This article considers the transition from A-level to degree-level study from the schoolteacher's point of view. It highlights the conflicting subject philosophies that exist at A level, and the resistance to the revised English of Curriculum 2000 that has been apparent in debates about the nature of English Literature post-16. Its main argument is that teachers of English in higher education need to be alert to these issues in order to understand the difficulties that first-year students often experience, recognizing that the "problem of transition" is as much a problem of epistemology as of pedagogy.