Record A Level results again

[fido]

russ_a said:

Seemed quite bad really until you read the footnote that teh chap was german only spent a year in this country and had no a level results!

It says he obtained 'three A* and three A grades at A-level'(?)

[TuxRacer]

He had AS levels too, or at least that was implied when he suggested unis should put more emphasis on them. He didn't have GCSEs but had done very well in the German equivalents.

[anonymous-user]

[quote=russ_agreat A Level results didn't get a place at Oxford
[/quote]

used to be oxford entrance exams not a levels... did it change? i know for cambridge engineering even kids with maths and further maths have to do a preparatory maths course before starting uni to bring them up to the old a level standards

[hifihigh]

A few months ago my pairents had their loft re-insulated with some better foam or whatever. Anyway the upshot of this was turfing alot of stuff out of the loft including some of my dads old O-level/A-level papers.

I'll get to the point, some stuff my dad was expected to know for his o-levels in maths was harder than I had to do at age 16 for GCSE. For example we wern't taught differentiation and integration until a-level. Maybe a change in syllabus can explain this or maybe exams were harder back then idk.

[Strangely Brown]

hifihigh said:

I'll get to the point, some stuff my dad was expected to know for his o-levels in maths was harder than I had to do at age 16 for GCSE.

But this is common knowledge. There have been numerous examples of A and A* GCSE students being given 'O' Level papers and failing miserably. I believe there was even an example where they sat an 11-Plus paper... and failed, FFS!

[hifihigh]

Strangely Brown said:

hifihigh said:

I'll get to the point, some stuff my dad was expected to know for his o-levels in maths was harder than I had to do at age 16 for GCSE.

But this is common knowledge. There have been numerous examples of A and A* GCSE students being given 'O' Level papers and failing miserably. I believe there was even an example where they sat an 11-Plus paper... and failed, FFS!

Well I guess part of the point of my last post was to pose the question if the syllabus changes how does this affect a persons understanding of maths. For example the differentiation/intergration thing I mentioned, could maths be taught better if it was left until later to teach those particular things?

I really don't know about how to construct a syllabus to best teach a child maths, all I have is anicdotal evidence that maths papers for 16 year olds seemed harder 30 years ago.

[Strangely Brown]

hifihigh said:

I really don't know about how to construct a syllabus to best teach a child maths, all I have is anicdotal evidence that maths papers for 16 year olds seemed harder 30 years ago.

Based on the standard of arithmetical ability that I see from the "products of the modern education system", I'd say that the teaching of maths (and English) was a hell of a lot better 30 years ago. Both the exam papers of that time and the fact that the current crop appear incapable of basic numeracy (and literacy) are testament to this.

[F i F]

hifihigh said:

Strangely Brown said:

hifihigh said:

I'll get to the point, some stuff my dad was expected to know for his o-levels in maths was harder than I had to do at age 16 for GCSE.

But this is common knowledge. There have been numerous examples of A and A* GCSE students being given 'O' Level papers and failing miserably. I believe there was even an example where they sat an 11-Plus paper... and failed, FFS!

Well I guess part of the point of my last post was to pose the question if the syllabus changes how does this affect a persons understanding of maths. For example the differentiation/intergration thing I mentioned, could maths be taught better if it was left until later to teach those particular things?

I really don't know about how to construct a syllabus to best teach a child maths, all I have is anicdotal evidence that maths papers for 16 year olds seemed harder 30 years ago.

But the syllabus changes for very valid reasons.
For my O level I had to learn how to use log tables, sine, cosine and tangent tables for the trig part and so on.
But what would be the point of doing that today, unless somehow it gives a better understanding of how logs work, and frankly I don't think it does.
Ok we did differentiation etc at O level and I know that for AS Maths ill begotten daughter was learning stuff that we did at O.
On the other hand she did some stuff at GCSE level that we did in first year Eng maths at uni. So...

At the end of the day the ability of school leavers to apply their knowledge in practical situations is dire, maybe it always was. I know I knew square root of bugger all about some practical stuff when I left uni in 70s and work must have thought what a numpty.

[turbobloke]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2340443...

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=205568...

[Strangely Brown]

turbobloke said:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2340443...

That was three years ago. He hasn't made much of an impact has he?

turbobloke said:

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=205568...

And that was six years ago. So, the problem is known, but there is a complete lack of political will to do anything about it.

[turbobloke]

The drift started with the introduction of GCSE and the shift from norm referencing to criterion referencing and that was long ago.

[FunkyGibbon]

turbobloke said:

The drift started with the introduction of GCSE and the shift from norm referencing to criterion referencing and that was long ago.

The 1986 year 10 (4th year to us oldies) cohort were the first GCSE. Though some schools trialled them and the 16+ from 1984.