Tories turn back the clock, it's back to O Levels

Wookster

Yawn

More and more and more students obtain A & A* grades yet literacy & numeracy rates are falling and industry leaders note that students are less and less prepared for life in the working world.

If that isn't enough damming evidence of the need for change then I don't know what is.

ILW

At least an exam proves one can read and write to a certain standard.

purch

I am finding it quite bizarre hearing the opponents of this "announcement" claiming that the old O level/CSE system was a 2 tier system, as if the current system isn't.

Under the old system a Grade 1 at CSE was supposed to be the equivalent of a pass at O Level.

Under the current system, the less academically gifted students take a different examination from the others, which if they do very well in will give them the equivalent of a C grade at GCSE.

I see no real difference.

FTBFun

purch wrote: »

I am finding it quite bizarre hearing the opponents of this "announcement" claiming that the old O level/CSE system was a 2 tier system, as if the current system isn't.

I'm curious as to how having a "2 tier system" is a criticism.

Not every child is the same, nor will they be. I was an academically well-performing child parachuted into a poorly behaved class when changing schools in 1994 as it was felt by some imbecible of a teacher that I'd be a good example (which didn't work, of course) so have precisely zero belief in social engineering as being a prerogative of the state school system.

(My parents didn't actually know the above happened until I told them when I was an adult this was the case, and were not surprisingly livid by which time it was too late).

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Because you're comparing students against one another for that particular year, rather than comparing them to an overall standard that is employed every year.

Its possible for students to do very badly indeed in normative marking and come out with a high grade, and vice versa, depending on how their cohort performs.

The grade boundaries will be different every year. I am not sure if Gove is proposing this but it is basically what made O levels different; otherwise he may as well just take coursework out of GCSEs.

Incidentally guess who profits from this type of marking that inflates minorities grades highly above the majority based on small margins, I can tell you it isn't state school students.

Where largish numbers are concerned, the likelihood of major differences is year on year ability average is likely to be less the impact of year on year marking. So it doesn't seem to me to be a significant problem.
Where smaller groups are concerned (and off hand I don't know the number of exams taken by subject) there may be some need to try to compare year on year exam and their marking.

I don't understand your point about state students.

Grade boundary issues can be easily solved by giving a mark rather than a grade.

GeorgeHowell

Exams like O-levels are, to paraphrase a well known adage, the worst of all academic measurements systems, except for all the others.

Coursework and continuous assessment just make it too easy to plagiarise (esp with the internet), or get an unreasonable degree of outside help. and too easy for teachers to massage up scores in order to to take the strain off themselves.

I don't agree with those saying that continuous assessment better reflects required work skills than exams do. Exams test ability to understand and memorise important facts and concepts, to react quickly and decisively, to communicate lucidly, to meet deadlines, and to work under pressure. These are all key requirements of some kinds of work.

Having said that there are other kinds of work, just as essential, which require these kinds of skills far less. We should have an educational system which points some youngsters towards less academic, vocational training and qualifications which would carry as much weight as O-levels but in different spheres.

As long as education is treated as a political football (by people like the OP) we are likely to lurch from one unsatisfactory state of affairs to another.

CLAPTON

if I understand Gove's parliamentary statement
he proposes

- one exam for all
- a harder exam than now
- no coursework
- no modules and so one exam at year end.


there is no reasonable prospect of a meaningful single harder exam for everyone.

GeorgeHowell

CLAPTON wrote: »

if I understand Gove's parliamentary statement
he proposes

- one exam for all
- a harder exam than now
- no coursework
- no modules and so one exam at year end.


there is no reasonable prospect of a meaningful single harder exam for everyone.

Why not ?

(by the way it was Clegg that torpedoed the idea of two levels of exams lest it should appear elitist)

ILW

Sounds very sensible to me.
Should help sort out the illiterate so they can be worked with.

CLAPTON

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Why not ?

(by the way it was Clegg that torpedoed the idea of two levels of exams lest it should appear elitist)

because the range of abilies is too great
so we either have exams that dont stretch the most acedemic or exams where some will score near zero