A Level Results....guess what :-)

[ExChrispy Porker]

The glittering prizes come with employment surely? They are worked for. Nothing to do with what A levels or degree you have or have not.

[turbobloke]

ExChrispy Porker said:

The glittering prizes come with employment surely? They are worked for. Nothing to do with what A levels or degree you have or have not.

Nobody seems to have told that to schools certainly secondary schools

[Hooli]

AstonZagato said:

Hooli said:

My old school doesn't exist - odd that as I rung them about a week ago to find out how to get copies of my GCSEs.

A number of schools - particular;y the top ones - have ceased to report. The reason for failing schools is obvious. Top schools won't report as universities judge people against the school average rather than comparing to national averages.

I expect the second reason you mention is more likely, it was a crap school with even crapper staff. I doubt it's improved.

[turbobloke]

Fast forward to June 2012 and a CBI/Pearson Education report drawing from a survey of 542 firms employing around 1.6m people:

-school leavers 'unable to function in the workplace'
-42% of employers forced to give remedial training in English, maths and IT
-two-thirds of business leaders indicate teenagers fail to develop skills such as self-management and timekeeping

All this in spite of year-on-year rises in GCSE and A-level results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

Complete with an unfortunate first line typo.

[Asterix]

Spelling and grammar is rather shoddy throughout the whole article.

[Use Psychology]

have to be careful here, school leavers should be literate, numerate, etc., but at the same time shouldn't be ready to 'function in the workplace' immediately - they have to learn this on the job. Business is always pushing for the education system to deliver ready-trained worker drones, for me, this is not the point of an education.

[turbobloke]

The report commented on basic English, maths and IT skills, these are precisely what the education system should be providing for school leavers and what (at the moment) are too often missing. Businesses are spending millions to correct the failures of our education system, which is not the same as induction training.

[Asterix]

Use Psychology said:

have to be careful here, school leavers should be literate, numerate, etc., but at the same time shouldn't be ready to 'function in the workplace' immediately - they have to learn this on the job. Business is always pushing for the education system to deliver ready-trained worker drones, for me, this is not the point of an education.

They should at least understand that turning up on time, not texting their mates all day long and having the basic skills to be in a position to learn from those with experience.

What scares me is that I sound like I'm describing someone going for a job in a meat packing factory. These are A level students and graduates in some instances.

[Use Psychology]

i agree with you two perfectly I'm just always a bit perturbed by the attitude that schools are for preparing people for work - they're not.

everything you mention is for life - literacy, numeracy, time management, being well presented, blah blah blah.

[turbobloke]

Use Psychology said:

i agree with you two perfectly I'm just always a bit perturbed by the attitude that schools are for preparing people for work - they're not.

We may agree on the basics but schools are indeed there precisely for that purpose - particularly in the case of school leavers in the sense of jobseekers. Even so, those remaining in education also need basic skills and personal skills and as already pointed out, the same unsatisfactory picture can be found with university leavers.

[cuneus]

Evolution speeds up:

[turbobloke]

Indeed it's a quite remarkable evolutionary pathway with exam grades going through the roof as school leaver calibre drops through the floor. Shome mishtake shirley....though there have been admissions from TPTB i.e. stating the blindingly obvious that everybody knew anyway.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeduc...

Article said:

Glenys Stacey, the chief executive of Ofqual, said that after more than a decade of “persistent grade inflation” in exams, which was “impossible to justify”, the value of A-levels and GCSEs have been undermined.

NSS but there were howls of protest and fake righteous indignation from the usual suspects and vested interests for too many years.

A-level and GCSE have both been affected and have become seriously devalued, to the detriment of all concerned.

[cymtriks]

scenario8 said:

I do get bored with the all too common putting down of young people on these fora.

It's not the kids, it's the way they are being cynically treated and charged for the privilege of being cynically treated.

The kids are as clever as kids have always been (OK, perhaps slightly less clever given how many educated women have few, or no, children).

The government however wish the electorate to know how great their schemes are. One way of doing this is to show great results.

The government wish the electorate to know that youth unemployment is far lower than it really is. One way of doing this is to make sure they are kept in education.

The government can't openly fund the obvious conclusion of this so they charge the kids via the loan system. One day the fact that a lot of those kids will never, ever, pay off those low interest loans will come home to roost. Somewhere a debt is mounting up that the kids of the kids will have to pay, all for being cynically lied to to make useless politician's failed schemes look good.

[Happy82]

Use Psychology said:

i agree with you two perfectly I'm just always a bit perturbed by the attitude that schools are for preparing people for work - they're not.

everything you mention is for life - literacy, numeracy, time management, being well presented, blah blah blah.

Perhaps they should be preparing people for work and that's where society is going wrong, as too many kids think that life is a doss where you don't need to put any effort into succeeding?

[turbobloke]

cymtriks said:

scenario8 said:

I do get bored with the all too common putting down of young people on these fora.

It's not the kids, it's the way they are being cynically treated and charged for the privilege of being cynically treated.

The kids are as clever as kids have always been

Precisely, pupils are victims in this.

It's a common misconception that comments are somehow putting down young people. Nothing could be further from the truth, pupils and teachers have been let down badly by exam boards and the last government in cahoots to pretend that standards were rising via grade inflation.

[Use Psychology]

it all boils down to: be careful what you measure.

[elster]

cuneus said:

Evolution speeds up:

Where abouts did you get that image from if you don't mind me asking?

[cuneus]

elster said:

cuneus said:

Evolution speeds up:

Where abouts did you get that image from if you don't mind me asking?

Not at all

I got the raw exam results and plotted them in an Excel spreadsheet

[elster]

cuneus said:

elster said:

cuneus said:

Evolution speeds up:

Where abouts did you get that image from if you don't mind me asking?

Not at all

I got the raw exam results and plotted them in an Excel spreadsheet

Ah ok, do you mind if I use it?

[cuneus]

elster said:

Ah ok, do you mind if I use it?

Sure I don't mind - if you mail me I can send you the sheet if you wish.