An answer to the A-level debacle — and Gary Lineker

As soon as Charterhouse found a credible way out of the A-level stranglehold we took it. Two years later, we are celebrating the achievements of the first cohort to sit the Cambridge International Board’s Pre-U (Pre-University) examination. Here are syllabuses that engage and stretch sixth-formers. They require deep delving, rigorous research and wider reading. Pupils are encouraged to take intellectual risks by developing their own ideas and arguments, and are rewarded for academic flair. All this will ring bells with those of us who sat A-levels 30 or 40 years ago, but not with those who sat today’s A-levels, with their ‘accessible’, prescriptive and frankly boring curricula, and examinations in which everyone has to do well.

The Pre-U is examined once at the end of the two-year course. That allows five terms for teaching the three or four subjects in depth, and examines pupils only when they have completed the course, and are at their most intellectually mature.