachers who they have not been taught by before… it's like a clean slate. Many of these young people take psychology as a third or fourth subject, thinking 'I can always swap if it doesn't work out'. In our experience, it might start as a third or fourth subject, but it very rapidly becomes the first chosen subject. Obviously, much depends on the teacher just as it would at university.

In schools, not all teachers have psychology degrees, and I think it is important that the BPS and ATP together work together to help these teachers, and this is the aim of the CPD being carried out by both associations. It is also important that together we help teachers who are being put in an unenviable position of being required to teach health and wellbeing topics without the correct expertise or training, something that the BPS can and is assisting with. 

What's the gender mix like now, for A-level Psychology?

Well, it's interesting, because back in the early 90s, I attended a meeting up in York, when the Government of the day were desperate to encourage girls into science. In their mind, the way to do it was to encourage girls into Psychology. Initially, my classes were probably more boys than girls, but over the years, the gender split has levelled out and there are slightly more girls… JCQ suggest a 60/40 female-male divide. There's a lot of encouragement in schools to encourage boys down this route and the most recent past Chair of ATP, teaches in a boys' school, and he had the largest classes for an A-level in his school. So, boys are interested in psychology.

Good. What would you say your priorities for the coming year are, in terms of your involvement with the Board?

To support the research on 'psychology as a science'. To encourage the BPS to support the view that psychology in schools and colleges could/should be placed in the science faculty, rather than humanities. They will certainly gain more funding if classified as a science! We have just carried out a small-scale survey of teachers relating to whether psychology is a science and to ascertain what faculty/ their subject is placed. The findings overwhelmingly support Psychology as a science.

Finally, and most importantly, I'd like to gain ground in relation to the discussion on Psychology A-level/higher level qualification being 'Desirable' for entry to a psychology undergraduate course. I have suggested that myself and Deb Gajic, also on the ETB, meet with the Academic Heads of Psychology to discuss this. 

It's great that Psychology is so popular, but there does tend to be a slight uneasiness, I guess, about pushing loads of people into the Psychology education funnel, when there aren't necessarily professional jobs at the end of it.

I'll freely admit, there are not many roles out there to be a professional psychologist. But there are a huge number of peripheral Psychology posts where you're not a psychologist, but you are using your psychology. If you've got a degree in Psychology, you could work in, for example, HR, Occupational therapy, work in hospitals, Marketing and Education, all without being a psychologist.

This is something that I have been working on with the BPS careers department, and webinars have shown there are many possibilities other than being a psychologist. Psychology is a lot more than just being a psychologist. It's about understanding how people work and how they behave. You can still use your psychology in that broader market.   

Well, thank you for your time and for all the work you're doing on behalf of the Society. A-level teaching is quite close to my heart… it's been a long time since I did it, but it goes down as one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

You've hit the nail on the head, it is hard. Some specifications have huge content and much of it is very contemporary. It's not an easy teach, and it's not an easy learn either. So that's a reason why it's super important that the BPS is there to support pre-university teachers and students.