Discussion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4258727.stm
this bugs me.
people complain that there are too many exams for british school kids.
when i was at a particular secondary school in essex 15-18 years ago - the whole school had exams twice a year.
and the exams lasted a whole week. your lessons were suspended during that time and you were assigned to classroom and a desk. the person sitting on your desk was always 2 years above or below you so you couldn't cheat.
and you were then tested in every subject.
the school was also tiered, A and B bands. Each band was always kept seperate. If you did really well and proved you could work and your exam marks backed you up you could move up to the A band.
regardless of that though - there was a great atmosphere in the A band. everyone competed against each other to be better. apart from me of course.
so when people start whining about too many exams - i'm sorry - but you aint seen nothing till you have 2 weeks of exams every year in your secondary schooling.
but here is the catch - it worked. my old school used to be the top in the area and highly rated in Essex!
and breathe...
this bugs me.
people complain that there are too many exams for british school kids.
when i was at a particular secondary school in essex 15-18 years ago - the whole school had exams twice a year.
and the exams lasted a whole week. your lessons were suspended during that time and you were assigned to classroom and a desk. the person sitting on your desk was always 2 years above or below you so you couldn't cheat.
and you were then tested in every subject.
the school was also tiered, A and B bands. Each band was always kept seperate. If you did really well and proved you could work and your exam marks backed you up you could move up to the A band.
regardless of that though - there was a great atmosphere in the A band. everyone competed against each other to be better. apart from me of course.
so when people start whining about too many exams - i'm sorry - but you aint seen nothing till you have 2 weeks of exams every year in your secondary schooling.
but here is the catch - it worked. my old school used to be the top in the area and highly rated in Essex!
and breathe...
I think the problem now is that the exams aren't for the benefit of anything other than government statistics, and teachers can't teach. Also, I don't think the exam format is the best judge of ability for everything, and when, exactly, are you going to come across an exam situation in later working life?
I was in that particular year group that got the maximum number of experimental exams per year. I got tested nearly twice in every subject per year in some way since the age of 10. More to the point, when they were in the exam format, the lessons weren't always suspended, and they'd be alongside - and to the detriment of - coursework with more marks going for it. The teachers were beginning to lose their enthusiasm for their subjects as they were just on a pretty-much continuous cycle of teaching kids how to pass an exam, rather than get them interested in what they were learning.
I was in that particular year group that got the maximum number of experimental exams per year. I got tested nearly twice in every subject per year in some way since the age of 10. More to the point, when they were in the exam format, the lessons weren't always suspended, and they'd be alongside - and to the detriment of - coursework with more marks going for it. The teachers were beginning to lose their enthusiasm for their subjects as they were just on a pretty-much continuous cycle of teaching kids how to pass an exam, rather than get them interested in what they were learning.
Yup. A week's worth of exams twice a year, every year.
By the time it gets to exams that actually matter, you're well versed in the arts of revision and exam-sitting, which means all you have left to figure out is actually learning the subject matter.
And people wonder why that system worked?
By the time it gets to exams that actually matter, you're well versed in the arts of revision and exam-sitting, which means all you have left to figure out is actually learning the subject matter.
And people wonder why that system worked?
Well i'm in my A2 year at the moment. Its never been the number of exams that irritated me, but the way in which lessons are crudely geared towards the syllabus rather than toward what is interesting. Recently an english teacher wrote the assessment objectives for a lesson on the board, before a poetry discussion. It made me so 
angry. Education is soulless.
angry. Education is soulless.We were 'streamed' massively - up to 16 classes for each subject - literally numbered from 1 downwards. I was in set 2 for maths, and 16 for french and latin...middle-ish for everything else.
We also had a culture that focused on disappointment at poor results - no matter how good / bad they were. I remember getting 95-odd% in a maths paper, only to be boll*cked for making 5 mistakes. 95% is very good - but not if everybody else gets 96% or higher.
We were also consistently taught topics that would interest us (and the teacher), and which weren't necessarily in the syllabus. The result of this? Possibly lower A level marks than were achievable ('wasting' our time on 'irrelevant' topics), but greater interest in a subject, and I had already done 2 years of my university economics course when I was at school.
And we came 3rd in the country in A levels in my year.
Apparently competition doesn't work and kids do too many exams these days, the poor darlings.
What utter sh*te.
>> Edited by bouffy on Monday 14th February 12:56
We also had a culture that focused on disappointment at poor results - no matter how good / bad they were. I remember getting 95-odd% in a maths paper, only to be boll*cked for making 5 mistakes. 95% is very good - but not if everybody else gets 96% or higher.
We were also consistently taught topics that would interest us (and the teacher), and which weren't necessarily in the syllabus. The result of this? Possibly lower A level marks than were achievable ('wasting' our time on 'irrelevant' topics), but greater interest in a subject, and I had already done 2 years of my university economics course when I was at school.
And we came 3rd in the country in A levels in my year.
Apparently competition doesn't work and kids do too many exams these days, the poor darlings.
What utter sh*te.
>> Edited by bouffy on Monday 14th February 12:56
Too many exams, too many students, too much of everything.
Our Tone being interviewed by some 'right on' yoof yobbo station for the kiddies last night, well past bedtime, btw.
Talking about everything under the sun and generally shouting down our glorious leader before he could say "look..." to anything.
One story about the girl who was at Uni, working 4 seperate jobs to be a speech therapist in ancient history.
50% of the young 'uns to be at it by 2010 and every one saddled with debt before hitting their first puck and all with top rate degrees in sandwich making.
Of course, old Tone responded as only he can, teeth clenched, insisting that all studies showed it was a guaranteed 40% earning advantage the moment you started...
I'm not sure what's more worrying: the idiocy of Billy's pipedreams or the naivety of the chaps and chapesses going through the (understandable) motions?
There simply has to be some form of at least slightly productive method of mass employment and if it isn't in the fields or the factories, then it sure as hell isn't at the bar, in the research labs or bean counting with Ernie Young & Co.
Feudalism, it's the only way.
Our Tone being interviewed by some 'right on' yoof yobbo station for the kiddies last night, well past bedtime, btw.
Talking about everything under the sun and generally shouting down our glorious leader before he could say "look..." to anything.
One story about the girl who was at Uni, working 4 seperate jobs to be a speech therapist in ancient history.
50% of the young 'uns to be at it by 2010 and every one saddled with debt before hitting their first puck and all with top rate degrees in sandwich making.
Of course, old Tone responded as only he can, teeth clenched, insisting that all studies showed it was a guaranteed 40% earning advantage the moment you started...
I'm not sure what's more worrying: the idiocy of Billy's pipedreams or the naivety of the chaps and chapesses going through the (understandable) motions?
There simply has to be some form of at least slightly productive method of mass employment and if it isn't in the fields or the factories, then it sure as hell isn't at the bar, in the research labs or bean counting with Ernie Young & Co.
Feudalism, it's the only way.
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