ScoobyWon't

Thick kids become teachers, who then teach the next generation even less.

One of the DUO's co-workers is a prime example. Tattoos all over her, fake tots, fake hair, everything on credit, in debt and up the duff. I often wonder if she teaches through example.

David Lock

Slightly off topic but quite interesting.

I saw a programme some while back when they were looking at young street urchins who ran busy vegetable stalls in some downtown market in Brazil. These kids had no schooling whatsoever but they could run the stall selling veggies and instantly calculating prices and giving the right change. But when they were taken out of that environment and asked to repeat the work in a more formal school format they were completely lost.

There's a lesson there somewhere about education but I am not sure what it is

dl

GlesgaKiss

I'm sorry but that's just blatantly wrong. Standards are low and grades meaningless, as Ding states in his OP. Political bias is really the name of the game here - I mean, if your goal is for everyone to be the same and have 'good' grades, you're a lefty, whereas if your goal is to separate the wheat from the chaff and get an elite at the top, you're basically a radical right-wing extremist. No one likes elitism these days, so there are plenty who'd agree with you.

tony de wonderful

It's a kind of game David, being great at chess doesn't mean one can translate it over to World of Warcraft. Both have different rules. I feel our exam focused education just trained kids to be great at the game of exam passing.

Martin2005

Is this an opinion or fact?

If it's fact then please produce some evidence, otherwise please don't call me blatantly wrong

Cheers

btw the only thing that is 'blatant' on this thread is the OP's political bias

GlesgaKiss

And what evidence do you have? Some worthless grades?

Yours is blatant as well.

hodgy0_2

yep same here, which is why my daughter had to do art after school


but I think what has happened -- and prob will happen more is that when previously a "bar" was hit, the grade was given

i.e. if 80% was the mark for an A grade and people achived it, they get an A

but now it is more flexible so that they take the whole exam results and adjust the grade according to how many students they want to get each grade

a bit like "the cut" in golf

Martin2005

I can only base my views on having been round several schools recently, and I have to say I was seriously impressed with what I saw.

I far cry from when I was in school

I really was not being blatant I was and am trying to force a bit of balance into these on-sided threads.

Turbohot

This^ is very interesting. Environment can have a profound effect upon one's performance.

Was there any exchange experiment done as well? Like, if some Maths genious school kids were asked to run a stall in some downtown market, and they caused some disastrous discrepancies in the takings and post-sale stocktake? I reckon it's possible due to the change in the environment.

hodgy0_2

i think so too

apparently if you take Oxbridge Maths graduates and let them loose on the global derivatives and securtisation market

you get a right old c0ckup as well

David Lock

Not that I remember from the programme. But my guess would be that the educated ones would be pretty out of their depth but perhaps learn the ropes faster??

dl

GlesgaKiss

Fair enough. I think there is also a question, though, of what is being taught to a high standard. Take a look at this, for instance - http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher...uiz/q60157217/

It's Scottish Higher level Business Management. I have sort of gathered from previous posts that you may be in management. Have a look around the Business Management questions in the above link and let me know what you think. To me, it's learning terminology and buzzwords. I hated doing this sort of stuff at school for that very reason (I only left in 2004). What is a student actually learning about the management of anything? It could be memorised with ease, but it doesn't develop any kind of critical thinking skills relevant to the running of a business.

Perhaps terminology is acceptable place to start for an 18 year old who's about to leave school and do a management degree at uni? I don't know. I personally don't think so.

English is also a piece of cake. I can't really judge Maths as I've always been terrible at it, so it's all difficult to me.

Bikerboygreen

iTrader: (3)

And to yours! He did some subjects early and some subjects were completed on the basis of a compressed timetable eg, he did further maths in a single term. He has worked really hard and been well supported by some excellent teachers. A lass in a neighbouring village got 17 A*s, which the local paper says is a record!

hodgy0_2

well done to him (kids get a bad press but in my experience they work really hard throughout the year)

must be something in that Yorkshire Water!!!

and it give a lie to that old phrase - Yorkshire born Yorkshire bred, strong in the arm and thick in the head

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

As someone who sees 18 year olds (well all ages actually) apply for uni and has first hand experience with their level of attainment with different qualifications. I can tell you one thing:

The problem, as is often the case, with this issue is that people confuse standards and statistics.

People are quick to cry foul at fluctuations in pass rates, but in and of themselves these are meaningless. What matters most for the worth of any qualification is the appropriateness of the level that the syllabus, associated learning outcomes and marking criteria are pitched at and the fitness of the applicable assessment to discriminate between candidates' performance with respect to the learning outcomes. These are the things that need to be analysed and addressed when entering into a dialogue about standards NOT exam pass rates! This is what industry leaders and university heads have been asking about for ages! % pass stats more often than not are a case of garbage in = garbage out!

It is the above things that have suffered the most under the NL government. Well, that and the absurd idea that x % of our youngsters should attend uni, but as a uni lecturer, probably best not to get me started on that!

Turbohot

Hm. That could be because they spent a long time learning how to learn the new ropes faster. <nods>


I still wonder if the street urchins can also learn the new ropes equally fast (or even faster ) with their natural abilities of reasoning, resilience, adjustment and adapting? The street urchins didn't go through that lengthy learning and development process; unlike the school students. despite of that, they perform efficiently in their familiar environment. To be fair and square, I would add the students' prior learning and moulding time to their 'faster' rope-learning time in the alien downtown environment, and deduct that time from the street urchins' slow rope-learning/no learning time in alien school environment. Then I will come to the conclusion who the winner is.

On a serious note, it will be interesting to see a fair exchange study on it.

Dingdongler

Martin, you should take a few moments to actually read my post in full and digest it before you adopt your normal knee jerk reaction.

Your reaction, by your own admission, 'is to bring some balance' as though you are some sort of Jedi Knight surrounded by the Sith.

Anything I say you will dismiss as political bias. This is patronising and insulting to the extreme because as I'm not a political activist it would suggest that I'm stupid, badly informed and have poor judgement.

You, of course, with your 'perfect balance' see thing's just the way they really are.

If you actually read my post you'll see I had stated that the Tories have frequently disappointed me on many levels. However I singled out two individuals (note, not the party or the leader) as worthy of mention as looking as though actually believed in something more than they believed in popularity.

And also both individuals believe in principles that I agree with.

It is a lazy form of debate on your part to always scream political bias.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

New Scooby 04

Just out of curiosity as a Uni Lecturer do you use intention marking ?

Shaun (ex Uni Lecturer at Manchester)

legb4rsk

I think it's easier today to obtain the very highest grades.
You'd have to be f*ckin' Stephen Hawkins to get an A* in my old school.

It's just all about politics now.Vote for me & all your kids magically become geniuses.

The only true gauge is to compare the UK to the rest of the world.
We need to invest more into the system they use in Germany where you have 3 directions to go; Arts/Creative,Engineering/Science or Academic.
All 3 are held in equal esteem.

hodgy0_2

I am afraid we don't do "investing" in this country

Present a plan with an ROI of over 18 months and you will be laughed out of the room

Our whole economy/social policy is based around the short term

As you rightly point out the technology in the current German cars is born out of investing in engineering 25 years ago

boomer

...well i just got nine out of ten, despite knowing nothing (formally) about "Business Management". Just got Q7 "What can a market map be used to identify?" wrong although i have have several-teen beers, no training in the subject, no previous sample questions, no trial tests etc. Yet i guess that i passed with an A*?

**** me, passing exams/being a business expert is a piece of cake these days

Nice link GK, but extremely worrying

mb

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

Quite a generalisation there! I am a GCSE ICT course leader and we teach students the basics of a wide range of software that creates documents and files the kids will see/use on a daily basis. We try and make our course as creative as possible as that suits the type of kids that come to our school. They love using Photoshop/Flash/Audaciy etc so we choose those units, we also cover internet safety and how to create a basic website (which they enjoy) but they hate using Access. We touch on Access and Excel but a lot question the logic of this as they aren't interested and will never need or want to use it again outside of the class room. I get plenty of kids showing me their websites or animations that they did at home for fun following skills learned in my class, in all my years of teaching I have never had one kid say "I'm doing this ace database at home Sir"...
I believe school should be enjoyable and useful, it should give an insight into what goes on in life and GCSEs should just be a pathway towards a more career focused path of study at A-Level which is where the detail really kicks in.
If you wanted a more technical GCSE then you should have asked about Computing, that is more specialised and 'geeky', ICT is more user friendly for the masses

Dingdongler

That's fine, but the it should NOT be a GCSE. Not everything you do at school needs to examined in this way and given a certificate claiming it is a worthwhile qualification.

This is how kids end up with 13 A stars, many of the subjects may well be fun even kind of useful for everyday life but not actually a qualification.

The most worrying situation is when children ONLY have As in weak/soft subjects like this without maths, languages, sciences etc. The system will have convinced them that they are academic achievers, when actually they are not

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

This is what I was trying to touch on. It seems a quantity over quality for GCSE subjects. It's fundamentally wrong to replace the basic subjects like Maths, English and Science in order to falsify results.

ScoobyDoo555

Don't agree Ding.

As part of a balanced education, you need a wide range of both academic and non-academic subjects. Particularly at GCSE level (of which, with all due respect to the teachers is Level 1 or 2) it's about awareness and exposure to subjects that may not have been initially too popular in the thoughts of the learner.

Using your own background as an example, as a Medical Practitioner (please excuse my definition, as I have no desire to insult your real title should it be different ), you didn't study medicine at school?
The sciences, quite possibly/probably. Then at A-Level (aka Level 3), further study of these sciences?
Then at Uni (Level 4) etc etc etc.

There's no difference in ICT (as you've been quite dismissive of its merits in your last post) - for example, a student gets exposure to Photoshop and Flash @ GCSE.......

The studies computer animation at A-Level and then, for example CGI animation at Uni.

Next thing is they're working either in the Gaming or Film Industry.......


I wholeheartedly agree that the core GCSEs need to have the main focus - FWIW, I work in Further Education and it gets quite tiring having to correct mistake after mistake in the most basic of calculations or essays (yes, I still set essays!! ).

But there's a bigger picture, especially for those learners who don't fit the academic-only profile learning style

Dan

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

As I mentioned earlier, you will most likely find that kids who end up with daft amounts do so because of the number they get in each subject (mostly coursework related ones too!) as an example (depending on the board) they can get four from Science, four from ICT and another four from Public Services, that's why when the results are issued people only pay interest to the stats including English and Maths. Gove, rightly so, wants to move away from this multiple award system.

You could question the real value of practically any GCSE qualification. I have a good one in French, could I have actually coped on my own over there with those skills? Could I bollocks! and don't get me started on History, that's the most outdated subject there is! Realistically all the grades reflect is the attitude of the kids and their willingness to put work in, that's all I'd take out of them if I was an employer. All they really learn at this level is 'taster' skills, to build up useable skills for the workplace they then need to really train further at A-Level and beyond and that's when the qualifications awarded have more true value.

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

That's down to previously set Government targets and pressure on the schools because of this, it looked better for a kid to achieve four C grades from one subject than one A! I disagree with this and we have altered our delivery plan so the kids get less but at a higher grade.

I'm not sure what you mean by replacing Maths, English and Science? They are still very much there and are 'core' subjects so will never get replaced, the main focus is still well and truly on these subjects! IIRC we had OFSTED come in a year early last year to inspect everything because the Maths grades dropped by just 0.3%!!!

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

Totally agree Dan!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Labour got slated for counting how many schools had how many pupils with at least 5 GCSE at A* to C.

Then then had to change it to include Maths and English Language, which they did.

Many schools now put their brighter pupils through maths, English and a science at the end of year ten, (aged 15, not 16), so as to gather more GCSE's by doing others in the last year.

This has recently been slated by OFSTED as it leads to lowering of grades and kids wanting to do "A" level maths etc having not touched the subject in a year.