Education fiddle faddle

There has been too much meddling with education in recent years. I do wish that ALL parties would get together to make decisions on such important issues and put in place a system which would be valid for years rather than that of 5 years - the period of a government. These interminable changes are no good to anybody - especially the students and teachers.

Another subject which needs to be settled cross party is the NHS. Let's face it - good ideas from all sides would be much appreciated.

gangy5 yes in an ideal world.......................

Yes, it's pie in the sky isn't it?

The massive great irony is:
What is the one thing that makes most difference in improving education - good head teachers in schools in challenging circumstances. And what is most likely to encourage existing ones to retire early and potential ones to choose do something less stressful with their time. Keep sticking their interfering political fingers into the pie and stirring it up. The schools they say need most improving suffer most, because the kids in the easier areas do Ok whatever the system.

I am so cross about this latest that I will have to write in a personal capacity to my MP - (who is an "out" gay Tory it seems - unusual. )

I was part of the pilots for GCSE so I did GCSE chemistry (although it wasn't called that at the time) and O level in everything else. I knew when I walked into the exam room that I already had a CSE grade 2 based on my coursework and used to exam to build on that. It was a nice feeling to know that three years work wouldn't be wasted if I had a bad day or the paper didn't cover the things I'd revised. I came out with a B at O level Chemistry. I worked equally hard at French, German and Music but failed them completely because if you didn't get a C grade then it was a failure and didn't count.

Also at 14 we were seperated into sheep and goats....the clever and not so clever. We, the clever, never did without a teacher trained in the subject even if ours was absent. A teacher was simply removed from a lower group.

Gove is worse than all your comments, he is one of the very few people who makes me feel violent, unapologetically violent.
I truly believe that if we stopped pushing all kids through the same shaped holes we'd stand a chance of having different, interested and interesting young people with the confidence to follow their own interests and aptitudes.
Currently we have some who attain what is 'expected' of them whilst others feel totally undervalued and excluded. Surely this is not the way to a fulfilled, balanced or just society?
I'm so glad my kids are through the system and some of my grandchildren are going to be home educated - which alarmed me at first but pleases me now.

Apologies, long post.

Does anyone remember a series, a few years ago, that involved taking GCSE students and teaching them 1950's lessons? They were given 'O' level papers to sit and found they were harder than the GCSE's they had taken!

When I took my 'O' levels, the maths teacher decided I was only capable of doing the CSE exam. I thought perhaps he was right when I only got grade 2 in that. However, a couple of years later, when needing an 'O' level standard for a course I was doing, I was told that the maths was set somewhere between 'O' level and 'A' level; AS then? I passed! Also got my BA(Hons) 10 years ago. Don't usually brag but was quite pleased with myself.

I think there should be one examing board that sets all the exams so as to give a fairer representation of the standards reached. Also, in employment, one is continually assessed on the work being done, so, should modules be dismissed in favour of those who can cram and pass exams? Does that prove they are suitable for a job?

First and foremost though, why are there still children leaving school who cannot read and write?

Finished now.

Hi Cagsy! I agree with your sentiments, but really just wanted to congratulate you on having a grandson aged 2002, having had a peek at your profile!

Oh, sorry, bit ignorant here and haven't checked, but has Gove ever been involved in education professionally?

I agree with all the judgements on Gove. What gives him the right to change everything at the drop of a hat? It took time and expertise to change from O-levels to GCSE. He wakes up one morning and decides it has all to be done in four years. Gove is a product of a private school in Aberdeen. He has no experience of teaching and his ideas are not based on expertise in any shape or form. Pillock, yes, Ariadne; insane, probably, Jess. And Cagsy if you would like a partner in violence I'm your woman.

Education (and health) should be taken out of the political arena. I have been in education over 40 years and I am appalled how our young people are used as guinea pigs and subjected to the latest new idea or trend and then it is abandoned. There are no new ideas. The same ones keep going round and round. I am old enough to remember teaching reading through ITA phonics. Then it was abandoned. The labour party had "Every Child Matters" and that was put to one side with the next government. Doesn't every child matter any more. If not what does?
So much money is wasted when so called initiatives are abandoned and new one set up. So much waste. I have just realised that I have used the word abandoned many times. Perhaps that is how I felt when trying to find my way through the forest of lost initiatives. When the national curriculum was introduced, there were so many documents that the when brought into the staff room on a luggage trolley. These were very quickly dumped and replaced with a different set and so it goes on. All this waste of time and money and resources is bad enough but it is the life chances of the young people that are being damaged.
I did not mean to go on. I didn't realised I still cared so much as I have been retired for about 5 years.
Just as a footnote- I applied for a job as a head of a special school. They did not appoint anyone and said they did not appoint me because I was too child centred. What is education about if not children? I reapplied and got the job because that time I only talked about admin and budgets.

The only bit of sense in the whole thing is the idea of consolidating to one exam board - this would avoid the game playing that goes on at the moment.
Ah yes i remember it well as i was teaching at the time - CSE grade 1 was "equivalent to an o level pass" except it wasn't really - if you got put into a CSE stream and curriculum at about 13 that was your o level chance down the pan. hmm

haha Irene well done..you sometimes have to 'play the game' then get on and do what you know is right!

At our school the results children got in SATs were good which meant we were left alone to teach a curriculum we assessed was right for our kids in the way the kids and teachers enjoyed! We were praised by OFSTED for our curriculum so much so that HMI came to see what we did and then put it on the DfE website. It did not include the national strategies or very much of MR Gove's style of 'education'!

My daughter was one of the first to take GCSEs and she was scathing about them. She had gone into teenage bolshie phase at 14 and did no more school work than was absolutely necessary throughout the exam preparation years. Certainly she had not done enough to pass all her O' levels or get good marks had she taken them. When she got As and Bs for all her GCSEs she was furious saying that any exam scheme that gave good marks to a candidate as inadequately prepared for the exams as she was was not worth the paper the results were written on.

Perhaps it is just my opinion but some students are just not good at exams and course work was a way of them getting through subjects. Not everyone is academic, me for one. I was before the course work modules came in and I struggled at school. I have one daughter who is a teacher, always was academic even before she started nursery! The other d was unable to be happy at school and only managed with the help of course work. She is clever like her sister but in a different way.

Younger d's daughter is in panic mode when there is an évaluation at school (which is every week) just can't seem to cope with maths as she says she doesn't understand what to do and is too shy to put up her hand. Her brother sails through everything adores maths and science and is ahead of the French children in his class. He already knows he wants to either teach maths or be an entomologist; he is eight.

My husband says that when he was at school he couldn't understand maths and did badly then they got a new teacher. The teacher explained things differently if you didn't understand and suddenly it all clicked, he got his GCE which he never thought he would.

The idea of horses for courses (excuse the pun) to me is the right way. I don't think exam courses should be dumbed down and exam results should be worked for. However, as I say not everyone performs well in exams so the course work formula should stay as everyone should have the opportunity to get results in the way that suits them best.

GCSEs certainly were easier than O levels at the time when my children took them when they first came out. I did not see that as helpful, as we can see from employers saying that they cannot recruit people with high enough educational standards, and also the fact that the A* grade had to be introduced.

Apart from governments trying to micromanage education, I think there is a deeper problem which relates to society's devaluing of practical skills and talents. I think a lot of this stems from the advent of IQ tests which became the benchmark for worthiness and talent. There would have been no need to abandon O levels if vocational and practical qualifications had not been devalued in the eyes of society. An attempt to remove the stigma of only taking CSEs or vocational qualifications left all parties un-catered for.

We need to value and develop the talents of all children whichever direction they take. The system of streaming labelled by A, B etc gave pupils the impression that they were second class citizens because academia was not their thing.

I have a delightful SIL who struggled academically at 6th Form College, but who is now a highly respected mechanic doing well in his chosen career. He never made it to an A stream but he has fulfilled his own potential and is doing well. He is happy in what he does - not something that I have always observed in the academically gifted.

If they're going to fiddle with the system lets make it so that every child who achieves to the best of his/her ability is celebrated not just those who can achieve A to C. If a child is capable of an E and achieves an E surely that is as successful as the child who is capable of an A and achieves an A.

Employers complain that basic skills are not in place. Perhaps that is because so much time and effort is spent doing too many subjects. I was classed as very bright in the 1970s but only took 9 subjects. English was split into two subjects. Everyone took English language but only the brighter took English literature as it was deemed more important to be able to read and write correctly than dissect texts. Now text dissection is started in primary school and taught in conjunction with grammar. Too much too soon. Let's give the children a chance.

Irene 114, I'm sorry but it seems to me that today you need not be child centred but result orientated to get on in our education system - to the detriment of our children and grandchildren.

GCSEs are already taken at different levels. I understand that the sample questions quoted in the tabloids to prove how easy it all is are often from the foundation level.

This is from the directgov website:
"GCSEs are assessed mainly on written exams, although in some subjects there are also elements of coursework. Some subjects, like art and design, have more coursework and fewer exams.
Some GCSE courses are made up of units; for these, you take exams at the end of each unit. Other GCSEs involve exams at the end of course.
For some subjects, everyone sits the same exam. For others, you have a choice of two tiers: 'higher' or 'foundation'. Each tier leads to a different range of grades. Your subject teacher normally decides which tier is best for you."

burgundy I agree with you that different teachers can have a huge impact on children. I was average at Biology until we changed teachers and then excelled. DS3 was told at age 7 that he was hopeless at maths and still believes it but got B at GCSE. He also came midway down the class in one year at junior school and top with straight As the next year, with a different teacher.

Not all children learn in the same way. I have watched lots of ballet classes and seen children just not 'get' it and then when it is explained in a different way smile widely and do it perfectly.

Never did I expect to say 'thank goodness for Nick Clegg', but the press this morning tells us that he is going to put his foot down on Gove - I only wish that wasn't merely a metaphor.

Hurray, at last someone is talking sense (Mr Gove) Although I laughed when I read the other day, that learning to speak a foreign language will be compulsory. I would suggest they start with ENGLISH (and not only the children)

Annobel

Just remembered this - Peter Dixon, I think.

Oh bring back higher standards - the pencil and the cane;
If we want education then we must have some pain.
Oh bring us back the gone days,
Yes, bring back all the past...
Let's put them all in rows again - so we can see who's last.
Let's label all the good ones (the ones like you and me)
And make them into prefects, like prefects used to be.
We'll put them on the honours board...
As honours ought to be,
And write their names in burnished script for all to see.
We'll have them back in uniform,
We'll make them doff their caps
And learn what manners really are for decent kind if chaps!
So let's label all the good ones,
We'll call them As and Bs - and we'll parcel up the useless ones
And call them Cs and Ds..
We'll even have an E lot!
An F or G maybe!
So that they know they're useless,
And not as good as me.

For we've got to have the stupid,
And we've got to have the poor
Because, if we don't have them..well,
What are prefects for?

, ariadne