I wondered what others' thoughts were on the recently leaked news that Michael Gove is considering scrapping GCSEs and moving back to something akin to the old O level / CSE split.

I am personally in two minds about it. I can see the merits of the argument that CSEs were always seen automatically as the "inferior" qualification, and that dividing children according to which qualification they were due to be sitting could therefore prejudice their chances in later life. But I can't help feeling (based on what I have seen in my own children's education so far plus general experience with friends and family) that GCSEs simply aren't working, and that one of the problems with it may be that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to exam courses.

When I was going through school [back in the mists of the 1980s], our local exam board operated what was called a "Common Syllabus" for some subjects, and in my view it worked rather well. Basically, everyone who was doing - say - Geography was taught from the same syllabus. The exam had 3 papers (numbered 1, 2 and 3). Everyone took paper 2. In addition, the more able took paper 3; the less able took paper 1. These two papers covered the same topics, but the questions were harder on paper 3, and the degree of detailed knowledge required was higher. In classes, the teacher could simply say in relation to a particular point in a discussion of a topic that "only those doing paper 3 really need to know this", so you didn't need to stream classes if it was difficult to do so. The outcome of the exam was that everyone who passed got both an O level AND a CSE qualification. However, if you did papers 1 and 2, the highest you could get was a Grade C at O level (and a Grade 1 at CSE).

Obviously, I was going through that as a pupil rather than a teacher, but looking at it now, I think it had a lot of positives:

- as with GCSE, everyone got the same kind of qualification, so there wasn't the problem of the "two-tier" system under which CSEs got looked down on automatically, even though a Grade 1 CSE was the same in theory as a Grade C at O level
- in a small school (as mine was) it enabled less popular subjects to be viable numerically, because you could do mixed ability classes more successfully, since you weren't trying to teach two different syllabi
- for kids who were somewhere in the middle of the ability range, there wasn't the need to decide at the outset whether they were doing paper 1 or paper 3, so that decision could be left until the point of exam entry [possibly later].

It seems to me like the above might be a good model, if they are going to change things [anyone got Michael Gove's number? ]

I'd be interested to hear what others think.

That's how I see GCSEs at the moment. Certainly for things like maths and science. You do Foundation or Higher. Foundation is easier but you can't get higher than a C.

I don't see why GCSEs aren't fit for purpose. After all, they are just a name. Politician's just like changing the names of things and it makes them feel like they've achieved something.

If GCSEs are too easy then make them harder so there is more variation in grades. If it's the modular nature that's the problem then change that. You don't need to change the bits that are working.

My main concern is that Gove has no actual insight into GCSEs or schools. He's just a bloke on a power trip and is trying to make a name for himself so that he can be the next PM.

Yes, I think there needs to be better differentiation and I agree with the policy of limiting the number of resits. I see no reason to change the name of the qualification.

Back in the Dark Ages of the 1970s when I did my O levels, our grades were 1 - 6 for a pass. Just as I sat my last exam they changed the system so it was A - C for a pass. Perhaps they should go back to the 1 - 6 method so you can see more clearly how well someone has passed. A few more essays in science papers would help to differentiate too!

There can be a choice of anything up to three different tiers for GCSE at the moment, the higher gives A*-C grades, and foundation G-C grades as previously mentioned. For some papers (I only encountered it for maths) there is a intermediate paper that gives a top grade of B, I can't remember the lower limit.

In theory all candidates learn the same syllabus, and are entered for the paper that reflects their most likely success. In practise, as pupils are so prepared for particular exams, someone sitting foundation tier will never be taught as many topics in as much depth as someone taking higher tier.

So, these changes being proposed are no change at all, as far as I can see!

Possibly one of the most horrific Education Secretaries ever : he seems determined to create a two (or even three or more) tier education system.

The GCSEs as they stand are a sound concept : the exam boards need looking at though, as they're making far too many mistakes (some are saying 'let's have one board' - this is better, but I'd like to see a science board, an English board etc.)

I'd also be doing away with league tables and tick box education - this, rather than the GCSE concept, is what's primarily wrong with education in the UK at the moment.

I think the biggest problem at the moment is the emphasis on A*-C. I took GCSE when it was only a couple of years old. We were told that every grade from A-G was a pass grade, but even then A-C was all that counted. I do think it would be good to stretch the most able kids more. But if you for example make it harder to get a C, yet still base all the targets on schools trying to get everyone a C it can't be achieved.

I don't think the current GCSE allows the brightest to show their true potential and think that some reform may help the brightest. I don't want to see those who are currently struggling to get a C made to feel more of a failure than they already do. Having everyone (well almost, I know BTEC is an option in some circumstances) following the same syllabus does mean that a late developer isn't excluded from the higher grades.

I may return to edit this as I'm probably not very coherent after a day trying to help some kids scrape that ellusive C grade.

Perhaps the less academic should be given the chance to learn practical skills rather than trawl through subjects they have no interest or competence in? At the end of their school careers those with grades less than C will be heading for the trades anyway.

I think the whole idea would have gone down better if marketed as introducing a new stretching exam for the more able, whilst allowing the rest to take the GCSEs as now.

The trouble with many of the current syllabuses is that children have to do a lot of work at quite a shallow level. At O-level, we actually did less work, but what work we did went deeper. I think for many subjects it's very difficult to have a "one size fits all" exam, so if you are going to let the more able go deeper you would probably need a different exam for them.

In practice, what today's GCSE results show is who is most willing to put in a lot of time and effort, rather than who is the most able. This in itself must be quite useful to employers, as for many jobs (retail, leisure, etc) you don't need a genius, just someone of average intelligence who's willing to work hard. If you need someone slightly more numerate, the current Maths exam is a good guide.

But if you are trying to prepare students for university courses, I think it would help for them to delve more deeply into subjects by the age of 16 than they do at the moment. Of course, selective private schools do this already, which is one of the reasons that private school pupils get better A-level results than those in state schools. The Maths and Science Olympiads are dominated by those from schools where these subjects are taught at a deeper level than happens in most (all?) comprehensives.

Couldn't agree more.

It's hard to tell which of the supporters of ideas such as this really think they could turn the clock back to a time when grammar schools really did offer social mobility for capable children. Where grammar schools still exist, and I live in one such area, the eleven-plus is a gateway to a better education almost entirely reserved for the children of parents well-educated or wealthy enough to do or pay for immense amounts of coaching for the exam. (I've got Year 4 pupils who are already doing preparatory work for it!)

I don't think it's cynical to think that many of the 'we need grammar schools back' brigade know this, and are interested in anything but social mobility.

I went to Alty Grammar. Every time you post Owain I wonder about the old place!

Absolutely agree. There are issues with GCSEs, but throwing the whole thing out is massively unnecessary. It just smacks of trying to win votes through promises of 'traditional values' and 'academic rigour' - playing to what they think people want to hear. He is a terrifying man and it just alarms me that he is in charge. It frustrated me that teaching is one of the few professions where those in charge have never done the job! It's ludicrous!



This is absolutely at the heart of the matter. If you judge schools on their ability to get a percentage of kids to a grade C and you fail them if they don't, then they will get it. Through coaching, masses and masses of intervention and support, meaning that kids who don't deserve Cs get them...



Ditto!

We had a grammar school system where I lived 10 years ago, and I would lose at least one pupik a year to the tutoring system. Parent soulwd say that this went to prove how much they wanter the grammar school system. I always countered by saying it went to show how much they didn't want the secondary modern.

If you could only pass that bloomin' 11+ by being coached, you weren't really grammar school material IMO.

I'd love to see the whole thing shaken up an operated like the music exams. No more examining kids when they reach a certain age, whether they're ready for it or not. Every subject to have a lot of different grade levels to be taken as and when the pupil is ready for it. Grade 1 is sort of year 1 level, grade 20 is university entrance level, that sort of spread. Don't need to take all grades. And the big advantage to it would be that you always had a level you had reached in every subject, like an ongoing profile which could be gradually added to.

Yes of course it would play havoc with planning and timetabling, but if it had always been that way we'd have evolved a way of working it. I've always deplored the way kids in year 11 have to bring all their subjects to fruition at the same time, which inevitabley means some subjects won't get the full attention they need.

Frankly I think much of our education system is totally, totally broken. Once "targets" were introduced then that was it.

I don't have the energy to bang on about it now but it breaks my heart. I'm sure if C is more awake than me she will post something articulate on the subject later.

As for me, I'm going to bed.

I-Have-LOTS-of-O-Levels-Bag! Lol x

Yup. Bring back apprenticeships and City and Guilds. Not everyone is academic and we should celebrate tradesmen and artisans.

I just feel so sorry for school teachers and children, constantly being reorganised, offsteded, sats tested and then reorganised again by whichever bunch of idiots happen to be in power. Teachers used to have status and were trusted to exercise professional judgement, but now they are just treated like syllabus dispensers. I'm so glad I work for myself!

I absolutely LOVE this idea.

I can see where this would lead: competitive league tables, followed by schools putting kids in for the next exam every term until they pass, and on to the next...

I left out the bit about "no league tables"

Get that bit sorted, and most of our other problems would disappear! Parents would pick preferred schools not on the basis of a few numbers, but on how organised, efficient and welcoming a place they prove to be when they visit. Senior staff could use their expertise to focus on the specific problems they know about, rather than having to jump to attention to the latest political whim. It'd be wonderful!

There are a number of problems around educating kids: assuming for the moment that we're talking about the send-em-to-school model. Firstly, schools do have a holding bay function for kids, like it or not, somewhere to park the sprogs whilst mum and dad work. Whilst they're being stored for the day, they get teaching in subject mixes thought to be necessary for generating a living in adulthood, and because it's the most efficient way to do it, that means group learning, and standardisation of the material to be learnt. As we pay taxes to fund all this, we tend to want to see Value For Money, so whilst each individual might reach optimum learning by having fairly individualised tuition, that'd cost us far too much in teachers: on the other hand, make the classes too huge and too varied, and the resulting cohort becomes impossible to teach.

So, we try to measure the success of our schooling by the not-necessarily-that-representative means of the results of testing how well kids have processed the education they've been given, and here comes the next problem: the bell curve. Most kids will probably land in the big middle section for ability, and in a reasonably matching middle section for achievement: how on earth does one distinguish between those in any meaningful way? I'm not really sure any exam system could do this, but I don't think those setting exams and curricula have thought hard enough about what we actually want to see emerging from the system - I'd like to see kids well grounded in English, one other language and maths, and to have had the chance to explore their strengths and weaknesses, to be confident in their abilities and to have had a chance to make the most of developing those, wherever they lie. However, the system can't individualise exams too much or we'd never be able to pay for it, so compromise is needed.

I don't like two-tier-ism, but I really resent the concept of mediocrity for all, which seems to be the default alternative. I would like to see real thought and research put into the concept of promoting achievement according to ability, whilst recognising that funding and staffing remains an issue. We bewail the lack of good musical teaching in primaries, but the fact is, it's something which has fallen by the wayside somewhat, and it's going to take years of adjustment to the teacher training system to put that right - no solution is going to work quickly. Sadly politicians really cannot plan longer term projects - by the time they've found their feet doing their jobs post-election, there is very little time left to turn round education (and come to that, healthcare too) before the next round of voting interrupts everything: plans which do get made tend to be short-termist, designed to be eyecatching and vote-winning, and unfortunately ill thought out .

Agree totally with Bagpuss. Sadly no energy to get ranting now but I'm sure I shall!

I left school teaching over 20 years ago because I hated the way Government was constantly piling new (and pointless) tasks on us, and interfering with both the structure and content of education. Since then things have only got worse.

Keep politicians out of education!!!!!

[Better still, keep them out of EVERYTHING. They do more harm than good].


anacrusis, you are a genius.

- if I were really, I'd have some useful ideas on how to improve matters..... .

I can only think it would need a less political forum to look at it all, preferably based on proper research, and somehow taking into account what our culture and economy actually need our kids to be skilled in. It'd probably take a ten-year effort to achieve, and the risk would be that at the end of that time, the goalposts would've shifted....

I agree there are problems with GCSEs but I can't see that throwing in the towel and going back to the old system is going to solve anything. Some people who did O levels like to complain about how easy GCSEs are so presumably it's just to appeal to those people as changing the name of the exams isn't going to make them better all on its own. There are some promising aspects to the proposals like only having one exam board so they can't compete with each other to make their papers the easiest in order to attract the most business from schools, but that doesn't require them changing back to O levels and CSEs. There was also the problem of CSEs being regarded as inferior and the fact that in many places you now can't take GCSEs or A levels at evening classes like you used to be able to (none of the 3 major FE colleges in my county offer any A levels, or GCSEs except English and maths and in places that do the number of available subjects has reduced considerably in the last few years at least partly because of funding cuts) means people don't have the same opportunity to gain more academic qualifications later if they're streamed inappropriately, like my mum did after leaving school with virtually nothing.

If academic qualifications are not suitable for everyone then just giving those people inferior academic qualifications doesn't help them or anyone else. Also nobody, least of all Michael Gove can quite decide what the primary purpose of these qualifications is supposed to be, there are several different purposes piled on them like a child's sticker book and unsurprisingly they don't meet them all very well. Comparing our education system to places like Singapore and China while at the same time saying they want more in-depth study and critical thinking doesn't make sense as the education system in these countries is based around memorisation and regurgitation.

People in the Daily Mail article pointed out that under the old system a lot of kids left school with no qualifications. This is still true now but there is no evidence that going back to O levels and CSEs will change this - if anything that seems to be the point, that fewer kids will get O levels and we already know that CSEs weren't respected so saying they suddenly will be if they're brought back is just daft. The definition of madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results, as they say. I've seen it argued (with some less than polite language) that standards are dropping is a covert way of saying more poor people are being allowed to take exams. My gran used to whinge that in her day you had to have Latin A level to go to university, though she didn't understand my mum's response that that kept the 'riff-raff' out then because if you didn't go to a school that taught Latin - like the sink hole school my privately educated grandmother with a degree from Bristol sent my mum to - you couldn't go to university. I wonder what Michael Gove would say to that.

Three years studying Education at university and 18 years in the system has left me angry and deflated about education in this country. It has let me, and so many others, down on numerous occasions and I can only imagine that this is going to get worse. What has happened to the fundamental aims of education? Why isn't the curriculum tailored to individual students? Why are teachers so stressed and under so much pressure? Why are parents' opinions dominated by league tables? Why are pupils with SENs not receiving the support they require? Why are kids leaving school without 5 GCSEs, let alone Maths and English? Money, pure and simple. Education has become little more than a money-making machine.

(Wow, I sound bitter. I am of course thankful for the teachers who helped me along the way and for the option of free education, which unfortunately a huge number of children in the world are still not entitled to.)

Unfortunately those we would like to see running the country are too sensible to want to.

Somewhere in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams has a world where the only people allowed to be rulers don't want to be....

I'm not a teacher, but I went to a grammar school in the 70s and sat 9 standard O Levels (maths, physics, chemistry, biology, English language, English literature, French, history, and Latin).

My two nephews are 17 and 16. The older one loved school but was badly let down by its tick-box attitude (I'm not going to elaborate on the details) he needed some support and was left to rot in lower sets with ne'er-do-wells.

The younger has just finished his GCSEs this last week. He is fairly sharp. I've had long chats with him about maths and English. Much of the stuff I did at O Level maths is not on his syllabus (very little trig and no calculus at all). He's planning to do A Level English, yet his GCSE does not seem to have covered the grammar or literary devices I did at O Level. It's very hard not to conclude that the academic content and rigour has reduced significantly.

He's not doing a modern language which I think is stupid (system's fault, not his).

I can accept that content evolves over time (my A Level chemistry syllabus in 1977/8 included nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy - only discovered in the 1960s). However, what we seem to have is a lowering of content and standards to a lowest common denominator, one size fits all, which means "prizes for everyone" to ensure the maximum number of ticks in boxes.

This has arisen from a mixture of the short-termism that the political system generates, exam authorities wanting to increase business, schools eager to play the system, and parts (not all) of the education system that seems to think that everyone is the same and won't accept that aptitudes vary.

There needs to be a reality check somewhere: not everyone is academically inclined. The school environment is not the right place for many and it's a waste of time after 14 for some. We need alternative paths such as trade/technical schools and apprenticeships for these.

What you call it does not really matter: content does.

Oh dear seems to have turned into a rant.

EDIT Fixed some typos!

Would like to know why you think a modern language is necessary? I did two languages at GCSE level (choice) and to be honest I hardly remember a thing about them, I was good at them at school but since I have never used them. I always wished I'd studied something else instead.

Luckily, I did music two years early - it was the only subject I got an A* in. Mind you it was the only subject I had much interest in. My other interests came later (after school) all I cared about at school was music and cars. The teachers weren't engaging and I had no interest in doing my best as I didn't think the exam syllabus particularly interesting. Something that makes me angry to this day is that as Year 9 children we had NO guidance over options (how I ended up doing two languages and some silly ICT award that wasn't really worth the paper it was written on).

Teachers were frequently frustrated that I had no interest in their subjects but was obviously able. Unfortunately I was a bit of a nightmare student at school, stating I'd rather be at my music teacher's house.

I do lean towards this point of view, too. For children in non-English speaking countries, the choice of which foreign language is the most useful to learn is obvious. Here, not so much!

I've come across this stupid ICT award, too, in the context of a school placing so much emphasis on it that pupils can't miss 30 minutes of ICT for an instrumental lesson

I wondered when people would pick up on the modern language thing: the answer is, because, taught early and well, it opens a wide variety of capabilities, just as having mathematical knowledge does. These range through psychology, logical thinking, and above all enhancing ability to process all sorts of communication, as well as potentially giving some grounding in cultural issues. We may live on an island, but our appalling ignorance of the world out there, and indeed even of our world within it, given that we have plenty of folk from other cultures living here, makes for tension, misunderstanding and DailyMail thinking. Okay, you may not remember the details of the vocabulary learnt, but it's curious how we inform the rest of what we do with nuggets of stuff we did cover in school - especially if we were lucky enough, as I was, to get a pretty decent education. Remember how the insularity of some parts of the US strike us - sections of our own population are very little different, and decent language learning goes some way towards providing the interest in other nations, which we really need for our country to function properly in the wider world community.

I have a different perspective on this being in Scotland, where the Standard grade system is already being reformed. The essence of our system change is that everyone should get something, but those "somethings" will be more differentiated. The outline as it seems to be presented (though since it's brand new the way it actually turns out may well be different!) is that at the end of S5 (year 11) everyone will sit their National 5 exam. If you do not pass at N5 but you do well enough to get the end of S4 certificate then you get a high grade in one of those instead of a fail grade at N5, and so on and so on. Sadly it doesn't work the other way, I think if you do exceptionally well it should be possible to get an N6, but that's not part of it. Instead of failing your N5 you pass your N4. This covers those who say children should not be "labelled as failures" (I'm not going to open that can of worms) but also doesn't give away free exam results to people who haven't done anything just so they can say they have passes.

They don't seem to be extending the range of certificates, however. Our local school puts children in for exams early if it thinks they may drop out. Someone is better off getting a C or D grade in S4 than going into S5 and not even sitting. They also place a lot of students in partnership with the local college on trowel trades courses, beauty therapy, etc. to get their trade qualifications.

But it really doesn't matter what you are teaching if they are not coming. Loss of child benefit for teenagers who attend under a certain percentage of school without good medical reason would be a useful adjunct to the current system, and permission for those who are not going to school anyway to be allowed to leave and go to work placements. A 14 year old who isn't going to get any GCSEs is better off being a plumber's mate than drinking on street corners, but the law doesn't allow him to work. I think these kids have to have something really concrete that they are at risk of losing if they don't toe the line - attend properly and punctually and put in the required work for your literacy and numeracy certificates and you can go to work every day in something useful and get paid for it. Mess it up and you lose the placement and have to go back to school and forfeit the opportunity you had.

RoseRodent: I have a child who for various reasons, and despite considerable capability, ended up in full blown school refusal, and left school at fifteen: loss of child benefit for non-attendance punishes parents, not all of whom are uninvolved and uninterested in their kids' education. We'd have been similarly punished for his absences earlier on, when a combination of difficulty in managing diabetes and a prolonged glandular fever type of postviral illness saw us trying to manage him at home for months at a time: okay, so our family probably didn't need the benefits, but plenty do.

Disillusionment with the school system isn't just about kids falling off the bottom of the ladder, it's also about some of the most talented being bored, and about the system not fully recognising the range of abilities needing to be explored. As Kenneth Robinson says in the TED talk I linked to some time back, the school system was set up by academics and is aimed at reproducing academia more than any other valid way of making a living. Fixing our system needs to involve more walks of life in its planning, somehow.

Just one tiny part of the problem is that education is made to serve two conflicting purposes. Education for "cultural heritage transmission" is very different from education for "producing people fit for employment".
The resulting "one size fits all purposes? education system may try to justify itself by reference to scientific research suggesting that all brains are built the same. Unfortunately this overlooks the major fact that no two people's brains go through the same experiences. Personally I know that my education benefitted from a local authority which chose the comprehensive route very early on: equally there are many for whom the grammar route was or would have been better.

When I was 14, many people left school, and there were jobs for them - the literacy and numeracy demands of the majority of the jobs they went into was minimal. It seems to me that those jobs have by and large gone and the nature of the jobs remaining has changed far more than people's abilities have changed over the same time period. Not only that but there simply not enough jobs in the economy for the number of people of any age who need them. Rather than addressing this aspect, the political solution tends to be to "blame" individuals for having insufficient qualifications and hence ?blame? schools for not providing enough education. This is probably because the numbers and grades of exam passes can be relatively easily counted, whereas managing a large and complex economy to ensure enough jobs for everyone is extremely difficult and may even be impossible. But without sufficient jobs, even if it were possibly to change the nature of people sufficiently that everyone could complete A levels or a degree all that would result would be a very well educated pool of unemployed people!

I agree, I am glad I learned both French and Latin at school, not least because it was my French teacher who realised I have a photographic memory and helped me to channel it. I think languages are a fantastic 'all-round' subject. I do hate the term 'transferable skills', but learning languages certainly does involve them!

Very well said. Special Educational Needs isn't just about pupils who need support (for whatever reason) to reach the 'expected' level - it's also about supporting those students who have the potential to go further than the current curriculum allows. To use a very personal example, I have always wanted to be a vet (still do), but back in 2004 my school wouldn't allow me to take the required subjects as they deemed them 'too much work'. That one decision has affected the path of my whole life, and even 8 years on it affects me on a day-to-day basis.

Again, I agree. If Emile Durkheim is to be believed then there is a direct correlation between society and education, with education trying to fulfil the demands of society, for example equipping pupils with the skills currently deemed desirable by employers in this country. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the theory, but I do wonder whether regarding education as being for 'education's sake' might perhaps be more fruitful than education for a 'skilled workforce'.



PS Rose Rodent - I was educated in Scotland and was one of the last year groups to do SG, Higher and then Advanced Highers. I did end up doing some Intermediate 1 and 2 exams alongside the SGs, but thankfully missed out on the current transition stage!

That is a very perceptive observation.

Interesting thread. I agree with Berkshire mum and anacrusis in particular.
My experience is with university students who clearly have not learned much to any depth. They seem to get by on memorising rather than understanding and by doing a lot of coursework which they find content from the internet, rather than solid researching.....then resubmitting it as many times as they can for upgraded marks! As a consequence the majority have little concept of independent learning and the need for understanding principles so they can be applied to different unknown situations...which is what they will need to do in the profession they are being trained for in this subject specific degree. These students are required to get 3A's at A Level.....much higher than when I was entering but they are nowhere near as well equipped for the university course and type of learning involved. Also general attitude leaves a lot to be desired!
I then get to see many of them once graduated for assessing for the professional exams and I encounter the same problems again and again....however it is at this stage that their lack of spelling, grammar and command of spoken English is truly appalling. (Perhaps this is the place I should make a disclaimer for my own spelling errors... !!!)
The general attitude is ...its not written out on the basic syllabus so therefore I don't need to learn it....or that they have previously been selective in which areas to learn/memorise that they get a shock when all areas get tested at the higher level.

I think the more able pupils certainly need to be stretched more- learning to go into depth more and seeing how subjects can inter relate. A "one-size exam fits all" can never really do anyone justice, we're just not the same, the bright ones suffer and the less academically able ones also suffer equally. I think we generally put too much emphasis on academic qualifications and do not celebrate enough practical skills and qualifications which require a lot of application. Not everyone has the aptitude for those practical skills, they should be valued more.

In response to someone else's comment re lack of GCSE and A level options at night school, it is a real shame that many subjects are not accessible this way...perhaps if there was less content/emphasis on volumes of coursework assessments this may help bring back these options which used to be available if you wanted to change direction in life later on.

This must sound like a rant against the young in education today.....must add; I have had some wonderful students, eloquent and intelligent who do well for the right reasons. Its just a little sad that on paper they don't necessarily stand out more than some of their much poorer peers and unfortunately it is the paper qualifications that employers see these days.

Sorry.....little rant over, but think we need change to help do justice to all of our students to see what they can do well in and excel at.

I hear far too many reports of brighter children being held back in the interests of the majority, political correctness, or "so that those who are less able don't feel left out". I have reported here previously that our own son was sent to the Head Teacher from a music lesson because he was caught playing Bach when he should have been learning where middle C was. The irony of this story is that when the teacher yanked his headphone plug out of it's socket his classmates were really enthused by what they heard. Why seek to discourage a child who clearly has a talent for a subject; whatever that subject is?

Life on this planet is and always has been competitive. That is how we have evolved as a species. Indeed, but for natural selection most of us would not be here now! It is time that those running our schools accepted this fact and got on with teaching. Preventing future Seb Coe's with sporting abilities from winning the Egg and Spoon Race at primary school sports days does nothing to help anybody.

However, moving on, the main purpose of education is to equip young people for a life of work, so they can support themselves and contribute to society. In my experience, as the owner of a small business, the state education system is failing to achieve this goal in many respects.

Firstly, it is failing to teach young people how to use the English language properly. From my own experience, few young people nowadays know how to write a letter, let alone a cogent technical report, and they are unable to persuade others to their point of view in writing. I am not talking about 16 year-olds who scraped a handful of GCSE passes at an inner city comprehensive, but post-grad Engineering students who I have had to help with basic report writing! Similarly, poor spelling and the misuse of homophones is commonplace, and seems to be accepted in many schools.

Sadly, the whole education system seems to have become geared to teaching pupils how to pass exams at any cost, (for this is how the school's performance is measured), but in doing so fails to instil a basic understanding of the subjects being taught. This, to my mind, is rather like those driving schools that guarantee a pass in seven days or your money back! How much time is spent teaching the pupil how to drive safely, I wonder?

This leads me on to my biggest gripe; that we no longer teach our children how things work. There is much talk about encouraging so called 'under-achievers' and preparing them for the workplace, but we are simply not equipping them with the necessary attributes to make them employable; either in terms of a work ethic, or a basic understanding of how things work.

Many children who fail to do well in school examinations have other strengths, such as practical skills, which might make them more suitable for manual work, and there is nothing wrong with that. But how many school leavers know how to wire a plug, let alone use s soldering iron or welding torch?

As an example, I have worked in and around the shipbuilding industry for much of my life, both in the UK and abroad. We are a shipbuilding nation, yet, most of the welders working in our shipyards are Polish. Why? Because the Polish government had the foresight to teach it's young people the skills they needed to work in one of that country's most important industries. What is our excuse?

Ironically, I was working on a British owned yacht in Spain recently, where youth unemployment is an even bigger problem than it is here. When I arrived they were waiting for a welder to arrive from Poland, because there were no 'Coded' welders available locally. What does that tell us?

In short, I believe it is time that we recognised the importance of practical and technical skills, and restrained ourselves from regarding these as second class to more academic abilities. The next step would be to introduce more practical learning into our schools; possibly with the help of local industry, so that pupils leave school knowing how to wire a plug properly, how to make dovetail joints in timber, how to cut threads in metal, how to make soldered joints in pipe work, and how to weld. Not only would this help to equip young people for the workplace, it would also open their eyes to the world of opportunities out there that perhaps they had never even thought about.

We might even get the stage where those with academic interests went to schools which specialised in such matters, whilst those with more practical skills could attend Technical schools. Or perhaps even a mix of the two?

Or am I being mischievous here?

SB

I agree wholeheartedly with your entire post, Lucysop - most particularly with the parts I've quoted above. I have recently had an undergraduate-level essay submitted where the first sentence read, 'The teacher sung stand up to the children who responding by standing in a circle.' The girl who wrote this is a secondary music teacher with a degree in English . It is not her fault but that of the system in which she has grown up .




Is it??? Really???

I have always felt that education should be about the development of each individual's potential - and this is certainly not happening today.

Why is there such an over-focus on academic achievement? What about those with high levels of other types of intelligence - emotional, physical..???

And what REALLY has all this apparent rise in academic achievement/numbers going to study at university actually done for us as human beings?

No-one is going to care, when you're 35, how many GCSEs you got or what grade they were (just as no-one is going to care whether you got 110 or 140 for your Grade 4 piano...). What actually matters in life? If we are talking about work colleagues, one wants to know if they are good at their job and whether they are pleasant, co-operative, supportive and helpful people to work with...if we are talking about friends, one wants to know if they are nice/kind/funny/supportive.

Why are babies in Y2 learning about similes when many of them are struggling with basic reading skills? Why are 8 year olds learning minus numbers when many cannot reliably add/subtract/divide/multiply?? My heavy heart suspects it is so that another box can be ticked - and it all looks very impressive - on the surface.

The majority of children I see are bored, turned off, frustrated or just think they are 'rubbish'. Where is the excitement about learning in today's tick-box mentality?

I despair. I really do.

Not in my view. I passed the 11 plus then chose to go to a "Technical Grammar School" because I was more interested in engineering than latin. I reckon I got a great education there.

Personally I think everything is fair game when it comes to chucking things out. Providing something better takes its place.

There is no excitement, despite the expensive, high tech, multicoloured interactive learning aids in our schools today. I am sure we learned far more from a blackboard, with the occasional excitement of coloured chalks! Oh, and we did have a few films in Geography lessons, narrated by Brian Redhead if I remember, which sometimes jammed, and then promptly burnt!

Sadly the tick box mentality knows no bounds. I reported recently that our son had failed his driving test because he had been taught road positioning by two advanced drivers, (myself, and my Father in Law, a retired Police Traffic Officer.) But the examiners decision is final.

We also had a visit from a "BT Engineer" to resolve a problem with our broadband connection. Rather than delve into our original Netgear Router (which he hadn't been "trained on") he replaced it with a new BT router, which worked well enough, but didn't solve the original problem. However, the new router came configured with a different IP Address range, which I had to change before our server would se it. I asked the "Engineer" about this, but he said (I quote) "I am only trained to plug them in and switch them on. I know nothing about IP addresses."

Once again we have somebody who is trained only to do a specific job, by numbers, but isn't taught what he is doing or why, or how anything actually works.

In yet another example, we had a problem in our local church where a number of new metal halide lamps had been installed. They all worked individually, but despite several changes of lamp they wouldn't work together. (Mind you, that sounds familiar in all sorts of ways.) I knew exactly what the problem was, and even demonstrated this by connecting an oscilloscope and clamp ammeter to the circuit, but the response from the "Electrical Engineer", predictably, was "I haven't been trained to use anything like that".

You shouldn't need training. You just need to understand what you are doing, approach things logically, then work it out for yourself.

SB

Indeed it is.

In fact I've just spotted a biog written by someone I know who is apparently "principle" trumpeter of a symphony orchestra.

I used to team-teach non-exam metalwork to a bunch of kids who could barely spell their own names the same way twice. It was considered a "sink" group, but pretty much all the kids got jobs with plumbers, builders, electricians etc. The course had very little writing associated with it, a little design work, but lots and lots of practical skills. The lads got a sense of achievement and a collection of pieces to show a potential employer.

Thankfully I had the practical skills to be a part of the teaching staff. Many of my peers at teacher training college would not have been so fortunate. When I studied "Technology" was all about "designing" and wood-work and metal-work were practically swear words.

Not quite the same as teaching kids how things work, but I suspect a generation of teachers exist who just don't have the practical skills and experience required to replicate that kind of practical class.

In my opinion GCSEs should fulfil (good grief, even the spell check function doesn't know how to spell and thinks it should be "fulfill" ) two principal functions:

1) To provide a secure grounding in a subject, i.e. an end in itself. This may take the form of general knowledge or life skills, depending on the subject in question. Learning a series of "buzz words" or spending two years baking 75 different types of cheesecake does not seem to me to fulfil this function;

2) To provide a springboard for further study of the subject at A level and beyond.

My metalwork teachers back in the late 60s early 70s were all "ex industry".

I'm not really clear whether this refers to someone with a degree in Electrical Engineering who didn't understand basic electrical concepts or a lighting installer describing themself as an "engineer". Both scenarios are possible and probably equally depressing.

I do agree with most of what is written here. I have also had to deal with barely literate students on placements and we recently interviewed an engineering student on the verge of graduating who honestly appeared to be barely numerate!

On a brighter note there does appear to be a gradual move back towards taking on apprentices in my company,and in the wider industry sector that I work in,which must be a good thing!

Having just finished a pretty hideous day at school I'm too brain-dead to say much although I mean it when I say I could WEEP at the "education" system as it stands.

Anyway, one of my schools is piloting the IGCSE in Science with the current Year 10. My understanding is that this is more akin to the old O Level, not modular but with just one exam at the end of the 2 years. One of my Year 10s is VERY bright, utterly lovely and very proud of holding the only full academic scholarship in the year. Said pupe has REALLY been struggling with the Science almost to the point of tears in my lesson so we sat down and I tried to get to the bottom of it. Said pupe summed it up brilliantly - "I haven't been TRAINED to THINK like this"....a VERY valid point. If the O Level or whatever they want to call it is reinstated it is no good just expecting the kids to suddenly get the hang of a totally new way of working at Year 10.

Said pupe did feel much better after a little time with Ms Bagpuss who tried to talk sense (well, some of the time...)

I have had Year 4 & 5 pupes in tears this week because they didn't do well in exams or understand the current topic in maths. Ms Bagpuss sorted out the former just by practically demonstrating the problem and I am now VERY good at reciting tables when cleaning/putting away a flute at the end of a lesson lol.

Poor little things

Really-Sad-Bag x

And now Mr Gove is apparently saying there will be no CSE for the lower ability groups, to prevent "separation of sheep and goats". Just how can an exam designed for only the top few % ability wise be taken by alll? Mr Gove suggests pupils will take it "later in their school lives". I though the school leaving age was being raised to 18 not 28, 38, or whatever would be needed by some. Is it remotely credible an that only two years of full time education separates the whole ability range?

Cyrilla, I agree (as usual!) with everything, but this in particular is one of my bugbears. We had a CPD session from a primary teacher who proudly told us all the things her year four class could do. Today I taught a Year 7 set 4 English class and we spent the lesson focusing on capital letters and full stops. They started by grumbling that it was 'too easy' but most of them struggled with the task and not one of them was able to use full stops and capitals correctly throughout a paragraph of writing. They claim that they understand all sorts of things that have been drilled into them since they were tiny but they don't. They have a very superficial understanding of a lot of things, for example they can tell me that a simile uses 'like' or 'as' so they think they've 'done' similes; not one of them can use them creatively in their work or comment on the impact of the simile on the reader. I'm not having a go at primary teachers as I think, in the main, they are like secondary teachers - frustrated and disillusioned by the system they work in.

What concerns me the most is that I see really good teachers who are passionate, creative, sparky and enthusiastic who end up wanting to leave the profession as they are so de-motivated by the system in which they work. On the other hand, more unimaginative teachers who are happy to do as they're told and don't question anything don't seem to get so stressed. That is, of course, a huge generalisation and I do work with a lot of great teachers who are happy and enjoy their jobs, but I worry that a lot of talented people get turned off from a profession within which they could be extremely successful.

Bagpuss, your example is also very familiar. We have created kids who think like this. This is often my argument in school when we bemoan the lack of independence and resilience of the kids we teach, particularly at A level. They have grown up within a system that writes the objective on the board so they know exactly what they need to learn, and then ticks it off at the end to prove they've learned it; this is how they have been led to believe learning happens. When they start to realise that learning is messy and challenging and can take a great deal of time and effort - more than just one lesson which is neatly planned for them with 'success criteria' and 'outcomes ' outlined for them - it really must be very scary.

Gove is an idiot. He clearly hasn't thought it through. The problems are oh so much bigger than simply throwing in a more 'rigorous' test but he simply isn't going to address them. He'll paper over cracks to give the impression that his party means business and then they'll be voted out and someone else will come in and mess around with the whole thing again.

It makes me genuinely very sad.

*Edited as I know there are various grammatical errors but I'm knackered and was typing quickly and furiously! *

So what will they do instead? If there's still going to be just one type of exam, why bother to change its name? Why not just make it more rigorous? There are already higher and lower papers in several subjects.

Er, charming! Is that a quotation from something he said?



Unlikely.

I have been thinking about my school days lately as I plan to become a teacher at some point in the future.
There's so much I want to write but I don't think I'll ever have the time to write everything out.

I agree with most of what's been said - especially about pushing more academic students. I'm one of those who were "failed" by the system (even though I went to a Grammar school).
Other (less academic) members of my family feel as though they didn't gain much from school either.

(If anyone wants to PM me I can give you the longer version!)