GCSE qualifications to be scrapped?
Discussion
ewenm said:
I don't see the problem with an examination at age 16 to distinguish the adacemically talented (head for A-levels and Uni) from those who would be better suited to apprenticeships etc. I'd fund the apprenticeships (or vocational training) the same as A-levels and any higher education funding to encourage employers to participate.
The problem is that GCSEs are too easy and don't provide a suitable mechanism to differentiate between pupils. Sort this by having one single exam board that is not judged on number of A-C grades but is measured in relation to the best education systems around the world - i.e the exams should be of an equivalent difficulty to the exams in the best educated societies.
"Everyone is a winner" is synonymous with "everyone is a loser".
Agreed 100%.The problem is that GCSEs are too easy and don't provide a suitable mechanism to differentiate between pupils. Sort this by having one single exam board that is not judged on number of A-C grades but is measured in relation to the best education systems around the world - i.e the exams should be of an equivalent difficulty to the exams in the best educated societies.
"Everyone is a winner" is synonymous with "everyone is a loser".
Chrisw666 said:
martin84 said:
Fair point. Now how do we do that?
Appoint a government with the spine to make wholesale changes and some very unpopular decisions, to remove league tables, re introduce grammar schools for those with a genuine academic talent and to allow other schools to formulate their own curriculum that meets the needs of their intake and local employment market. turbobloke said:
eccles said:
turbobloke said:
crankedup said:
Don't over concern yourselves over another half baked Tory policy idea, as usual Gove is seeking headlines in a vain attempt to place himself into the headlines.
At the moment it looks like it was a leftyleaks initiative, not Gove publicity seeking.crankedup said:
I want a Government to take forward policy ideas that are of the future, not hark back to failed policies of decades ago.
Sticking with devalued exams while decrying alternatives is a good idea? Traditional style O-levels are such a failure that international schools still use them and so does the independent sector here, which unlike the state sector is world class and hasn't plummeted in international comparisons since those 'failed policies' ho ho ho.crankedup said:
Thanks to Lib-Dems this Gove thing will be on the buffers.
As above - no thanks can be given to them at this stage as it appears to be a leak prior to consulting with the eight percenters. Even you will know that Lib Dems don't always determine policy - as per CMD telling Clegg about use of the EU veto after the fact.
In education matters, the Conservatives are now getting back on track, and having you arguing against their plans would be reasuring for Gove. Are you?
Tories now want to re-introduce same failed policies from the 1980's. Were they wrong to abolish then or wrong now in seeking re-implementation.
Seems to me that they are already struggling to find new good fresh policy idea's at just a couple of years in. Given they had been out of Government for decades as well this is surprising and worrying at the same time.
No way do I support the current status on education.
martin84 said:
Teachers, Schools and Headmasters are judged on their exam results. Ergo, teachers, schools and headmasters will focus all energies on their students passing tests.
How do you propose we judge and evaluate teachers and their institutions if not by the basic numbers of how many of their students pass stuff?
It's not as simple as sitting here saying 'teach the subject not the exam' you need to say how you'd actually run the entire education system on that basis. If it was easy someone else would've already done it.
Your presuppose a quantifiable assessment of teachers.How do you propose we judge and evaluate teachers and their institutions if not by the basic numbers of how many of their students pass stuff?
It's not as simple as sitting here saying 'teach the subject not the exam' you need to say how you'd actually run the entire education system on that basis. If it was easy someone else would've already done it.
A system of targets is what ruined police forces. If it wasn't measured it wasn't done. When those grading calls were looking for keywords, or rather trying to stop callers using them, the need of the caller was ignored.
Police - including me I have to say - became experts at providing positive stats. We didn't have to change procedures, just count things differently. EWveryone, including the government of course, knew that the stats proved only that police forces were superb at telling lies.
For schools, all that is needed is assessment by a standards unit, an Inspectorate, one which would esure that accepted practices are being pursued.
Chrisw666 said:
martin84 said:
Fair point. Now how do we do that?
Appoint a government with the spine to make wholesale changes and some very unpopular decisions, to remove league tables, re introduce grammar schools for those with a genuine academic talent and to allow other schools to formulate their own curriculum that meets the needs of their intake and local employment market. martin84 said:
Chrisw666 said:
It becomes more of an issue when those who don't try A-Levels get out of college at 18 with their vocational qualifications. Very few of them are fit for purpose and the idea that you're getting a productive employee (that they often believe themselves to be) on day one is a dream
Well surely nobody expects a perfect employee at the age of 18 with no work experience. Schools haven't encouraged students to actually go to work for years, its all about heading to University. Personally I didn't fancy staying at school until I was 107.Chrisw666 said:
But until we as a nation stop accepting mediocrity, stop making excuses for laziness, stop education establishments bending the rules to suit the 'needs' of children and start to develop a fit for purpose system (regardless of the exams) that rewards achievement, celebrates hard work and penalises those who don't pull their weight (perhaps via their parents) then we won't see any improvement in the overall quality of our workforce.
Fair point. Now how do we do that?Education in this country suffers from many, many problems at the moment, but they all spiral around the same things - exams.
The schools don't want to fall down the league tables so they choose the exams they know their kids will pass. I've worked in both schools and exam boards, and they have regular meetings where the exams are effectively 'sold' to the schools on pass rate and ease of teaching to the test.
As a result you get a 'race to the bottom' in terms of skills required to pass. I've known kids get Bs in English GCSE, and full of false confidence they try to do it at A-level, only to find they've basically been doing Media Studies for the past two years.
All the while, we've seen a rise in generational working-class unemployment, a rise in British technical and manufacturing demand, and a rise in Eastern European immigration in response to the need for hands-on, high-quality skills.
The solution, therefore, is to treat these practical skills on a par with academia. We need to admit that academia doesn't suit everyone, nor does the economy demand it.
So, GCSEs and A-levels in practical skills including motor vehicle engineering, joinery, building work, plumbing, electrics - et cetera. Exams in subjects like these should be practical too, not on paper. Take these subjects to A-level and they should include fully-integrated work placement schemes.
Ultimately, they should lead to apprenticeships, the status of which should be equated to a degree.
Otherwise, we just end up trying to kid ourselves that this acacdemically-biased school curriculum is somehow suitable for everyone, we'll continue to ram as many kids through the sausage-machine of academia as possible, leave a lot of them high and dry in the jobs market, damage the academic exams in the process, and harm the ability of the country to mobilise its populace.
Compare that with Germany. They have technical schools and value such qualifications equally with academic ones. They build mechanical products to a very high standard that, while expensive, also manage to sell in large numbers. Coincidence? I think not. That's the way to run a major European economic power with a large population. We should have taken note long ago (and would have done, but unfortunately the Board of Education pandered to pressure from the private schools worried about their position and as a result came up with the scraphead secondary-moderns instead of a proper range of technical schools).
crankedup said:
Lets get this straight. Tories <etc. etc.>
So, do you think it is better to realise something is wrong and correct it while potentially contradicting previous policy. Or do you want governments to stick to old policies and never contemplate change or admit mistakes? Of course Ed Miliband has so far said that Gordon Brown was wrong on many levels, both as Chancellor and PM and has today stated that New Labour immigration policy was flawed. I view these actions as refreshing and honest - of both Gove and Miliband. My lad has just finished sitting them, the whole experience has been frustrating.
The exams go on for the entire year, you take a test and get a result, if you're happy with that one then you can leave it there and concentrate on the rest, otherwise you can take them again and again. My lad ended up doing his maths tests 3 times and history twice.
Most of the mark is also from the coursework completed over the two year period, but most of this can be brought home to be completed there, so obviously as I want to ensure that he does well everything he brought home I helped with to make sure it was correct. He was given details of all the course work that would be expected of him at the start so it's fairly easy to crack on without waiting.
Schools have league tables so the better the grades they get then the better the school is perceived to be doing. Classes are selective to ensure that spods can't affect the average grade score. Past papers with answer sheets can be downloaded and questions recycled so you can be fairly sure which questions you're going to get and what the model answers are before you start.
With the exception of maths everything seems to be geared up to memorising and reciting lots of random arbitrary facts but nothing is interconnected and there's nothing about how to extrapolate knowledge from one thing and apply it to something else so nothing really makes sense to the student, it must be awfully boring to sit through the classes. Doing the past papers they're very easy but to the student they're very hard but it's due to how they've been taught the subject. It explains to me anyway why I get CV's daily from kids wanting work who've got very good grades but are unable to spell or punctuate a written document properly. They're also unable to think, everything has to be spoon fed to them for every instance, they don't seem to be able to connect any experience to something else everything is treated in isolation. It's quite frustrating to have to manage people like that.
The mandatory RE exams were shocking and offensive but again it was just a recital of arbitrary factoids such as:
Q: Give two examples from nature that prove evolution to be false
A: The human eye and the peacock feather
or
Q: How would a religious person feel about a homosexual?
A: they would regard them as sinful.
there's no thought in the question or the answer, the expectation is to just recite the answer they've been told to give.
Science papers are just arbitrary questions about global warming and the benefits of using low-wattage light bulbs. There was nothing to work out or calculate just recite the answer you've been told to give.
It's really depressing as it's just conning kids into thinking they have had an education and that they've achieved something worthwhile, they'll all want to trot off to university at 18 because they've been told that's what they're supposed to do, to get an arbitrary degree and a £20K overdraft with the understanding that they'll fall into a £50K job and financial bliss rather than that £13K call-centre job and being financed up to the eyeballs and no hope of being debt free before they're 30.
A change is long overdue but like the NHS any attempt to make it better is met with instant hysteria and panic to block any kind of reasoned discussion or debate and is stays as broken as ever.
The exams go on for the entire year, you take a test and get a result, if you're happy with that one then you can leave it there and concentrate on the rest, otherwise you can take them again and again. My lad ended up doing his maths tests 3 times and history twice.
Most of the mark is also from the coursework completed over the two year period, but most of this can be brought home to be completed there, so obviously as I want to ensure that he does well everything he brought home I helped with to make sure it was correct. He was given details of all the course work that would be expected of him at the start so it's fairly easy to crack on without waiting.
Schools have league tables so the better the grades they get then the better the school is perceived to be doing. Classes are selective to ensure that spods can't affect the average grade score. Past papers with answer sheets can be downloaded and questions recycled so you can be fairly sure which questions you're going to get and what the model answers are before you start.
With the exception of maths everything seems to be geared up to memorising and reciting lots of random arbitrary facts but nothing is interconnected and there's nothing about how to extrapolate knowledge from one thing and apply it to something else so nothing really makes sense to the student, it must be awfully boring to sit through the classes. Doing the past papers they're very easy but to the student they're very hard but it's due to how they've been taught the subject. It explains to me anyway why I get CV's daily from kids wanting work who've got very good grades but are unable to spell or punctuate a written document properly. They're also unable to think, everything has to be spoon fed to them for every instance, they don't seem to be able to connect any experience to something else everything is treated in isolation. It's quite frustrating to have to manage people like that.
The mandatory RE exams were shocking and offensive but again it was just a recital of arbitrary factoids such as:
Q: Give two examples from nature that prove evolution to be false
A: The human eye and the peacock feather
or
Q: How would a religious person feel about a homosexual?
A: they would regard them as sinful.
there's no thought in the question or the answer, the expectation is to just recite the answer they've been told to give.
Science papers are just arbitrary questions about global warming and the benefits of using low-wattage light bulbs. There was nothing to work out or calculate just recite the answer you've been told to give.
It's really depressing as it's just conning kids into thinking they have had an education and that they've achieved something worthwhile, they'll all want to trot off to university at 18 because they've been told that's what they're supposed to do, to get an arbitrary degree and a £20K overdraft with the understanding that they'll fall into a £50K job and financial bliss rather than that £13K call-centre job and being financed up to the eyeballs and no hope of being debt free before they're 30.
A change is long overdue but like the NHS any attempt to make it better is met with instant hysteria and panic to block any kind of reasoned discussion or debate and is stays as broken as ever.
RichB said:
crankedup said:
Lets get this straight. Tories <etc. etc.>
So, do you think it is better to realise something is wrong and correct it while potentially contradicting previous policy. Or do you want governments to stick to old policies and never contemplate change or admit mistakes? Of course Ed Miliband has so far said that Gordon Brown was wrong on many levels, both as Chancellor and PM and has today stated that New Labour immigration policy was flawed. I view these actions as refreshing and honest - of both Gove and Miliband. The unions are inherently left-biased. They contribute to the Labour party, and they're also stiflingly politically correct. They throw their weight behind every harebrained 'trendy' idea and support it without question.
More notably, perhaps, they will oppose absolutely anything to come from the Tories regardless of its merits, simply because it's from the Tories. Not all teachers are particularly politically-aware, so they'll just repeat the line given to them by their union.
What is needed is a politically-neutral teaching union.
martin84 said:
Twincam16 said:
More notably, perhaps, they will oppose absolutely anything to come from the Tories regardless of its merits
Like how they refused the GCSE's as an O-Level replacement from the Tories in the first place?Under Labour there was a great deal of dissent regarding the national curriculum, the league tables, inspection regimes and so on. Labour responded with academies and the unions were broadly pleased with them as they were free from red tape.
When the Tories got in, they saw the academies, and OK, they're not all roses but they broadly work well and do cut down quite a lot of red tape, so they decided to expand their number.
The result? The unions called a strike.
When I was doing teacher training, during one of my last university sessions we were taken into a classroom and told, over the course of an hour, to always vote Labour as they were 'the party that supports you'. The Tories, apparently, were totally opposed to anything the unions wanted.
Thing was, I was a bit older than most of the students in that room and had done a Politics degree beforehand. Didn't work with me (and I'm not a natural Tory voter but I'll vote for them if I think they're the best people to run the country at a given time), but for a lot of teachers with no formal political knowledge, the teacher-training courses are just churning out unquestioning, ready-made Labour voters.
crankedup said:
In a nutshell that is the most shameful, socially divisive unworkable charter for disaster I have ever read. When will some people accept that academia is not the be all and end all of education. Sure bright kids must be encouraged, but then so must the less academic. Its of no use having an intellect design a new bit of kit who we haven't the skills to make the thing.
Socially divisive? Moi? I suggested that we take academically talented children and treat them as such, while in parralel we run schools that cater to the needs of pupils in each area, meaning kids in inner city London are given social skills and support to stop them feeling gangs are the way through hopeless life, we teach those in the welfare dependant north about enterprise and self sufficiency, those in rural areas to make better sustainable use of their environment, kids in the engineering heavy areas to be valueable to engineering firms etc.
You simply jumped on my use of the word academic and tried to score points. We need skills at every level of society, but a one size fits all GCSE approach isn't right as it doesn't quite fit the majority. Allowing children to focus on the areas they are good at, and allowing schools to equip them for life instead of to pass set tests benchmarking them nationally regardless of background is a more effective use of funding, a more effficient way of building aspiration and a set of young people with skills that are relevant in the 21st century.
Twincam16 said:
the teacher-training courses are just churning out unquestioning, ready-made Labour voters
Not for much longer and it looks like the libdims can swivel on this one 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...
A Government source in the article said:
For too long left-wing training colleges have imbued teachers with useless teaching theories that don't work and actively damage children's education.
Not to mention the lefty twaddle TC16 had to endure. The Gove-rnment recently announced a £32.4 million investment in the charity Teach First which recruits top graduates to work in the most challenging schools. Trained graduates go on to work in schools where more than half of pupils come from the poorest 30 per cent of families. Less left wing dogma, more decent graduates working in schools with challenging pupils.
RichB said:
I know it's going off at a tangent (do kids do tangents in maths these days?) but how does the human eye disprove the theory of evolution? 
It doesn't. However the religious argument is that nothing so complicated could have evolved by chance. They are wrong and demonstrate a basic lack of understanding of evolution.blueg33 said:
elster said:
You practice after you have finished teaching the subject, by focusing on the specific modules then you aren't educated on the subject. You have merely passed an exam. There needs to be a distinction between the two. After all we are now getting the best educated students ever in terms of exam results and yet the lowest education levels for decades by OECD levels.
I see what you mean, from what I can see with a son doing GCSE's at the moment, they are still taught the subject and only started doing practice papers just before the mocks in January. That is exactly the same as it was 20 years ago when I did my O levels.(for the record a 5 year old couldn't do this)
EdExcel 2011 Maths Question said:
On the grid, draw the graph of y = 4x − 2
Not hard granted, but I bet plenty of adults couldn't do that including those who did o levels 
I have just had 6 students who I have been helping with a few bits of maths for their GCSEs, they started doing past papers at the beginning of this year.
Here is a question on a science paper from this year that Andrew Neil said on Daily Politics 'Do you use a microscope or a telescope to look at the moon?'
Maybe not 5 year old, but you get the idea. A science paper should be just that, test the knowledge of a broad spectrum of science.
JontyR said:
martin84 said:
JontyR said:
Students shouldnt be allowed to resit their exams, just because they didnt get the A* they wanted.
So a student shouldn't be allowed to be disappointed with their result, go away, study harder and then come back to improve their grade and their prospects? Interesting.You don’t get this opportunity in many other walks of working life.....get it right first time, maybe learn by your mistakes and take that forward to the next job you do. But the idea of the exams is to learn to the best of your ability and show how you do on that instance!
There is too much option to learn the exam not the subject....and this doesn’t give you the understanding of the subject matter.....it just gets you a piece of paper that says you can pass an exam!
Also you can't learn the exam, the exam is based on what you learned during the subject so if you have learned the subject properly you wil have learned the exam and therefore do fine. Maybe alter the questions so they aren't so pathetically stupid like the one in the OP.
Apologies if I'm repeating stuff said by others, I've only skim read once the usual wafflers arrived.
I agree that a two tier system should be introduced, but I don't think there should be an overlap of subjects, i.e. the new O Level equivalents should be for academic subjects, while the new CSE equivalent should be for vocational subjects.
In other words, there should only be one route to a maths qualification taken at age 16 so everyone knows what that means, but equally there should be vocational subjects available distinct from O Levels.
I see no reason why students can't mix and match such qualifications.
My concern with the current system is that a GCSE in (e.g.) hairdressing has equal status with one in maths.
I agree that a two tier system should be introduced, but I don't think there should be an overlap of subjects, i.e. the new O Level equivalents should be for academic subjects, while the new CSE equivalent should be for vocational subjects.
In other words, there should only be one route to a maths qualification taken at age 16 so everyone knows what that means, but equally there should be vocational subjects available distinct from O Levels.
I see no reason why students can't mix and match such qualifications.
My concern with the current system is that a GCSE in (e.g.) hairdressing has equal status with one in maths.
Johnnytheboy said:
Apologies if I'm repeating stuff said by others, I've only skim read once the usual wafflers arrived.
I agree that a two tier system should be introduced, but I don't think there should be an overlap of subjects, i.e. the new O Level equivalents should be for academic subjects, while the new CSE equivalent should be for vocational subjects.
In other words, there should only be one route to a maths qualification taken at age 16 so everyone knows what that means, but equally there should be vocational subjects available distinct from O Levels.
I see no reason why students can't mix and match such qualifications.
My concern with the current system is that a GCSE in (e.g.) hairdressing has equal status with one in maths.
Not to a uni it doesn't. Or a hairdressers for that matter.I agree that a two tier system should be introduced, but I don't think there should be an overlap of subjects, i.e. the new O Level equivalents should be for academic subjects, while the new CSE equivalent should be for vocational subjects.
In other words, there should only be one route to a maths qualification taken at age 16 so everyone knows what that means, but equally there should be vocational subjects available distinct from O Levels.
I see no reason why students can't mix and match such qualifications.
My concern with the current system is that a GCSE in (e.g.) hairdressing has equal status with one in maths.
All this discussion is good but it all comes down to one thing - what do the employers want? It's all well and good having 50 GCSEs at A* but if employers don't trust GCSEs then they are useless. A few years ago when I was cherry-picking CVs received by my previous company, if I saw someone had 'O' levels in the required subjects and someone who had GCSEs in the same subjects I would choose the person with 'O' levels, (if one candidate had CSEs and the other GCSEs then it would be more difficult).
Then we got to the stage where the majority of people applying only had GCSEs and you would get people with seemingly very good qualifications, but who may be at vastly different levels. Because we couldn't trust these qualifications we then had to introduce our own exams that potential candidates had to sit to get them to the next level. So in effect the GCSEs became useless.
No matter what any governmental agency says, no matter what any educational authority says, it is what the future employers want, and many find GCSEs as next to useless.
Then we got to the stage where the majority of people applying only had GCSEs and you would get people with seemingly very good qualifications, but who may be at vastly different levels. Because we couldn't trust these qualifications we then had to introduce our own exams that potential candidates had to sit to get them to the next level. So in effect the GCSEs became useless.
No matter what any governmental agency says, no matter what any educational authority says, it is what the future employers want, and many find GCSEs as next to useless.
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