IIRC the K1000's meter is on all the time and the only way to turn it off is to put the lens cap on? When I was at college they used these for students to use (along with Zenits for starters to use).

Another alternative is the Pentax SP (Spotmatic) which is fully manual but easy to use plus lenses and accessories are dirt cheap (Carl Zeiss Jena lenses as well as the Pentax Takumar ones - mostly bought for about a fiver each). I used one of these to take my pics for my degree show so should be OK for A level (plus you can turn the light-meter off).

My fave lens was the CZJ 35mm Flektogon which focused quite close for about 1:2 macro as well. You can soon build up a nice little collection for the money you want to spend. (have a look in charity shops as well, I found quite a few cameras in them going cheep as well as lenses, tripods etc.)

Bit of info on the Spottie'