The DfE needs to stop the farce of compulsory Maths and English GCSE resits

If grade 4 is deemed the target , then yes pupils should be allowed an extra year to attain that level ! . The teachers though at DSs previous school didn't really think he was even capable of attaining at level 2 or F -G grades . I think they just had an obligation to put target grades on paper.

Incidentally his Primary school and a 'bad' educational psychologist believed DSs IQ to be around 75-80 based on their flawed assessments.

His current Private school estimate DSs IQ to be between 115-125 ! . This is probably equal to both his sisters . These being DD1 with her A* AA at A level / RG Uni and 'lazy' DD2 going in to year 11 @ Grammar school.

The system discriminates against perfectly smart children with needs that are not met properly until too late. By the time my daughter started secondary, her faith was sealed. Because of the bloody flightpath. She has 99%-tile cognitive scores, she is smart enough, but failed, failed by the system that does not give a dam in their snobbery about 'drawing a line'. This is social engineering based on outdated ideology.

On MN where every self respecting member has children in top selective public schools and at Oxbridge, it is easy to agree that the 35% are undeserving 'not whatsit enough'.

It should be easy to agree than to pay higher taxes to keep the 35% and their future children on unemployment benefits. To pay for depression, social services, prisons. But you can feel warm inside that you are part of the top 65%.

Education should be giving the right skills for nearly all children of average ability. The snobbery about 'drawing a line' and failing 35% is outdated legacy.

If 1-3 were a real pass, what does it allow to do that one cannot do with functional skills or Level 1, or without any GCSE pass at all?

If 1-3 were a pass, why employers require at least 4?

Clearly a line is drawn arbitrarily by design at 35%, and it discriminated against perfectly smart children with SEN who have specific difficulties and whose needs are not met timely.

DS had stayed at his Comp 2 years ago....

I agree wholeheartedly with what Cake has to say about children who have 'academic' potential .In particular those with SEN being effectively held below a glass ceiling . This being a misguided belief by some in the teaching professions (no understanding or limited knowledge of the potential or how to teach those that present with ASD symptoms) Therefore telling such pupils that level 2 or 3 is the limit of expectation.

If I had kept DS at his Comp 2 years (A)He would have taken his GCSEs one year to early for his potential to have been achieved. (B) Would have achieved at the 'designated' level 1-3 (F-Ds) . This being the glass ceiling imposed on certain pupils through 'ignorance' of not adapting teaching practice to such students.

Instead by moving DS to a private school and giving him another year he has achieved at level 6 and 5s in English Science Maths respectively !

Maisy

That is pretty much the same tbh, but I think the majority of my level 2 students always seemed to be the ones who had slipped through the net, some adults as well as 16 - 18 and mostly female.
I didn't witness other groups very much, but similarly I heard of a group in motor mechanics who were like this, but they like my students were usually disruptive in most classes.
I loved my challenging classes far more than when I was moved to teach A level . They didn't want to be there either, but they could argue more intelligently and there calls in class were more refined.

I would love to go back again but round here I'd e expected to teach/ not just cover Maths and that wouldn't be fair to the students and certainly beyond me.

Every single school in my area is an Academy, primaries included.

Ta1kinpeace
I hadn't thought about it like that.
Yes. I don't want to do anything that accidently promotes 'unelected bureaucrats' rhetoric.

Just to clarify. Gove made decisions that screwed kids and schools over. Gove. Gove. Gove. Prick.

romany
Very different now.

Friends in FE will tell me tales of having (for example) 'the construction group' which is all the (mainly) lads who are on various placements and seem to view college days as an inconvenience because they much prefer placement. They don't mind the college vocational side of things but dislike anything classroom based. By all accounts most of them were nice enough lads and were never rude to the staff in a personal way, but a handful were all out hostile and unpleasant. They get 2 hours one afternoon a week. Depending on whether they were a bit disaffected vs quite unpleasant characters as people, they will sit on phones, talk over staff, lounge about, refuse to work, openly admit they can't be bothered. And then out of a group of say 35, you'll have 6 maybe who realise the will need their English for jobs and are really trying to do their best but lose out due to the others.

There's no behaviour system in the college. No support from leadership. No ability to remove students. They aren't allowed to send students out from resit groups either. One friend was told her job was on the line if they didn't get the pass. She asked for backup and was told to 'you're the expert just make it happen'.
I contemplated teaching English at FE when i started. Then I heard awful tales of resit teaching and changed my mind.

One friend went out to the company site which worked well so they had a group of 20 apprentices and they had their maths and English in the company building and the company made it very clear what was expected. That worked well.

Now pull the data for Primary schools
I stand by my statistics

they still run over 2/3 of the schools in the country

Gosh, I had no idea, things have changed.
I just used to send my students down to inclusive learning and the lovely people there looked after them and they gained their level 2 maths and/or English.
I was offered a separate time to my students, but I wanted to show them that you can gain higher level qualifications if you leave school with nothing, so I studied alongside them.
I came out of college and cried like a baby when I scraped a pass.

Mine has just gone up to bed after telling me what she thinks she'll achieve, I think some are a bit optimistic but Maths and Science she is still expecting between a 2 and 4.
We have parents evening 1st day back after Oct half term, so I'll know better then.

She is predicted a 9, 6/7, and 2/4 in core subjects so far, so not very consistent

woman
now defunct LEAs
What makes you think LEAs are defunct
they still run over 2/3 of the schools in the country

What has Pearson got to do with Exam board fees ?

maisy
there is so much vitriol at the moment at unelected bureaucrats that when the name and the decision link up it is well worth tracking

And here was me hoping for a vague comment as in 'not a sorting teacher but some idiot who doesn't have a clue' would spare the inevitable Gove rants taking over the OP's thread.
-But now we're here... sodding fucking cockwombling self-serving incompetent piece of shit that he is-

unseen non fiction from a few centuries ago
And if there's one thing which is going to give our kids the edge in the 21st century jobs market it's being able to compare and contrast 3 aspects of a Victorian diary entry with a broadsheet newspaper article.

It was Gove.Ta1kinpeace But also at a time when gov deps like DFE are being run as fiefdoms with little input from 'experts' or now defunct LEAs. Also Pearson educational publishing is owned by Murdoch. Follow the money.

MICHAEL GOVE

MICHAEL GOVE

MICHAEL GOVE

Just making sure that civil servants
and Whitehall
and councils
and Head Teachers
do not get the blame for

Michael Gove
aided and abetted by Brexit Fraud Dominic Cummings
as it was ENTIRELY their idea
and ONLY their fault

Romany - very similar situation here but my DD is about to go into year 11 and my view is the same too. She has poor working memory, an auditory processing issue and dyscalculia so English (recalling quotes from poems) and Maths in particular are not her strengths. I am constantly trying to pick her up confidence wise. I have told her to concentrate her efforts on her other subjects. She is predicted a level 2/3 at best in Maths and to be quite honest I would rather she got a 2 which would then qualify her for the functional skills paper rather than for her to get a 3 and have to keep resitting the Maths GCSE.

RomanyRoots
The problem is that schools used to be able to offer level 2 functional skills to students to help them progress onto appropriate level 3 courses at FE.
Then the government decided they would no longer count them in league tables so any child who got a good grade on functional skills but didn't have a GCSE English would be marked as a 0 for schools (which has lots of implications).

Now what happens is that all students have to sit GCSE English Language, the government removed tiers so every child sits the same paper and then if a child doesn't get their grade in GCSE they have to resit whilst doing their level 3 course or the FE college will only take them to do a level 2 course (again whilst they sit the same GCSE course).

Speaking to friends who teach resit English at FE it sounds like a nightmare, there's no support like in schools, they get a cohort for 1 afternoon a week and most of the students see little point in being there. The college's have to pay back funds if the students don't get their grade too so the teaching happens ans costs but some colleges are ending up with hefty bills to repay the government.

All this because someone in Whitehall decided all students should sit the same paper analysing unseen non fiction from a few centuries ago.

I just had an interesting chat with my dd going into y10 and not blessed with Maths ability.
We are packing for return to school and in go the CGP books for Maths and Science, with a huge sigh.
She feels like she has failed before she starts and she has 2 years of this. No matter what I say she's so down about it and knows she will make a level 4 if she works through the night sometimes.
no child should be under this pressure and again "conditioned" into feeling like this.
As you are aware this attitude doesn't come from home, but it's surprising what they pick up from school and friends.
I tell her to put in extra effort in the things she is average/ slightly above average in and try her best in other subjects. to me there is no use in using time and effort to try to get better at something you just can't do.
I know I'm probably wrong though, but I'd rather be wrong than have her life ruined for 2 years.

I'm totally lost here, it doesn't matter whether we call the lower levels functional skills or a GCSE pass.
What does matter imo is being honest with kids about their future educational and employment prospects.
levels 1-3 in Maths means that you aren't exactly going to be a top mathematician or anything else that requires a high level of Maths ability. You won't go on to study A level, or further Maths.

It doesn't mean you are a "f" and have no prospects at all.
We need to be telling our kids this, celebrate what they do achieve and support them in what they are good at.

Functional Skills are an acceptable route into many FE courses, there really isn't a problem.

if the employers, colleges and universities demand a 4, then 1-3 is a certificate of failure. Renaming it functional skills is a further hypocrisy
Sigh...
But it wouldn't be renaming grades 1-3 functional skills.
It would be a separate qualification with different content.

So functional skills English used to be comprehension, literacy, SPaG, transactional writing etc. English for life.

GCSE English Language involved close language analysis of 19th century diary extracts under times conditions.

For a borderline child which is better for them:
A) A strong pass in functional skills that means they are able to access next steps?
B) A grade 3 in English Language where they can answer a basic formula for a 19th c reading question but not in any depth. They don't have really good functional literacy for life?