Students 'devastated' as A-level courses cancelled

Students who learned their upcoming A-level courses had been cancelled - on the day they collected their GCSE results - have been described as "devastated".

The City of Liverpool College confirmed it was scrapping its A-level provision for the 2026/27 academic year, impacting an estimated 80 to 90 students.

Frankie Tibbles, an English lecturer at the college, said staff had been informed on Wednesday and described the decision to tell students on GCSE results day as "callous".

Principal and chief executive of the college, Elaine Bowker, said running A-level courses was no longer "viable" and said all students affected would be supported to find alternative courses.

The college confirmed that students going into the second year of their A-level courses would be able to finish them.

It said various factors had influenced the decision, including falling numbers of applicants, poor results and increased demand for technical and vocational courses.

However, Tibbles told the BBC students had come to the college after collecting their results from their respective schools expecting to enrol on an A-level course.

"This college has been a safe haven for students who have maybe not engaged in school or been let down by their schools," she said.

"It's also been a safe haven for refugee students. For example, we had a student come to us as a refugee with no GCSEs and, this year, he secured his A-levels and will now be studying medicine.

"Today I walked past a room full of students who have obviously worked so hard for their GCSEs and were devastated and that is an underestimate, devastated doesn't cut the looks on these kids' faces and parents' faces."

Referring to the timing of the decision, Tibbles added: "I'm an English teacher and I struggle to find the words for the situation, it was callous."

Speaking to the BBC, Bowker said the college was heavily oversubscribed on many of its technical courses.

"There are over 30 institutions in this city that do A-levels," she said.

"There is only us that does technical and vocational, and we are massively, 250 oversubscribed, on health and social care wanting to be nurses.

"We're 500 oversubscribed in construction engineering with our new technical excellence centre, and I've got 40 students wanting to do an A-level programme.

"Sometimes things are not viable."

Bowker also defended the decision to scrap the provision so close to GCSE results day.

She said if numbers of potential applicants had "picked up" after exam results were made available they may have reached a different decision.

"We are very sorry if we've caused any upset," she said.

"We've done our very best to, you know, put a real warm blanket around every one of our students and make sure they've got the best advice and they're all on a course of their choice."

Bowker said some students had been offered places on technical courses within the colleges, while staff had attempted to find others A-level places at other colleges.

The college has also confirmed there are no redundancies planned for staff teaching A-level courses as a result of the decision.

However, Tibbles said concerns remained that some staff would end up in roles they had not signed up for.

Bowker said staff jobs were "absolutely secure" and again highlighted how oversubscribed many courses were.

"We've got a very, very broad programme," she said.

"So all of our staff will have a job, all of them."

Liverpool City Council told the BBC: "We are in contact with The City of Liverpool College to see what support we can offer to students needing alternative further education provision."

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