Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

I arrived in London just as GCSEs were coming in. I'd heard of O levels and never heard of CSEs. I was gobsmacked at how many parallel exam boards there - about half the country must have been working for them!

I started teaching BTEC about 30 years ago (b ut I think there were two boards then called BEC and TEC. (also City & Guilds and RSA qualifications). They got rid of it then brought it back. It's a fine course but immensely bureaucratic.

Is it my imagination or could you do a BTEC and then convert that to something like a Higher Diploma (HD - not Scottish Highers) and then you could do an extra year to turn your HD into a BSc or BA?

zagubov wrote: »

For the best students it's phenomenally good. Sue's youngest sounds like he's earned a top grade and I'm delighted to read her news about him. :T

Second that mate:T

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

Is it my imagination or could you do a BTEC and then convert that to something like a Higher Diploma (HD - not Scottish Highers) and then you could do an extra year to turn your HD into a BSc or BA?



Second that mate:T

You could. I was teaching ONCs and HNCs. People who finished the HNCs with a good enough grade could join a science degree part way through. There was a local polytechnic that would grab them. We got one guy into dental school. Obviously at this point they'd have to leave their job and study full-time instead of day-release.

I don't know if these day-release courses are common any more. So many people do degrees straight from school so I'm not sure there's such a demand.

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

You could. I was teaching ONCs and HNCs. People who finished the HNCs with a good enough grade could join a science degree part way through. There was a local polytechnic that would grab them. We got one guy into dental school. Obviously at this point they'd have to leave their job and study full-time instead of day-release.

I don't know if these day-release courses are common any more. So many people do degrees straight from school so I'm not sure there's such a demand.

In the world of practical economics there is a concern that productivity hasn't been rising and thus wages aren't rising as if a company makes $x from your production it can only afford to pay you $x-y where y is cost of capital plus normal profits.

My belief is that part of the problem is that people that would have gone to work aged 18 and functioned perfectly well in the workplace are now starting work aged 22 (3 year degree plus [STRIKE]year on the p155[/STRIKE] year off) in many cases for no obvious gain.

Most of the rest of the 'problem' is the Facebook-MSE paradox where I write a piece of meaningful and insightful economic analysis that 30 years ago I would have been paid for (and thus had it counted as a part of GDP) but which is now not paid for and so is not part of GDP.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

In the world of practical economics there is a concern that productivity hasn't been rising and thus wages aren't rising as if a company makes $x from your production it can only afford to pay you $x-y where y is cost of capital plus normal profits.

My belief is that part of the problem is that people that would have gone to work aged 18 and functioned perfectly well in the workplace are now starting work aged 22 (3 year degree plus [STRIKE]year on the p155[/STRIKE] year off) in many cases for no obvious gain.

Most of the rest of the 'problem' is the Facebook-MSE paradox where I write a piece of meaningful and insightful economic analysis that 30 years ago I would have been paid for (and thus had it counted as a part of GDP) but which is now not paid for and so is not part of GDP.

We've moved to the model of education being a good not a right. Loads of people do a BSc or BA then find it's not much help on the job market so pop back to uni to do a Masters in something more employable. Or they realise their school qualifications don't lead to degrees with employability, and have to do a preliminary Foundation year/year zero. Or they realise the degree's a wrong'un and switch after a year. And many doctorates nowadays are funded for four years study while it used to be three.

We're evolving towards the US model where you're not fully qualified for anything until you're approaching your 30s, and a lot of the menial work is getting done by students needing a casual income to live on.

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't know about this one, but maybe it's because at the cannon fodder end of the spectrum nobody can fail so long as they write their name on the paper.

Having "nobody fails" exams then waters down the achievement of those who get the highest results in the country/ever.

GCSEs were like that. With O levels and CSE you (your teachers) had to choose which one you were doing. If you chose O level and got a D you'd failed. If you chose CSE and got an A you could've got an O level. So they brought in the GCSE... nobody fails, you just get different marks.

Oh it is perfectly possible to fail a BTEC, writing just your name and nothing else would not get you very far at all.

Youngest does on average 4 thousand words per task (some are more, say a distinction task, some are less e.g a pass task), there are several tasks per unit (11 tasks in the unit he handed in yesterday) and he is doing 18 units over 2 years.

Regarding GCSEs , a D is still seen as a fail or equivalent with the old CSE, a level 1 qualification rather than a level 2. It's why youngest had to repeat a year as although he had achieved grades in all his GCSEs, only those with a grade C or above were taken into account for minimum amounts of GCSEs for progression into level 3.

zagubov

SingleSue wrote: »

Oh it is perfectly possible to fail a BTEC, writing just your name and nothing else would not get you very far at all.

Youngest does on average 4 thousand words per task (some are more, say a distinction task, some are less e.g a pass task), there are several tasks per unit (11 tasks in the unit he handed in yesterday) and he is doing 18 units over 2 years.

Regarding GCSEs , a D is still seen as a fail or equivalent with the old CSE, a level 1 qualification rather than a level 2. It's why youngest had to repeat a year as although he had achieved grades in all his GCSEs, only those with a grade C or above were taken into account for minimum amounts of GCSEs for progression into level 3.

That's true. Furthermore, merely passing a BTEC is insufficient for progressing in the subject. It usually means you've peaked and should study something else. It's only Distinction and maybe Merit grades that mean you're making progress.

A number of schools brought in a BTEC level two course for students who were struggling to get a C at GCSE, as there's loads of pressure in schools to get kids qualified in National Curriculum subjects (English, Maths and Science).

I briefly taught O level before it disappeared (and regarded it as really demanding), but never saw CSEs. When the qualifications merged to form GCSEs, most teachers claimed that the CSE philosophy (whatever that was) had won and the new quals were just rebranded CSEs.

silvercar

A number of schools brought in a BTEC level two course for students who were struggling to get a C at GCSE, as there's loads of pressure in schools to get kids qualified in National Curriculum subjects (English, Maths and Science).

This is the crux of the problem, that BTEC was an easier way to get qualifications that were equivalent to the qualification that you wanted but weren't likely to get. It was a lose, lose. If you got it, then people would say you took the easy way. If you failed, it proved the point that you weren't up to the main qualification.

It has now come full circle. Friends daughter has a place to study pgce (post grad teaching qualification) at UCL after doing a degree at a [STRIKE]polytechnic [/STRIKE] university in education studies. Dept of Education now requires all trainee teachers to pass a competence test in maths and english that is broadly grade C gcse. Multiple choice, computer marked. She failed first attempt.

Pyxis

Well.

Yesterday evening we were supposed to be seeing a flamenco concert in a restaurant in the village I'm staying in. An hour before, we were told it had been cancelled due to illness.

Today we were supposed to be seeing a Romeria, (a festival procession with costumes, dancing and singing), but it was uncharacteristically pouring with rain, and the procession never turned up.

It dried up after lunch and has been sunny since.

So the two main Spanish entertainments haven't happened.

X

SingleSue

I challenged my one of my fears today....height.

Went on the Emirates cable car over the Thames from the O2 and back again. My eyes were closed initially and I was shaking like a leaf but I eventually opened my eyes (only a little tiny bit), saw it was OK and then they were fully wide open and I was taking pictures.

My eyes didn't shut once on the way back.

Now sitting in a backstage VIP bar waiting for the concert to start.

elona

Sue

Well done!!

I took my youngest on the York Eye over ten years ago and thought I would be all right but once we got to the top and swayed, then swayed some more etc I did not dare open my eyes. It was all I could do not to beg to be let off but I did not want to give her the embarrassment!!