Labour may well make headway against these retrograde proposals if they can be bothered. However I doubt the plans would get anywhere even if Labour did nothing, they are clearly Gove’s personal fantasy and appear to be little supported elsewhere in government.

As I noted yesterday:

http://zelo.tv/NUQhXk

the top grade in the “old” CSE was equivalent to a pass at “O” level, or more specifically a Grade 6, when passes were graded 1 to 6 and fails 7 to 9.

The problem here is that none of the hacks and pundits ranting on about this issue would know a GCSE exam from a hole in the ground. As Cook points out, the GCSE does not just contain what the pundits like to call “dumbed down” questions. It’s designed to test the whole spectrum of ability.

The old “O” level was only sat by 25% of pupils, many of whom failed one or more of them. Did it make education better? I don’t know, and I’m damn sure the rabble churning out “Gove for PM” copy right now don’t either.

Cherub @1: I’d love to think you’re right, but the ‘grassroots’ Tory backlash to yesterday’s LibDem backlash suggests that, in the power struggle that this will become within the Tory party, Gove may fare pretty well. Cameron and his coterie know they need to keep the Gove-adoring section of the party as on side as possible, and this may be a very clever leak by Gove and associates aimed not just at taking the LibDems by surprise but also the Tory leadership. He’s not going to give it up easily, judging by his HoC performance yesterday.

Tim @2: Agreed that the press is key problem, which is why I think a fairly straightforward ’70% of your children are at some risk of scrapheap’ with these plans approach from Labour is needed, alongside the development of a coherent secondary education policy for itself.

Education is always a poisoned challice.

The irony is that if Gove’s plans work, all that will happen is that the tabloids will
accuse him of dumbing down qualifications to make them easier to pass. If they don;t work and large numbers fail – then he will have presided over a decline in standards.

The debates about education are so ill informed and most of the time based on issues people have with their own schooling, that no education secretary can ever win. (So you may as well do the right thing)

The puirpose of GCSEs or O levels or whatever is simply to filter people between those capable of doing a-levels (or whatever they are called now) and those who aren’t. I doubt any employer would ever look at the results or ask for proof. Previous experience is the most important thing on any CV, and considering people with degrees are struggling to get bar work – any reforms to GCSEs will have no effect whatsoever on the ability of people to obtain that first entry level job – most of which will be obtained through family contacts anyway.

Do this and you are thinking too locally.
The UK has plummeted down the Global education standards to 27th.

This might not matter if you’re selling deep-fried mars bars, but it certainly matters if you want to do anything exceptional. And if we don’t, the rest of the World will…

Shrugged @5:

Oh so it’s 27th now, is it? You might want to read the link in the OP about the lies behind the ‘plummeted’ story.

Why is it always ‘plummeted’? Is that the verb recommended in the briefing note being used by Phillip Blond, Toby Young, Liz Truss (to name the ones I’ve seen) in recent days.

Actually Gove in parliament yesterday, presumably knowing that the league table position stuff does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny and that he’s being called out (e.g. see Guardian editorial today), didn’t use them, instead opting for the raw scores – still wrong, but a step in the right direction towards honesty with the OECD data.

This might not matter if you’re selling deep-fried mars bars, but it certainly matters if you want to do anything exceptional

No, not really. As noted, the alleged plummeting is fictional anyway – but in order to do things which are exceptional, you need to have an exceptionally well educated elite. Which the UK does, and always has; that’s the one way in which its educational system is unequivocally a great success.

There are all sorts of very good reasons to ensure that people outside of the academic elite are well educated (and the GCSE system does a hell of a lot better at this than the grammar/sec mod/CSE system) – but “international competitiveness” ain’t one. There’s no reason at all why the reading and maths skills of the 75th percentile of Brits should affect our ability to lead the world at jet engines or microprocessors.

This creates a scary picture for parents. For not only will the 25% be consigned to the scrap heap, there’s another 25% of so at significant risk of being consigned, because we know that right up to the 48% percentile we’re talking fail-grade.

Having read Unity’s piece on this (linked from the main page), I think some work needs to be done to explain why the proposed two-tier system is iniquitous, and the current two tier system should remain.

Under the current system, bottom tier GCSE candidates can achieve a C, which is indistinguishable to employers from a C on a top tier paper. Under Gove’s system, this wouldn’t be possible: the highest possible bottom tier mark would be a) in an exam system viewed as “the one for stupid kids” b) considered equivalent to a D.

@5

“Plummeted”

BZZZZZZZZT!!!

You are channelling Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips AICMFP

Hang on. English school standards are rubbish. We are one of the most developed countries in the world, yet Russian school children are better educated than we are. There is a problem, and quite frankly I don’t give a s**t what statistics say. Many foreign students have far tougher school careers.

Its time we stop pussy footing about. The school system is not the best, by any means, and we as a highly developed nation should have the best education. Keep up the pressure Gove. Get them educated properly.

Note to Labour supporters: you don’t have to say everything is black because the Conservatives say its white. This is a countries future, not school yard antics. (no pun intended)

@6 – ‘plummeted’ is just as hyperbolic as ‘terror’ in the op ed. Everyone knows GCSEs are a piece of piss so simple kneejerk opposition hardly helps anyone.

There is a problem, and quite frankly I don’t give a s**t what statistics say.

In which case, you are a halfwit and shouldn’t be allowed an opinion on the matter.

The statistics are *how we know whether or not there is a problem*. Anything else is just ignorant pontificating.

Under Gove’s system, this wouldn’t be possible: the highest possible bottom tier mark would be a) in an exam system viewed as “the one for stupid kids” b) considered equivalent to a D.

Well, that’s reasonably easily remediable isn’t it? At least the second half of it is. And the first half is already partly the case, because lower ability candidates currently sit the foundation tier exams – “the one for stupid kids”.

People complaining about the introduction of a two tier educational system seem to be unaware that there are currently about four or five tiers…

“I think some work needs to be done to explain why the proposed two-tier system is iniquitous, and the current two tier system should remain.”

Foundation GCSEs can achieve a C, which is a pass. They also don’t necessarily have to be put on to the foundation level until it’s clear that the difficulty of a normal GCSE paper would lead the child to achieve less than the grade they should through stress/frustration/panic.

The proposed system doesn’t care that a seemingly limited child may be able to compose themselves for exams, nor that a seemingly bright kid may completely flake out as they can’t deal with the examination process easily.

There is no problem with having tiering in the provision of exam papers…it’s better to be able to rigorously make sure that someone is definitely able to pass a subject, albeit at a basic level through a foundation paper, than risk them being deemed a fail despite their actual ability. It’s the pre judgement that is the problem here, as well as other announcements that could all too easily just disadvantage those without a “traditional” aptitude for education.

However on this issue I’d be all for an actual end of course individual person to person interview/demonstration session, so that it can be figured out just how able a student is properly, without relying on the ambiguity of how they perform in a 2 hour session of hardcore memory recall.

Toby Young was on newsnight yesterday talking about the terrible situation of 40% of kids failing at GCSEs. It would definitely be good if Labour and Tories could really spell out that if these reforms go ahead we might look back fondly at the 40% failure rate, as we set a base level of 25% failure as standard without opportunity to reduce that, and work up from there.

Gove obviously wants to take education back to the fifties, where we had a small elite and the rest were educated to be good little workers, enforced of course by corporal punishment.

I’m not so sure this will be popular with parents. Parents are used to GCSEs and will not want their children leaving school with a load of useless CSEs.

As a science teacher who has also taught Maths and English extensively, I can confirm that GCSE exams test knowledge just like the old GCEs did. All this ‘testing ability’ is not something I recognise. They just don’t go into as much depth as the old GCEs. And certainly in science they are easier. I’m definitely no fan of Gove, Wilshaw or the Tories but those are the facts regarding the exams, as I see it at any rate. They’ll not be replacing GCSEs with GCEs without making sure the pass rate is largely similar as no govt wants to be seen to be presiding over a big drop in results, which is what would happen. Many young teachers would struggle to teach them from what I’ve seen, but that’s another story.

Unfortunately, many of the students I deal with (in a just below average comp) don’t have the literacy or numeracy to succeed in exams and we seem hell bent on results, grades, Ofsted, league tables etc rather than helping pupils develop the competencies required to enjoy an interesting and stimulating life.

I am also sick of ‘employers’ claiming they cannot get suitable people as half of these employers seem to be pretty thick themselves. The businesswoman on QT last night was a case in point – she might be wealthy and own a company but I doubt she’s ever enjoyed good book. She could hardly express herself. Still it hasn’t held her back – if that’s what we want for our children.

I doubt anything much will change as just like governments, I expect we get the education for our children that we deserve.

As a science teacher who has also taught Maths and English extensively, I can confirm that GCSE exams test knowledge just like the old GCEs did. All this ‘testing ability’ is not something I recognise. They just don’t go into as much depth as the old GCEs. And certainly in science they are easier.

I personally think this is ok. I don’t know why GCSEs should be something that defines only a small set of people as successful. By the nature of 12-16 education you have to be broad, and a testing of ability to understand the basics on a wide range, giving students the opportunity to work out what areas of education they are enthusiastic about, and showing whether students are on top of that basic subject knowledge or simply just able to grasp it….it is fine by me.

Now if A-Levels were as broad and easy I’d have an issue, since that is the point at which we need to actually be assessing ability properly.

I’m definitely no fan of Gove, Wilshaw or the Tories but those are the facts regarding the exams, as I see it at any rate.

The exams will of course appear easier, the question is whether the variety and number of the “top level” questions in the paper are sufficient enough to determine if the top 15% of results are actually of the right quality to get that grade.

Sure, kids might have to answer half a paper that is essentially foundation level, and they should breeze through that…but if the exams are constructed properly then that relatively small end part of the exam should accurately tell us what we need to know about that kid’s relative ability.

If it doesn’t then we just need to tweak the exams as they’re formed, not throw the whole system out.

They’ll not be replacing GCSEs with GCEs without making sure the pass rate is largely similar as no govt wants to be seen to be presiding over a big drop in results, which is what would happen.

Well, that all depends on how statistics are defined. What you’ll most likely see is a JUMP in results, as fewer kids are given the opportunity to pass O-Levels, and thus more of the people that take O-Levels pass. By taking 25% of students out of the equation, you leave (in theory) only 15% of all students failing at O-Levels if the “ease” is the same. Suddenly your “pass rate” goes from 60% to 80%. In theory they could drop the standard of O-Levels and still achieve a better “pass rate” depending on how they present it.

In the statistics they’ll put a little footnote that says you can’t compare pass rates due to the change in how results are measured. Politicians will ignore this when they quote to the press.

Unfortunately, many of the students I deal with (in a just below average comp) don’t have the literacy or numeracy to succeed in exams and we seem hell bent on results, grades, Ofsted, league tables etc rather than helping pupils develop the competencies required to enjoy an interesting and stimulating life.

hear hear, a ridiculous situation.

“because lower ability candidates currently sit the foundation tier exams – “the one for stupid kids”.”

But employers don’t know whether someone sat foundation tier or not – if they actually care about GCSE results (and I’d wager they don’t – they look at degree or not and previous experience – plus many simply have their own literacy and numeracy tests as part of the recruitment process).

This is basically Gove doing political posturing – if he gave a shit about standards he’d look to the countries with the best systems – namely Finland – and copy them. Except Finland has a completely different approach to the standard right wing narritive of league tables and competition.

And comparing standards now with 50 years ago is apples and oranges anyway, something primarily used by the daily mail to re-assure their computer illiterate readers they aren’t as stupid as the younger generation. Kids 50 years ago didn’t know how to use PCs and were largely training for the industries of the time. As John B said – we have excellent education for the elite, and the people below that are not training to be cannon fodder in manufacturing. They are largely expected to be working in service based industries, where beyond a min standard of literacy, numeracy and ability to use a PC, the main skills are soft skills such as communication, working in a team, time management etc, and where career success is likely to be down to networking. Not things you can easily assess in an exam situation or where results at 16 are even remotely relevant.

The whole thing is more to do with Gove’s positioning for his long-term leadership ambitions. The Daily Mail fawned over him yesterday as the “only true Conservative in the cabinet” – presumably the intention behind the link. His recent hysterical attack on Leveson was all part of the same strategy – reassuring the media he’ll be their mate in return for support when the time comes. I doubt he has no intention of bringing in this change – he just wants to establish himself as the natural candidate of the swivel-eyed right, thwarted by the Lib Dems and their Cameroonian fellow travellers.

sorry, “the intention behind the leak”, not link

Except Finland has a completely different approach to the standard right wing narritive of league tables and competition.

Rigorous academic selection and compulsory education only to 15, I seem to recall.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/19/cameron-isnt-the-most-socialist-education-system-in-the-oecd-brilliant/

“This is a countries future, not school yard antics. (no pun intended)”

But the appalling grammar and spelling was intended, was it ?

@13. john b

No the reason why statistics don’t matter that much is that “halfwits” like yourself can’t figure out that they can be manipulated to say whatever you want.

In any event it doesn’t support you argument because the stats show a falling standard.

We are being left behind by the Russian’s, Chinese, Korean’s, Japanese, even many eastern European countries. Thats before we even look at Mainland Europe.

English students are not getting the international qualified position they used to. The GCSE average since introduction, with its steadily increasing average, shows that it is a box ticking exercise…halfwit

Funny thing: in private conversation all the teachers I talk to think that standards have fallen. But if I look at a left wing website, it always tells me that they, and almost every other person in the country, are entirely wrong, and that only they, the enlightened progressives are right. All evidence to the contrary was all made up.

26

There has always been a past golden age where standards were so much higher, the Victorians probably invented the concept. But society and technology have advanced so much since the introduction of the GCE in 1951, we need exams which reflect the needs of the here and now.

And what is the evidence that standards have dropped?

.To fight this stupid idea of Gormless Gove, ask parents do you want your children to take CSEs?
“Everyone knows” is a Leonard Cohen song. We don’t all know “GCSEs are a piece of piss”.
All methods of measuring educational success are open to interpretation. GCSEs are in need of reform, but not by a return to the O levels/CSEs divide.
This will probably not happen; it is probably part of Gove’s campaign to be leader of the Tories.
If it does happen, God knows how League Tables would work. I imagine ”free” schools will not enter any pupils for the CSEs. CSEs will be seen as an exam for “comprehensive kids”.

Steveb

find yourself a Physics, Biology or Chemistry paper from 1980 and one from this year, or better still several of each. Do the same for Maths. Then you will know for yourself. Some of those science papers will doubtless include some fairly lengthy written answers – these certainly would test today’s candidates in terms of literacy alone. I’m a lifelong socialist, not sticking up for Gove’s hare-brained scheme, but I am fed up with people insisting there is no lowering of standards or that different things are tested now. You will also be surprised at the lack of maths in science papers these days compared to 20-30 years ago (and on the science curriculum).

Neither do I think the education system was ‘better’ in the past. But as someone who has taught for many years and also marks GCSE papers, in my opinion the content of courses and exams is of a lower standard. I’m not complaining though as it suits many of the students of today better.

Has Michael Gove denounced Margaret Thatcher, of whom the replacement of O-levels with GCSEs was the very worst domestic policy, and that is saying quite, quite something?

Has he explained why there is any remaining need for a qualification at 16 when the school-leaving age is in any case to be raised in the near future?

Has he asked why commercial schools, which are tax-exempt as charities rather than being taxed as the businesses that they are, hardly ever use anything like the export strength IGCSE favoured in Saint Helena and other old outposts, but instead content themselves with fleecing the gullible by being merely adept at getting people through exams that are largely rubbish anyway?

Has he stopped to wonder why in the case of examination boards the application of “free” market principles to the provision of a public service has proved an unmitigated disaster, including for the business community more widely, raising the question of whether that might also be true elsewhere?

Most importantly, has he dared to mention that there is no conceivable parliamentary majority for this reform, since the people whose vote-splitting won it for Thatcher both in 1983 and in 1987 remain as devoted as ever to what Sue Slipman, one of David Owen’s closest allies, called “the classless opportunities provided by Thatcherism”?

Yet Owen himself is now close to Ed Miliband, under whom Labour alone now represents the Union as a first principle, any concept of English identity, a universal postal service bound up with the monarchy, the Queen’s Highways rather than toll roads owned by faraway petrostates, Her Majesty’s Constabulary rather than the British KGB that is the impending “National Crime Agency”, the National Health Service rather than piecemeal privatised provision by the American healthcare companies that pay Andrew Lansley (another old SDP hand), keeping Sunday special, no Falkland Islands oil to Argentina, a free vote on the redefinition of marriage, a referendum on continued membership of the EU, the historic regimental system, aircraft carriers with aircraft on them, the State action necessary in order to maintain the work of charities and of churches, and the State action necessary in order to maintain a large and thriving middle class.

Let Labour alone also promise to legislate for the restoration of the O-levels that it voted to save in the first place. Let Labour alone promise that ultimate legislative reversal of Thatcherism. No one else could, even if they wanted to, which they do not.

Ministerial defence of the grammar schools came from “Red Ellen” Wilkinson of the Jarrow Crusade, and from her successor, George Tomlinson. Their academic defence came from Sidney Webb, author of the old Clause IV, and from R H Tawney. Their vigorous practical defence came from Labour councillors and activists around the country, not least while Thatcher, as Education Secretary, was closing so many that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled.

They were protected in Kent by a campaign long spearheaded by Eric Hammond, the veteran leader of the electricians’ and plumbers’ union, who was a lifelong member of the Labour Party. They were restored by popular demand, as soon as the Berlin Wall came down, in what is still the very left-wing former East Germany. And the public successfully defended them in, again, the Social Democratic heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Within and around the very academic Labour Government of the day, there was great concern that the events of 1968 would lead to a loss of State funding for universities, and thus to a loss of academic freedom. C B Cox and A E Dyson were Labour supporters when they initiated the Black Papers, and Cox was vilified by the Thatcher Government and its apologists when he resisted its, their and her Gradgrindian philistinism, epitomised by her replacement of O-levels with GCSEs, her worst ever domestic policy, right down there with Blair’s reclassification of cannabis.

As much as possible of the anything but Gradgrindian, anything but philistine grammar school and O-level tradition was maintained at classroom level by individual, often very left-wing teachers until they themselves retired. To say the least, they would have had no objection to the inclusion of Latin in the English Baccalaureate, any more than Andy Burnham, with his English degree from Cambridge, could really have shared the view of those who objected to that inclusion.

Full employment, workers’ rights, strong trade unions, municipal services (including council housing), public ownership and the Welfare State made possible the civilised and civilising world of the trade unions and the co-operatives, of the Workers’ Educational Association and the Miners’ Lodge Libraries, of the pitmen poets and the pitmen painters, of the brass and silver bands, of the male voice choirs, of the people’s papers rather than the redtop rags, of the grammar schools, and of the Secondary Moderns that were so much better than what has replaced them.

A new educational charity should elect to Associateship those pupils in all schools who, on leaving the Sixth Form at 18, had attained since beginning Year 10 examination results at or above the average in the remaining state grammar schools, both in terms of the marks themselves, and in terms of the range of subjects studied. It should also elect to Fellowship those teachers whose pupils attained such results over 10 consecutive years.

Associateship would be automatic, so that hostile schools or whoever else would not be able to deny it to anyone. The most prestigious universities would be contacted in order to make the Associateship an admission requirement. And this charity would be called after a Labour politician who fought to defend the grammar schools as the ladder of working-class advancement. There are plenty to choose from: Ellen Wilkinson, George Tomlinson, Sidney Webb, R H Tawney, Eric Hammond, to name but a few.

That would be a start, anyway.

Ed Miliband and Jon Cruddas, over to you.

29

I have listened to this argument before, the fact is, examination papers are designed to reflect the course or possibly the other way round. Students today would not pass the 1980 paper and neither would the students of 1980 pass current examinations.
My son took history and I was impressed by the analytical skills required, when I took history it was about remembering facts and dates. Now if you value memorizing data then I suppose facilitating students to analyse facts (a different skill) could be seen as a drop in standards.

All schools now offer IT, something which didn’t happen in 1980 and this is what education needs to do – reflect the here and now.

On the other hand, you are obviously an experienced teacher and I am not, if you don’t want to return to the days of the GCE, what do you suggest to address what you perceive as a lowering of standards?

Generally, we’ve gotten crap at perfectly recalling something in exact detail, but gotten really good at finding it again with google.

30

Ellen Wilkinson was indeed a leading proponent of grammar schools and was mainly responsible for the 1944 Education Act, which was widely supported by both Labour and the tories. The said act was formulated on the basis of research carried-out by the educational psychologist, Cyril Burt. Ellen Wilkinson died long before it came to light that Burt’s research was fraudulant and he was posthumously stripped of his knighthood.

We are being left behind by the Russian’s, Chinese, Korean’s, Japanese, even many eastern European countries. Thats before we even look at Mainland Europe.

When did you go to school? If the answer is “recently”, then your inability to construct a grammatical sentence is indeed something of an indictment of language teaching, whilst your inability to understand data is something of an indictment of maths teaching. If, as I suspect, the answer is “ages ago”, then not so much.

(the most recent OECD rankings show the UK significantly ahead of Russia and all other eastern European countries except Poland and Estonia, by the way. To the extent that the UK is losing ground, this reflects improvements made by other countries, not declining absolute standards.)

English students are not getting the international qualified position they used to.

What does this even mean?

The GCSE average since introduction, with its steadily increasing average, shows that it is a box ticking exercise…halfwit

…and your inability to use deductive reasoning is a bit of a black mark against science teaching, too. “Steadily increasing average” is evidence for some or all of combination of 1) kids are learning more; 2) teachers are teaching to the test more 3) grades are being inflated (most likely all three at once). It isn’t evidence for “GCSEs are a box-ticking exercise”.

“In any event it doesn’t support you argument because the stats show a falling standard.

We are being left behind by the Russian’s, Chinese, Korean’s, Japanese, even many eastern European countries. Thats before we even look at Mainland Europe.”

No we’re not. Our educational attainment is improving year on year, mainly (I would suggest) due to the fact that we have a comprehensive education system that is essentially filling the gap left by our now 40-50 year olds that suffered at the hands of the 11+ system. You talk about manipulating statistics to say anything, then claim very broad views of data as something that there is no guarantee of.

And even then, there’s no evidence that they are leaving us behind, mainly because our attainment is improving at a much faster rate, but also because there is no guarantee of those countries having as high a standard of education, only that they have *attained* the education.

Compare instead the amount of people who have completed higher education, and suddenly one of the top in the world, certainly one of the fastest growing. But at what price of standards? Russia jumped between 1992 and 2002, doubling the number of adults who achieved higher education graduation…though this includes military and police facilities too…and now the Russians have decided that their policy to get more graduates has been achieved at a possible DEVALUATION of the standards of their higher education.

You, and most that talk about these statistics, conflate attainment with standards. So I’m with John B, it’s all well and good saying other countries are doing better than us in terms of getting adults to get their piece of paper that says they are educated, but prove that those pieces of paper are worth more to UK, even global, employers than the same piece of paper from a student of the UK.

For an interesting analysis of just how robust claims of our decline are, see here… http://www.ioe.ac.uk/Study_Departments/J_Jerrim_qsswp1109.pdf

Lee,

I could paste links here to the many studies that show the opposite.

Instead, at the risk of repeating myself and annoying people, I would recommend anyone that wants to discover the reality should dig out some past papers and compare them with today’s. I know there is an ‘apples and oranges’ argument people like to use when this is suggested, but we’re all big enough and clever enough to allow for that. Every single person I have shown 1980s papers to has had kittens. Try it. One notable difference is that the way the questions are presented in quite dense writing and terminology would severely hamper a good number of pupils who would be able to ‘access’ modern papers reasonably easily. And sadly, by ‘access’ I really mean ‘read and understand’.

Whether the changes have been beneficial to teachers, society or children is not the point although in terms of teaching, the syllabus today is more interesting and varied and can be used by imaginative teachers to stimulate pupils critical thinking in several areas of life. So perhaps the teacher ultimately has more influence than the exam and syllabus – if they themselves are rounded intelligent people…the most important things children take from good teachers aren’t on the syllabus anyway.

If the exam papers of the past produced better results, why have those results gone on to write inferior exam papers?

37

‘Whether the changes have been beneficial to teachers, society or children is not the point’

The point – education IS supposed to be beneficial to the children and, consequently, to society. It appears to me that you personally dislike the current system rather than are offering anything objective. Perhaps you would be happier if knowledge was less accessable, maybe blinding people with science and technical terms, that’s always a good one.

Your last paragraph says it all.

Keep your prejudices to yourself.

What I mean when I say it’s “not the point” is that I am not commenting on whether the exams and associated changes have been beneficial or not. I am not giving my opinion on the change,merely stating that in my opinion the exams are now a fair bit easier than they were, taking into account syllabus changes, format changes, and wording of papers. Do you notice that?

I knew engaging with professional internet commentators without experience of the subject matter would be a mistake. Anyway for the record. I am happy enough with the current exams and syllabus not to wish to see a change. If I preferred knowledge to be less accessible I wouldn’t have wasted my time teaching in three countries.

People who are claim they are being blinded by science are usually too lazy to do any of the work to understand something themselves. Like I said, don’t take my word for it, do some empirical research, try some papers, have a look on Bad Science in the Guardian, read the RSC publications on the matter. Use some of the skills we teach children today.

And don’t insult me by inferring things about my values and attitude to teaching that you have no idea of. I’m sorry if you had some bad teachers, it wasn’t my fault.

40

If being prejudiced means that I believe that education is there for the benefit of children and society, then I will continue to hold on to those prejudices.

And aren’t you being a tad arrogant in your supposition that posters on LC can’t engage in a reasonable debate because ‘we are not experienced’.

@31 I made a valid request for you to suggest (as a teacher) ways which you perceive we could address the problems you assert exist, if you don’t want to bring back the GCE. You didn’t reply but made snarky and arrogant remarks @37 about apples and pears.

@37 You also suggest that children today could not understand old exam papers because of ‘the quite dense writing and terminology’. This is actually a comment about communication, not about the understanding of the subject, hence my reason for ‘blinding people with science’.

At a personal level, I get pissed-off with hearing that educational standards have dropped and, by virtue of association, our children are somehow less smart than previous generations. I strongly suspect that many older adults, who achieved qualifications in the past, such as A Levels and degrees, resent the fact that they are not as elitist now. Instead of around 6% of the population gaining a first degree it is now nearer 36%, and I absolutely believe that it is because the old system was flawed.

Every single person I have shown 1980s papers to has had kittens.

If you were to broaden your sample beyond female cats, it might be more useful than the tedious anecdata that it currently is.

One notable difference is that the way the questions are presented in quite dense writing and terminology would severely hamper a good number of pupils who would be able to ‘access’ modern papers reasonably easily

ie “O-level papers were badly written”. I’m a professional writer. “Dense writing and terminology”, if trying to communicate a specific concept, is the same thing as “bad writing”. If something is complex, sure, it needs to be complex; if you can express something using simple words, then you’re a cunt if you don’t.

(yes, that was an example).

‘terror’ is grotesque hyperbole. Gove is a fool, but language like that just undermines your argument.

42
LOL

@ 43 Lamia

“‘terror’ is grotesque hyperbole. Gove is a fool, but language like that just undermines your argument.”

10 shiny pennies say that Paul didn’t use the word “terror”; rather that Sunny decided to put it in the headline under the impression that he was helping. That’s normally the reason for Mailesque headlines around here.

Lol,

you internet boys are fun. I cannot believe the way you attempt to paint opinions and beliefs onto my comments. And to call my comments anecdata? Hilarious, as IU suspect I’m the only commenter on the entire thread familiar with exam papers from the 80s and today, but that’s free internet comment I suppose.

So just do the fucking papers and make your own minds up. Then you wont have to resort to inane and childish insults. Do the papers. Inform yourselves instead of just spouting without any concrete evidence whatsoever. No better way to find out. Is there? But you wont. Yet you’ll still have the same opinion.

‘One research approach would be to measure current kids’ performance on the exams of the past. This is what the Royal Society of Chemistry did in their report The Five Decade Challenge in 2008, running the project as a competition for 16-year-olds, which netted them 1,300 self-selecting higher-ability kids.

They sat tests taken from the numerical and analytical components of O-level and GCSE exams over the past half century, and performance against each decade rose over time: the average score for the 1960s questions was 15%, rising to 35% for the current exams (though with a giant leap around the introduction of GCSEs, after which scores remained fairly stable)’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/21/ben-goldacre-bad-science-exams

So quite a significant differential in this sample, related to the decade the test was issued.

An additional factor to consider in recent years is how well parents perform on course work, sorry, I meant assisting children doing their course work.

Although

Although I think Michael Gove is probably the worst Education Secretary in many years, he’s right on this one. We have one exam trying to do too many things, and it was sussed by everyone except the pupils (and many parents) after about a year. Fundamentally any grade less than a C is worthless (except for filtering pupils into post-16 recovery streams such as Foundation courses).

As has been said, this would not involve a radical change as there are already multiple stream courses, but the problem with this approach is that it perpetuates the fiction that pupils are studying the same course: they’re not, but having this fiction about equality means that you cannot craft a suitable curriculum for the less able and/or less developed.

The real question is “do we need an exam at 16 at all?” Virtually everyone stays on to 18 anyway. Why not just do away with all formal exams before 18, and then have a properly levelled end-of-school exam then, as I believe is the case in Finland

“The real question is “do we need an exam at 16 at all?” Virtually everyone stays on to 18 anyway. Why not just do away with all formal exams before 18, and then have a properly levelled end-of-school exam the”

This – people say a GCSE grade below C is useless. But one above C is pretty useless on its own anyway – all it does is enable you to carry on the subject. I seriously doubt any employer looks at GCSE grades. They look at the highest level of qualification achieved (then reject the candidate for being over-qualified), and then move onto previous employment experience and judge whether the person has ‘soft’ skills like communication and teamworking.

If we were to seriously reform qualifications to reflect the needs of the workplace, then for 90% of the population we’d be abolishing a large chunk of the maths syllabus, large parts of the sciences, most of the humanities, and the entire content of english literature and art. We’d be freeing up the best teachers in those subjects to teach the other 10% who would then go on to get degrees in these subjects.

We’d then heavily promote business studies, marketing and human resource management for the sudents not quite in the top 10% but intelligent enough for a degree in these subjects from an old poly, and introduce GCSEs in ‘communication skills’ (pratical exam involving misselling an energy tarriff to a pensioner) , ‘teamworking’ and ‘dealing with pissed morons’ for the less able students to prepare them for the workplace.

Not quite the system I’d want my kids to go through, but one that more accurately reflects what the business sector actually means when they say they want kids prepared for the world of work.

@ 49 Mark

“The real question is “do we need an exam at 16 at all?” Virtually everyone stays on to 18 anyway. ”

What actual figure is “virtually everyone” standing in for there? I recall a lot of my peers finishing school at 16, and I was brought up in a mainly middle-class area where, I suspect, more people than average went on to college.

Even if the number of people who finish at 16 is smaller than I think, you’re still talking about some people spending 11 years in school and having nothing to show for it at the end. Unless you mean we should make schooling compulsory to 18, which is worth discussing.

There’s merit to the idea of allowing less academic kids to do vocational subjects with a different exam, allowing them to showcase their talents and get qualifications more impressive than (and not directly comperable to) a GCSE E-grade. The main problem is deciding when kids should be put into one bracket or another (and whether or not the decision should be made for them). There’s a real risk of pushing kids into a lifetime of work that doesn’t suit them just because they were late bloomers and got pushed into the vocational camp by default. Speaking of which, what happens when a kid is bad at academic AND vocational stuff? I bet they’ll end up in vocational, which could devalue the whole thing.

49

With some reservations, I agree that doing away with formal exams until the age of 18 would be a good idea as @30 has pointed-out, if school leaving age is to be increased to 18.

I’m not so sure that parents and employers aren’t aware of the streaming within the existing GCSEs and the different levels of attainment each exam reflects, in the same way that past exams did. Even with O levels and CSEs there was grading which indicated best and not so good, which then would influence the academic future of children, just as the present GCSE does today. From memory, most employers valued job applicants who had made the attempt to gain qualifications, even CSEs. One positive aspect of the CSE is that students who improved over the duration of the course could then sit the exam, and an A grade would be the equivalent of an O level, which is a similar principle to the GCSEs.

I’d juist like to clarify one or two points. Abolishing GCSEs and having just one main formal exam at 18 would of necessity require an extension of the education (school or college) leaving age to 18.

On the figures, this site http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/education-leaving-age gives:

NEET (not in education, employment or training) statistics
Labour Force Survey (LFS) – Quarter 4: 2011

Age 16: 6.0% change of + 0.9% from Q4 2010
Age 17: 7.8% change of + 1.2% from Q4 2010
Age 18: 14.9% change of + 1.0% from Q4 2010

Age 16-18: 9.6% change of + 1.0% from Q4 2010
Age 19-24: 18.7% change of – 0.1% from Q4 2010
Age 16-24: 15.9% change of + 0.3% from Q4 2010

Source: Department for Education – February 2012

Obviously, some of the 90% or so who are not NEETs will be in work, but that could be covered by decent apprenticeship schemes.

I would also stress that I feel ALL formal exams pre-18 should go, including the absurd National Curriculum SATs.

@ 53 Mark

As a side issue (but perhaps an important one), can we justify forcing 18 year olds, i.e. legal adults, to partake in education?

Bah…wordpress ate my comment again.

“There’s a real risk of pushing kids into a lifetime of work that doesn’t suit them just because they were late bloomers and got pushed into the vocational camp by default”

There are numeorus adults who left school with no qualifications only to obtain good degrees years later as mature students.There are also thick upper class kids who have good qualifications bought for them, only to fail their degrees (because a degree requires you to work for yourself rather than have it spoonfed to you) and who only avoid the unemployment/drugs/petty crime lifestyle due to class privillage.

Whatever system of examination – 11 plus, o’level/CSE or GCSE – that we settle on is largely a secondary debate that often resembles 2 bald men fighting over a comb. We assess teenagers (or earlier) using a flawed system of assesment that many of them fuck up through stress, hormones raging through their bodies, inadequete teaching etc, and pretend that the results are anything more than a filtering system to sort of those deemed capable of a degree and those who are not. And we usually get that wrong anyway.

There are no careers that can be determined at 16, and if there were it would be pointless as there are no jobs for life anyway. I would wager that numerous people reading this thread have changed career at least once, and have undertaken additional training for it, and the vast majority of people reading this are not doing jobs specifically related to their qualifications.

Effectively what I am saying is that pre-18 education only has a useful function as a filtering system for determining who has the capability of learning medicine, engineering, law etc. For everyone else we would be better off considering what makes a rounded person – which at the least would involve most lessons involving far greater emphasis on soft skills and life skills. And then place far more investment in adult education, retraining etc rather than getting the diminishing returns of additional money on schools largely populated by kids who don’t want to be there.

@ Planeshift

Not a bad idea. Certainly we should be teaching more life skills. A lot of people can’t cook, don’t understand finance, know shockingly little about our political system. Meanwhile I can’t say with any confidence that I could bleed a radiator without help from the internet.

How about putting some effort into introducing kids to interesting jobs and fields of all kinds, in the hope that many of them will have a lifelong calling awakened in them? If we can help to create a system in which more people enjoy their work, we can watch both productivity and quality of life go up.

@ 54. Chaise Guevara

@ 53 Mark

As a side issue (but perhaps an important one), can we justify forcing 18 year olds, i.e. legal adults, to partake in education

A valid point. I don’t think we could justify a narrow “stay at school” approach, but if a sufficiently wide range of choices was made available, including apprenticeships , were made available, then I think we could.

@ 55. Planeshift

A good point about not specialising before 18. The English/Welsh system forces specialisation at far too early a stage, and much could be done to broaden education, at the cost of somewhat less depth.

Late-comer to the thread with no pro-Gove axe to grind but there is no doubt that standards have declined (I think that I have previously explained that maintaining the pass %age when schools were encouraged or dragooned to increase the numbers taking ‘O’ levels and CSEs from those thought to have a good chance of passing to every child was bound to reduce the pass/fail threshold). Having taken ‘O’ levels and thirty-odd years later a GCSE (grade A pass) and looked at some of my children’s coursework (despite my elder son’s categorical refusal to consider asking for help and the younger just ignoring me*) I know they have. When New Labour introduced ‘A/S’ level’s the combined size of the two new chemistry textbooks for ‘A/S’ and A2 were only two-thirds of the size of the old ‘A’ level textbook (when a teenage boy complains about having less to study, it’s a pretty damning criticism). There’s stuff in my younger son’s degree course I studied when I was 15. At some point an accumulation of anecdata becomes data. Saturday’s FT has a letter from a teacher saying that 7-year-olds cannot understand “place value” of numbers so they cannot add up numbers with more than one digit – when I was 6, my class was adding up columns of 3, 4 and sometimes 5 digit numbers to practise our arithmetic skills. It would be nice to think I was a mathematical genius but *every* child in the class?!?
@ 55 Planeshift. You have never met my butcher: he has told me that he decided that he wanted to be a butcher from the age of 11. He has job satisfaction and a good business (because he is good butcher) that will last until after he retires. There *are* jobs for life, particularly in the public sector – doctors, dentists, etc. I have been working in one particular job specifically related to several of my qualifications, albeit with different employers/clients (during self-employed periods), for 43 years.
* Interestingly the only subject where boys’ results are still better than girls’ is mathematics where coursework is done in class under supervision.

@ 58 john

“Late-comer to the thread with no pro-Gove axe to grind but there is no doubt that standards have declined [...] Having taken ‘O’ levels and thirty-odd years later a GCSE (grade A pass) and looked at some of my children’s coursework (despite my elder son’s categorical refusal to consider asking for help and the younger just ignoring me*) I know they have. ”

How can you possibly claim that standards have fallen on the basis of comparing an old qualification for more able pupils with a current qualification for everyone? Apples and oranges much?

@ 57 Mark

“A valid point. I don’t think we could justify a narrow “stay at school” approach, but if a sufficiently wide range of choices was made available, including apprenticeships , were made available, then I think we could.”

That would add value (hopefully) to schooling, but I don’t think it’s enough to justify forcing an adult to attend lessons when they don’t want to.

Aside from anything else, how is this to be enforced? Are we going to fine/jail people for failing to attend class? Once they’re 18 you can’t punish the parents.

I suppose we could just change the system so people are defined as adults on the 19th August after their D.O.B., i.e. roughly when they finish school.

“You have never met my butcher: he has told me that he decided that he wanted to be a butcher from the age of 11. He has job satisfaction and a good business (because he is good butcher) that will last until after he retires. ”

One slip of the knife and his fingers go and he can’t be a butcher any more. Then ATOS will ensure he doesn’t get any benefits he might be entitled to, and he’s in the position of having to find another career

@ 61 Planeshift
Yeah, and David Beckham might break his ankle tripping over the ball when he tries to take a corner. Don’t be so bloody rude about a very highly skilled craftsman that you have never met; incidentally until a few months before I moved here my butcher was a grey-bearded gentleman who, together with his two brothers worked for his elderly father, who had inherited the business: when the father died the “boys” chose to take late retirement.
@ Chaise
My grade ‘A’ GCSE is deemed the equivalent of a good ‘O’ level pass, so satsumas and clementines, but that was just one of several examples.Try re-reading (you’ve seen a lot of it before) the rest of the post. My son’s complaint about not having to learn enough for Chemistry ‘A’ level should be a metaphorical coconut landing on your head (I hope that a real one will not!). The whole grade inflation game is to pretend that a “current qualification for everyone” is comparable to an “old qualification for more able pupils”. When CSE started, not everyone took it – at the time I asked one of my friends (the prettiest one, but that isn’t relevant) why she had not stayed on to 16 to take CSE and she said that her teachers did not expect her to pass it. She was *not* stupid, just not academic.