GCSE qualifications to be scrapped?
Discussion
TBH I thought they were a load of p*ss when i took them many years ago at Grammar School. We were told in no uncertain terms that it was just a step towards A-level and don't get too excited about them - unless you get a C in which case you should hang your head in shame. The Computing paper featured all the characters from Neighbours - it's hard to take an examination seriously which asks you to assist Madge Bishop in attaching peripherals to her PC.
No need to scrap them totally.
As others have said, reduce the coursework component (I like the idea of it possibly contributing to entrance to the exam but not the final grade) and then just normalise the results properly with a decent bell curve.
If it becomes impossible to separate large swathes then the exam hasn't been structured properly.
A level attendance and uni attendance should then be limited by available teaching budget and grades (half the budget available? Then up the ante on grades required to join)..
School performance stats would probably need looking at in more detail. If grades were normalised nationally then perhaps performance is measured two ways - outright league tables and positional changes. (I'd be surprised, I think, if it wasn't already).
Unfair year to year? Possibly, but tough. Life's unfair year to year. Work your absolute hardest and it will work out regardless if you're good enough. Take your foot off the gas and it might not. These are also valuable lessons.
As others have said, reduce the coursework component (I like the idea of it possibly contributing to entrance to the exam but not the final grade) and then just normalise the results properly with a decent bell curve.
If it becomes impossible to separate large swathes then the exam hasn't been structured properly.
A level attendance and uni attendance should then be limited by available teaching budget and grades (half the budget available? Then up the ante on grades required to join)..
School performance stats would probably need looking at in more detail. If grades were normalised nationally then perhaps performance is measured two ways - outright league tables and positional changes. (I'd be surprised, I think, if it wasn't already).
Unfair year to year? Possibly, but tough. Life's unfair year to year. Work your absolute hardest and it will work out regardless if you're good enough. Take your foot off the gas and it might not. These are also valuable lessons.
marcosgt said:
The education system doesn't need more f
king about with, it needs stability so decent teachers can teach and give our children a useful education!!!!!
The educational establishment have had 40 years of being left alone. The result has been the unchallenged adoption of 60's radical marxist thinking based on a philosophy of child centred education, and the complete rejection of a British tradition of education going back a century. king about with, it needs stability so decent teachers can teach and give our children a useful education!!!!!It has to a universal dropping of standards in the state sector, static levels of illiteracy, removal of any competitive element, the acceptance of poor performing teachers, a failure to to educate white working class children and Afro-Caribean boys, the rejection of anything smacking of 'elitist' (or 'the best' as the rest of us know it) and a corrosive effect on the morals and standards of the whole country as generation upon generation of children have only been provided with a sense of entitlement, self-assertion without merit, woeful self-discipline, and low academic standards.
Teachers are now reaping, in term the behaviour of both children and their parents, what they have sown.
The educational establishment has been dreadful at accepting any responsibility at all for the state of the system they have produced, its failure to educate children for the world in which we now inhabit, and a collapse in competitiveness compared to international standards. And as the private sector has been much better an maintaining standards we now have a two tier system with an enormous delta. For f
k's sake even all the good pop stars and actors have been to private school, let alone the cabinet or Times Top 500 CEOs.Politicians are only reacting to the justifiable concerns of the wider public.
SS7
Thank fk for that.
Hopefully this will stop the inexorable slide down the global education standards - I wait with bated breath to see the results of the latest OECD PISA study - which will hopefully give ammunition to the government's case that GCSE's are not fit for purpose.
When I did GCSE's in the early days they were so far below the O level standard it was comical. We were given past O level papers for those that wanted more taxing questions. Most of the exams there was nothing to strech the mind or come to an educated conclusion, and the latest GCSE papers - they are laughably easy.
- I wonder how many students have compared the latest GCSE maths paper to an O Level paper?
k for that. Hopefully this will stop the inexorable slide down the global education standards - I wait with bated breath to see the results of the latest OECD PISA study - which will hopefully give ammunition to the government's case that GCSE's are not fit for purpose.
When I did GCSE's in the early days they were so far below the O level standard it was comical. We were given past O level papers for those that wanted more taxing questions. Most of the exams there was nothing to strech the mind or come to an educated conclusion, and the latest GCSE papers - they are laughably easy.
- I wonder how many students have compared the latest GCSE maths paper to an O Level paper?
Few months back the education changes were to include much more on 'real world job centred' learning. Hope this isn't going to be blown into the long grass, must be a huge pool of untapped talent ready to be developed and 'make things'. They should be offered the chance just the same as an academic student offered the chance of obtaining 'meaningful' qualifications.
Brother D said:
- I wonder how many students have compared the latest GCSE maths paper to an O Level paper?
A friend's wife is a teacher. She gave her year 13 class an old maths paper from 1979 and asked them what they thought. They reckoned it was difficult but they could probably do half of the questions. She then told them it was an 'O' level paper, not an 'A' level one.I won't show my 14 year old my school books from my own 4th year (they're in the family attic). Not only is the work very much more advanced, but the standards of literacy are so much in advanced of what he is told is acceptable that I'm worried about his self-esteem.
SS7
Measuring both schools and exam boards on % grades A-C (or any grade-based metric) can only lead to one thing - easier exams. A race to the bottom.
By all means measure schools by that sort of metric but the exam boards (hold on, why are there several?) need a different measure to ensure we get exams that are testing, meaningful and allow differentiation between pupils of different ability.
The culture of "everyone winning" is exactly equivalent and better labelled IMO as "everyone losing".
By all means measure schools by that sort of metric but the exam boards (hold on, why are there several?) need a different measure to ensure we get exams that are testing, meaningful and allow differentiation between pupils of different ability.
The culture of "everyone winning" is exactly equivalent and better labelled IMO as "everyone losing".
crankedup said:
That bloody woman has some guilt to carry, 'no such thing as losers', selling off playing fields that reduced competition amongst kids. All part of the mindset that got hammered into so many kids back then.
What's reduced competition among kids? The lefty mindset of so many teachers hammered into kids over decades, coupled to the lack of planning by Labour over 13 years so that we now have a current and urgent need for hundreds of new schools with portakabins filling primary school playgrounds as temporary solutions. Playtime exercise? Medium term the country needs 2000 new Primary schools in the next 3 years and longer term 500 new Secondary schools in the next 10 years.More on the facile nature of GCSEs from an Independent source
here.http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/21/in-my-gc...
I was in the guinea pig group for the GCSE, at the time they called it the 16+. (It was mostly the science subjects that I took them in, Maths and English were still O'Level)
By the time I took my exams in 86, they still hadn't decided on the grading structure, as we were also still doing some O'Levels and CSEs. So the ones I took at 16+ I managed to get both O'Level and CSE in (as it was so new, those took some explaining).
Three years ago I went into a meeting at my childrens' school about my daughter's year and their Maths GSCE, (I think they were wanting to change from the linear to modular or the other way round) I was horrified to see that they were teaching the kids how to pass an exam and not actually teaching them the subject. I did mention this to the head of Maths (while all the other parents were there, and to my daughter's horror!), he agreed that is what they were doing, but said that at 14, they had been taught the subject and there was nothing else to teach them. Hmm, she had no idea about imaginary numbers, calculus, iteration and such like. I am pretty sure we touched on these while studying for the Maths O'Level. (I definately remember doing iteration)
By the time I took my exams in 86, they still hadn't decided on the grading structure, as we were also still doing some O'Levels and CSEs. So the ones I took at 16+ I managed to get both O'Level and CSE in (as it was so new, those took some explaining).
Three years ago I went into a meeting at my childrens' school about my daughter's year and their Maths GSCE, (I think they were wanting to change from the linear to modular or the other way round) I was horrified to see that they were teaching the kids how to pass an exam and not actually teaching them the subject. I did mention this to the head of Maths (while all the other parents were there, and to my daughter's horror!), he agreed that is what they were doing, but said that at 14, they had been taught the subject and there was nothing else to teach them. Hmm, she had no idea about imaginary numbers, calculus, iteration and such like. I am pretty sure we touched on these while studying for the Maths O'Level. (I definately remember doing iteration)
turbobloke said:
.... and longer term 500 new Secondary schools in the next 10 years.
and properly qualified and trained teachers for all subjects at all levels.For those who understand the topic: I've just marked an A Physics script. There was a straightforward question on atomic electron energy levels. The candidate circled the labelled values and wrote "How can you have negative energy?" I kid you not.
It's a fact of life that some people are above average intelligence and some are below average. CSE's, 'O' Levels and 'A' levels were a good indicator of this to potential employers and universities - all GCSEs show is that you attended school regularly. This talk about winners and losers is frankly bloody ridiculous as it all comes down to how employers see you, nobody else.
My son finished his GCSEs yesterday. We went through loads of papers. The greatest skill you can have in getting a good grade is knowing, not about the subject, but how to play the mark scheme. You can give a good scientific answer to a question and if it's not on the mark scheme you can still not get the points. There is a procedure for examiners to escalate an unexpected but correct answer but it's seen as being something you won't want to use.
My son will get an A for French, because he had a teacher who was great at teaching him how to pass the exam. Not because he's any good at French. he's borderline A/B in Physics because he doesn't always follow the right mindset.
All the sciences have loads of Incredible Hulk(*) stuff on windmills, global warming, CO2 and melting polar bears.
Simon
(*) Incredible Hulk= Green bks
My son will get an A for French, because he had a teacher who was great at teaching him how to pass the exam. Not because he's any good at French. he's borderline A/B in Physics because he doesn't always follow the right mindset.
All the sciences have loads of Incredible Hulk(*) stuff on windmills, global warming, CO2 and melting polar bears.
Simon
(*) Incredible Hulk= Green b
ksOtispunkmeyer said:
Happy82 said:
Sounds good, it's about time too! I read somewhere that it's to help prepare students for the toughness of university studies, I'm guessing it's a long time since those proposing the ideas went to uni 
Uni is tough providing a) you go to a good one and b) choose a proper course like physics or engineering and not learning about the family love circle in sociology/basket weaving/jamaican studies.
shoestring7 said:
Brother D said:
- I wonder how many students have compared the latest GCSE maths paper to an O Level paper?
A friend's wife is a teacher. She gave her year 13 class an old maths paper from 1979 and asked them what they thought. They reckoned it was difficult but they could probably do half of the questions. She then told them it was an 'O' level paper, not an 'A' level one.I won't show my 14 year old my school books from my own 4th year (they're in the family attic). Not only is the work very much more advanced, but the standards of literacy are so much in advanced of what he is told is acceptable that I'm worried about his self-esteem.
SS7
Clegg vows to veto the Gove-rnment plans for new O-levels.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/21/nic...
Unions are also foaming at the orifice. One curious side issue is that the story was apparently leaked by lefty civil servants hoping to torpedo the plans. Gove has experienced this previously.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/21/nic...
Unions are also foaming at the orifice. One curious side issue is that the story was apparently leaked by lefty civil servants hoping to torpedo the plans. Gove has experienced this previously.
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