I'm just getting my head round Gove's changes to the exam system- and I am even mor horrified than I thought I would be!

Apparently unemployment in France is relatively high at the moment.

Curlew

My point about SEN statistics is - those children exist.
There are often physical / physiological / neurologial conditions why they are SEN or low achieving.
All the education in the world will never get them through the EBacc.

So lets ensure that through Btecs and Apprenticeships there are pathways to make best use of the skills they do have.

Same as we expect schools to stretch the super bright.

Gove - because he has never spent time in a non selective environment - likes to pretend that the left hand tail of the bell curve does not exist.
But it does.
It always did.
It always will.

They either have to be found work, given benefits or left to starve, but they will not vanish just because exam curricula are altered.

The point is: we need examinations to set the standard for the skills we require our children to attain.

The standards we require our children to attain in the wide range of skills they will need if they are to be gainfully employed for a living wage in future are high. So we set the exam bar higher.

We don't lower the exam bar so that the poor DCs don't have to work too hard. Or to preserve their feelings.

That's the thing that is puzzling kitten. I think about 20% of people took o-levels. Even allowing for the fact that a large number of pupils could have taken o-levels but didn't because of low expectations, I don't understand how one exam, aparently modelled on o-levels, can simultaneously differentiate accurately between high attaining children and be more inclusive.

Its not about assuming that there will be jobs for the unskilled, but fearing that people will have no chance of gaining skills if they fail an exam which is not designed to test their abilities.

It is quite different: the whole of France follows the same curriculum and the same number of hours per subject, leading to the same exam at the end of Y10. There is barely any variation between schools (some might offer German and others Spanish for second foreign language). No setting or streaming.

Just giving her a diluted taste of her own medicine

grovel, not everybody took o levels though, they were aimed at the more academic children, most took CSE.

I'm not going to unravel your lack of logic, TalkinPeace, because you aren't capable of following .

You clearly have some bee in your bonnet about not expecting anything of large swathes of the population and seem to think that there will be jobs for the unskilled in the future when we already have a large underclass problem who are not work-ready for the world we live in.

I know that options here bring some of that decision forward to the start of year 10 Bonsoir but for the actual core subjects at the schools I know the final decisions on which paper children should be entered for are not made until part way through year 11. so with both at roughly the same age their is some academic selection..

In many ways the systems are not too very different between France and the UK. Germany seems to be vastly different.

Bonsoir
You dislike the fact hat I have connected SEN with academic ability
however the data backs me up
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/group.pl?qtype=LA&superview=sec&view=cqs&set=1&sort=ks4_13.b8vamea_fsm&ord=desc&tab=33&no=886
Nationally 7.7% of pupils are Statemented or school action plus
In Kent it is 8.1%
and yet the percentage in the selective schools ranges from 5.8% down to 0.3%
man SEN aspects do affect learning - accept it and accept that schools will never get those children to get A*/A/B
and support the teachers in supporting the children - of all abilities

"This now becomes really scary. If people equate bottom 20% with SEN, then it is so clear why there is this wide-spread acceptance."

Keep'em down...

x posted

I meant AAT - ATT would be tax, but I think they are both linked to apprenticeships.

AAT rather than ATT (ATT is tax)
but yes, that was always the case - articled clerks

Interestingly, depending on your employer, you can become a fully qualified accountant with no GCSE's (assuming you have done the ATT exams, which I think are now linked to apprenticeships).

Perhaps you could have two Education secretary's. One who acts for the A* kids ( GOVE WOULD WANT TO BE THAT ONE) The other one has responsibility for the "Thick" ones. a two tiered education system .

Apprenticeships are not Gove's responsibility. They fall under Cable.
Small mercies!

as far as Gove is concerned they do not exist

Not true. Gove has reduced the number of BTECs that count in the GCSE tables. From this year only 70 equivalents will count. Previously you could do a course on horse care, for example, that would count as four GCSEs and there were courses in fish husbandry and nail technology services that counted as two GCSEs. This change followed a study by Professor Alison Wolf that suggested schools were teaching qualifications that attracted most points in the league tables leading to students getting qualifications that did not help them into work or higher education.

Apprenticeships are not Gove's responsibility. They fall under Cable.

as far as Gove is concerned they do not exist

Does anybody know where BTECs and apprenticeships fit into all of this?

we'll let Gove move to France then. That will make everybody happy.

France has comprehensive education unt the end of Y10 (same programme for everyone).