Gove does it again!

Three cheers for Govey!!! He must be in pole position to Camerons eventual replacement by now - he's the best performing Tory minister by a country mile.

So a restricted curriculum with a focus on core subjects, end weighted examination only, separate courses for those deemed not academic sounds like a solution for 40s rather than today.

I think the system does need reforming but not reducing and Gove with his absolute inability to hear anyone else who tries to communicate with him will continue clueless but purposeful. His cock ups negating the successes.

Just read the comments of Daily Mail readers. They are very pleased. How are Guardian commenters taking the news? Have they had to swallow some pills to settle themselves on reading this revolutionary news?

'Boys results are dropping. Girls have, since the introduction of GCSEs consistently outperformed the boys.'

But as a whole, our international ranking has declined. The numbers getting As and A*s have spiralled. Gove is going to make our exams some of the toughest in the world. The reputation of our students will then be second to none and they will build their education from a base of excellence which will follow through to higher levels.

What will Gove do next? Reintroduce competitive sports days?

This is revolutionary and overturns New Labour's rotting apple cart for good.

Of course Gove has done this. Exam only assessment traditionally favours boys. girls, as a rule and because of socialising, tend to work more consistently throughout the year. (Anecdotally, as a teacher, getting coursework out of boys was like pulling teeth, but the girls would at least have a go and hand something in). Girls, especially in their teenage years, can have issues with heavey periods and PMS that boys don't have to deal with. Over the exam period you can guarantee that at some point many girls will be sitting in an exam at some point wondering if sh's going to leak.

Boys results are dropping. Girls have, since the introduction of GCSEs consistently outperformed the boys.

Just saying............

Labour will not be happy with this at all, they'll probably be spitting teeth. This reverses dumbing down and grade inflation for good.

It is fantastic news. Gove really is amazing.

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The new exams will ?meet or exceed the highest standards in the world for that age group?.

Wow. Raise the bar and children will rise to that level. Amazing.

'Mr Gove?s proposal is nothing less than an attempt to reverse three decades of academic decline and create a system that Labour could not reverse if its wins power in 2015.'

Gove doesn't believe in just dipping a toe in; he dives right in.

Or who suffers from severe hay fever / another illness so can't perform as well on the day of the exam.

Maybe we should take the opportunity to rearrange the school year so that exams are not in peak hay fever season as well ?

On the bigger question - I am ambivalent. I am not a fan of the current standard of GCSE but I am sceptical that it will be properly thought through and cater for everyone. Or that it will be funded properly.

I am also very sceptical about where all the teachers are going to come from for the primary curriculum revamp (are there really masses of language teachers who are good with young 'uns queueing up for jobs ?).

Another thing that puzzles me is the national curiculum for primary seems to become even more prescriptive for primary (which hoop each age group should be able to jump through), while all curriculum is to be removed from the senior schools and leave it up to heads to decide.

Great - until it's your child confined to the CSE equivalent. Or who suffers from severe hay fever / another illness so can't perform as well on the day of the exam.

This obsession with the one-big-final exam baffles me. There's nothing like that in RL that people need to prepare for - it just seems macho rather than practical. My (excellent) university did modular degrees. It simply meant as I entered my final year I had just over half my degree in the bag already and I already knew a 2.1 was more likely than not so didn't explode with stress.

I do accept that coursework can be done by parents though - as an attender of boarding school (so I got no help at all!) that did annoy me a bit. Although coursework was in its infancy when I took my GCSEs, and very little of the final mark.

The teachers should know their subject inside out, if they don't, it's time they were sacked.

Teaching to the exam is the main problem with education nowadays. It's not the driving test. Teaching should be about teaching the subject, not just teaching the pupils how to pass the exam.

In Singapore the O'levels are very challenging. I think the old system of O'levels and CSEs worked well, mind you it's what I know and remember.

Isn't it going to take a little more time than that to organise the dissemination of the new content of these new exams, the production of text-books, the familiarisation of teachers with the new syllabus, etc.?

I'm afraid I have my wry face on.

Having said that. I have a son who is not pleased with me because I talked him into taking the three sciences separately and we've both been a bit surprised by some of the content.

Haha, agree with custy

yawn
Gove is a twat