Grades to become a VN?

Re: Grades to become a VN?

Abigail James — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:08:37 GMT

You don't necessarily need to retake your GCSE, a functional skills exam in maths will be adequate with the VCA award. Contact the provider of your VCA course, they should be able to arrange this for you. They are about £20 to sit and there's loads of past papers online to look at and help you revise. The 2 main providers are AQA and Edexcel. Hope this helps!

Re: Grades to become a VN?

The Pikachu_Collector — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:51:47 GMT

Quite a few Colleges that offer the VCA/ANA Cert get you doing functional skill (used to be key skills) at the beginning of your Cert - it would be worth asking the provider of your VCA about them.

Re: Grades to become a VN?

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 23:03:07 GMT

Hi, the VCA is good for the science part of your GCSEs, but the VCA by itself does not include key skills. Key skills and functional skills are separate courses; some colleges do offer them together (so do we, for example) but the VCA all by itself does not cover maths and english.

Kind regards,
Mark

Re: Grades to become a VN?

Selena Carnell — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 18:05:09 GMT

my student has the vac but has also had to do functional skill in maths and retake her gcse english, she would be really hacked off if she finds out someone is accepted on to the course with just VCA

Re: Grades to become a VN?

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:12:36 GMT

Your D in maths is going to be a problem.

http://www.caw.ac.uk/courses/maths-english-school/ is CAW's new Maths and English School - online functional skills that help with maths or english. Can be done online, no college attendance except for the final exam, and you get an accredited certificate (once you complete your exam successfully) so you'll have the maths you need to get on the course.

(Other maths providers are, of course, available.)

Kind regards,

Mark

Re: Grades to become a VN?

The Pikachu_Collector — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 11:42:44 GMT

Hi,

The RCVS entry requirements are 5 GCSE grades at a C or above - to include English Language, Science and Maths, plus 2 others. Or the equivalent of.

The VCA is usually a Level 2 qualification, this is usually sufficient to be accepted on the L3 diploma in vet nursing as it includes your key skills. I think you need a merit or distinction though??

My advice - contact the college that you would do your L3 Diploma VN with and ask them if your VCA certificate will be enough - if not, ask them what you can do to increase your maths - functional skills, intense GCSE maths etc...

Hope that helps

Re: Grades to become a VN?

jc91 — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 11:08:29 GMT

Thank-you. The maths course is free on that website? are you aware of any others that are free? Its difficult to attend a college with me working full time shifts at the vets but i do really want to complete this course

Re: Grades to become a VN?

Hope — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 10:21:56 GMT

I may be wrong but I am pretty sure that you now need to have a C at GCSE to get into VN course, my friend was in a similar situation, but had done the VCA course a while ago. You can retake maths however - using Learn Direct or similar, can do a short course - all online and accredited - no reason that maths should hold you back once you have that!

Good luck :)