By early July the offers arrive: residential summer schools, holiday camps, online academies promising a head start, intensive revision programmes.

They are not variations on one product. They do different things, and only one category addresses what the first term of A Level actually assumes. Here is the honest comparison.

First, what the summer actually has room for

The gap between IGCSE and A Levels is shorter than it looks.

For June series candidates: last papers in mid-June, IGCSE and O Level results in mid-August, Year 12 starting within a fortnight of results. That is nine or ten weeks, of which the first three should be genuine rest after a full exam series, and the last two are consumed by results and starting term.

So the working window is about four or five weeks. Any programme that assumes the whole summer is available is planning against time you do not have.

Option 1: a general academic summer school

Usually a residential or campus programme, often at a university, mixing academic sessions with social activities.

What it delivers: independence, an unfamiliar environment, sometimes a genuine interest in a subject, and something to write about later.

What it does not deliver: preparation for your child’s specific syllabus. These programmes are built for mixed groups across many curricula, so they cannot target what Cambridge 9709 or 9702 assumes.

Worth paying for when: the goal is experience and confidence rather than academic readiness, and you can afford it as an experience.

Option 2: a holiday camp

Sport, activities, languages, travel. No academic claim at all.

What it delivers: rest, breadth, and time away from a screen after two years of exam preparation.

What it does not deliver: anything academic, which is fine, because it does not pretend to.

Worth paying for when: your child is tired, which after a full exam series most are. The first three weeks of the summer should be non-academic anyway, and this is a reasonable way to spend them.

The mistake here is not booking a camp. It is booking one and believing the academic box is now ticked.

Option 3: a head-start or “get ahead” course

Programmes that teach the first term of the A Level syllabus before term starts.

What it delivers: familiarity with early topics.

What it does not deliver: durable advantage. Your child’s class will teach those topics again, at the pace the exam requires, with a teacher who knows the school’s route. Cambridge designs a full A Level around about 360 guided learning hours, so twenty or thirty hours in August does not shift the arithmetic.

Worse, it targets the wrong material. The content taught in Year 12 will be taught again. The prior knowledge underneath it will not.

Worth paying for when: rarely. If a provider’s syllabus for the summer looks like the first chapters of the A Level textbook, that is what you are buying.

Option 4: a bridging course

Scoped to one transition: from a named IGCSE or O Level syllabus to a named A Level syllabus.

What it delivers: work on the assumed knowledge. Every Cambridge A Level states this in a section called Previous study or Prior knowledge, and it is specific. Mathematics 9709 assumes IGCSE 0580 Extended or O Level 4024/4029, then names simple manipulation of surds and the shapes of graphs of the form y = kxⁿ. Economics 9708 assumes a mathematics course rather than an Economics one.

What it does not deliver: a grade promise. Nobody can tell you what a result would have been otherwise, so treat any such claim as a reason for suspicion.

Worth paying for when: the assumed-skills list is long, your child is changing board or curriculum, the syllabus assumes a subject they have never studied, or unstructured study reliably does not happen in your house.

Option 5: the free one

This is the option the other four are competing with, and it wins more often than any of them.

Download each syllabus from the Cambridge website. Read Previous study and Prior knowledge, about a page per subject. Write out every named skill. Have your child attempt questions where each skill appears as a step rather than as the topic, and mark it automatic, slow or gone.

Then work the leftovers: three or four sessions a week of about forty minutes, from around week four, writing full method every time. Cambridge 9709 expects all necessary working and gives no marks for unsupported answers from a calculator, so the habit matters as much as the content.

Total: roughly twenty hours. Cost: nothing.

Comparing them honestly

Option	Targets the assumed knowledge	Main value
Academic summer school	No	Experience, independence
Holiday camp	No	Rest and breadth
Head-start course	No	Familiarity that fades
Bridging course	Yes	Structure plus a diagnosis
Syllabus and textbook	Yes	Everything above, free, if the work happens

The last row is the honest default. The question that separates it from the row above is not academic ability. It is whether the work will happen without someone expecting it.

What the price should tell you

Cost is not a quality signal here, but scope is, and the two get confused.

A bridging course is working through about a page of assumed knowledge per subject. That is roughly twenty hours of work. If a programme is priced and scheduled as though it were forty or sixty hours, ask what is in the extra thirty, then check that answer against the syllabus prior-knowledge section.

Usually the extra hours are Year 12 content taught early. That is a legitimate thing to sell and a poor thing to buy, because your child’s class will teach it again with a teacher who knows the school’s exam route and the pace the paper demands.

The corollary is that a genuinely scoped bridging course should look surprisingly small. Small is the point.

The one question worth answering first

Before spending anything, run the audit. It takes an evening and it tells you the size of the problem.

If the slow-or-gone list is one or two items, your child can close it with a textbook, and any paid option is buying convenience rather than necessity. If it is most of the page, or includes a subject never studied, structure is worth money.

Doing it the other way round, buying first and diagnosing later, is how families end up paying for thirty hours of content that was never the gap.

What most families should actually buy

The plan that fits the majority uses two of the five options above, and only one of them costs anything.

Weeks one to three: rest, and pay for it if you like. A holiday camp is a good use of this stretch, because those weeks should be non-academic regardless. If a camp suits your family and your budget, book it without expecting it to double as preparation.

Weeks four onward: the audit, then the short list. An evening to work out which assumed skills are slow, then three or four sessions a week on those. About twenty hours in total. For most students this part is free: a syllabus page, a textbook, and work that actually gets done.

Pay for academic structure only where the audit points at it. That means a long list of gaps, a subject the syllabus assumes but your child has never studied, a change of curriculum or exam board, or a household where unsupervised summer study reliably does not happen. All four are recognisable in advance, which is exactly why the diagnosis comes before the purchase.

The one thing rarely worth buying, whatever the audit says, is a course teaching Year 12 content early. That material gets taught again in September by someone who knows your child’s exam route.

Next steps

Who needs an A Level bridging course sets out the cases in detail, including who honestly does not, and should you pay for tuition before A Levels covers the wider spending question.

For the schedule itself, the summer before A Levels has a week-by-week plan, and a parent’s guide to the IGCSE to A Level jump covers what changes once term starts.

Of the five options above, only one is scoped to what the syllabus actually assumes. Pre-A Level Mathematics is that shape: eleven topics mapped from 0580, 0607, 0606 and O Level 4024 into 9709, with progress reports rather than a certificate of attendance.

Frequently asked questions

Are summer courses worth it before A Levels? +

It depends what the course targets. A course scoped to the prior knowledge your child's A Level syllabus names is useful, because that material is never retaught. A general academic summer school or a course teaching Year 12 content early delivers much less, since the class covers that content again at exam pace.

What is the difference between a summer school and a bridging course? +

A summer school is usually broad, residential or campus-based, and sold partly on experience. A bridging course is narrow and scoped to one transition: the gap between a named IGCSE or O Level syllabus and a named A Level syllabus. They serve genuinely different purposes and cost very different amounts.

How long should summer preparation take? +

Around twenty hours in total, starting about four weeks after the last exam. The prior-knowledge section of a Cambridge syllabus runs to roughly a page, so the target list is short. Any programme proposing forty or sixty hours is teaching A Level content early rather than bridging.

Is a holiday camp a waste of time before A Levels? +

No, but be clear what you are buying. Camps deliver rest, independence and experiences that two years of three subjects will not. That has real value. It just is not academic preparation, and problems arise only when it is priced or described as though it were.

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