in thinking that in a few years time it'll be impossible to fail an 'A' level?

[BarmyArmy]

A level pass rate up

"The pass rate for A-levels rose for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of entries gaining an E or above, up from 97.5% in 2009."

The problem (for I see it as that, rather than evidence of increasing 'hard work') began under the Tories, when they introduced the GCSE in 1986.

Traditional 'bell curve' grade allocation was replaced with marks awarded to a particular 'standard', meaning it is perfectly possible for everyone to pass, or indeed everyone to gain the same grade - depending on where the grade boundaries lie.

Under the old bell curve system, grades were allocated according to the percentile bands in which you lay - i.e. the top 20% of any given intake received an A, the next a B and so on.

What do people think?

I know it sounds like I'm bemoaning everything and having a good old rant - but I do think we have let down today's kids badly.

A little example of our poor education system, taken from looking at those that aren't high-achievers.

When in the Army (2005), I once conducted an accommodation inspection of one of my platoons, whilst the recruit soldiers were off on the training area (timetable clashes precluded their being available when I was etc).

Anyway, whilst the Company Sergeant-Major tutted away at muddy trainers and poorly-ironed combats etc etc, I skim-read a few pages from each of the recruits' journals (that they had to maintain in order to 'offload' their feelings about being away from home, what they had learned etc etc).

After only a handful of journals, i was quickly able to predict where the guys came from. If the journal was neatly written, with good spelling, grammar and so forth, 9 times out of 10 he was from Fiji, or Jamaica, or Ghana etc etc.

If there was a semi-legible scrawl, with poor spelling and zero grammar, 9 times out of 10 he was good, old British home-grown talent.

And yet both the British guys and their 'Commonwealth' counterparts came from similar, working-class backgrounds.

Just that the former colonies have maintained the education standards that we gave them, whereas the 'Mother Country' has abandoned any pretence at academic rigour, in the belief that "all must have prizes".

Maybe Commonwealth counterparts send their best young people and the Brits don't.

Dylan44 - the problem is that it becomes increasingly difficult to identify the excellent from the 'merely' very good.

I take your point about one exam being unfair - there should be a balance...some course work and some exams.

The ability to learn and understand stuff over time and use it in an intelligent way in a short space of time is an important skill than is only exposed through exams.

scurryfunge - except that wasn't the case...the IQ (or equivalent) results of all the recruits were constant. The guys applying from overseas were neither better nor worse than 'our' blokes in any of the military tasks they were set.

Only in the basics such as reading and writing were they streets ahead.

isoldeone - you help me prove my point - "Now students are taught, supported, mentored, tested, monitored left right and centre." Some might call that being 'spoon-fed'.

Were they officer class?

Here is one of the GCSE Physics papers if you want to see how easy it is.

isoldeone - no, they were private soldier recruits, undergoing Phase 1 basic training (13 weeks at Army Training Regiment Pirbright in Surrey).

Basic literacy and numeracy skills does not always equate with IQ either. Plenty of people of reasonable intelligence don't demonstrate their knowledge and understanding through the written word.

Maybe the emphasis on how students display their skills has changed and we use previous O' level standards as a different benchmark (they suited people who could learn by wrote of spew out facts for some subjects).

and spew out that should read, not of

I think the A pupils who managed to get over 90% in their A2 module exams are quite clearly excellent, that is the whole point of the new grade! 8% of A levels awarded were an A but many bright students got more than 1 A* ( my son got 3) so it is not the top 8% of students that are awarded this grade the actual figure will be much less.

atswimtwolengths - thank you for that. Demonstrates my point!

Do you think that's a really easy paper for a fifteen or sixteen year old to take, Barmy Army?

I feel so sorry for teenagers these days. They wear a hooded top, they are accused of being criminals. They study hard and get good grades at 'A' Levels, they are told the exam must have been dumbed down and is too easy. They don't have much prospect of ever buying their own house. If they do leave school now and don't go into further education there are no jobs for them to get. If they don't get a job, they probably won't qualify for benefits. The media force feed them a diet of sex, violence, drug glamorization and celeb worship then when they follow what they are sold they are criticized. They can't win. I'm so lucky I'm in my 30s!

No I was spoon fed and taught by rote learning. Copying down from textbooks and dusty chalkboards. When was the last time you set foot in a modern state classroom? please answer when you observed an a level lesson?
Students are encouraged to think for themselves and apply their knowlege at a level. Some of it does not come easy when you can google an answer or are used to the Internet for an instant answer. That's where they need support occaisionally.
Gcse also is not necessarily easy for some. It is a general standard of education. For some a c grade is a piece of cake. For some it is hard slog. for some it is an amazing achievement. Doesn't mean the exams are easy overall. Btw crap handwriting is not a measure of intelligence or educational standards - check yr last doctors prescription.

isoleone I absolutely agree with you. I've taught A level ICT and have been an examiner for the exam board for many years and this sort of crap that some people are spouting makes me really mad.

When I did my O levels (in a grammar school) we were not shown the syllabus nor past papers. It was a complete surprise to our teachers as to which questions came up each year. Now it's common for students to work through the syllabus, ticking off what they can do, work through past papers and model answers, read the Chief Examiner's report for each exam etc and all because they are guided by their (much better) teachers.

It's just snobbery, in the end and putting a smug slant on your own education, BarmyArmy.

atswimtwolengths - but of course, the formulae were on display (with guidance as to when they might be needed), and as for the question asking you to fit the correct word in the gap - whatever happened to getting children to express themselves in their own words, in order to demonstrate whether they have properly understood something?

That GCSE paper is a piece of piss. Its a spoof right?

Though I have to agree with putting equations on the inside page. Exams should be as more a test of reasoning, and not memory. In real life we just use the interweb, innit.

Regarding a-levels - what good are they as an exam if everyone gets high grades? Not only does it make bright students hard to identify from the not as bright , but it devalues MY A levels earned under the old grading system.

atswimtwolengths - again, you seem to miss that you and isoldeone are both helping me to make my point, to wit:

"When I did my O levels (in a grammar school) we were not shown the syllabus nor past papers. It was a complete surprise to our teachers as to which questions came up each year. Now it's common for students to work through the syllabus, ticking off what they can do, work through past papers and model answers, read the Chief Examiner's report for each exam etc and all because they are guided by their (much better) teachers."

In other words, they were assisted to an extent that did not exist when you or I took the exams. In other words, it has been made a whole lot easier.

It's got nothing to do with snobbery - I'm state comp boy through and through and proud of it.

ccpccp - don't worry, any employer worth their salt will note the year in which you took your exams and mentally adjust the grades accordingly. It's what I used to do.

Private recruits from state schools at 16 probably don't have the best grammar knowledge or say the wider reading skills of that on a par of Stephen Fry which some folk seem to expect. IME those that went into the army at 16 that I taught German to usually had to struggle with sen literacy and numeracy skills and worked bloody hard to get a c to get a grade in a mfl. Lads ( generally) with common sense but not the top drawer intellectually. A level german would be beyond them at 16.

IIRC, the questions at the beginning are supposed to be the easier ones. The questions at the end are harder.

TBH though I got an A or B at GCSE physics, (Whole grade was BB in double science, and physics was always my best science subject, so guessing) and I can't answer most of those questions now - I'm not even familiar with a lot of the words. That is what does annoy me about teaching to the test - surely I should still be able to work these things out by reasoning? It was only six years ago after all.

Did you tell us which exams/grades you have, Barmy Army?

I don't think it's spoon feeding the student to show them what's on the syllabus and what they are expected to know. It's not spoon feeding them to show them past papers and to show them what's been expected in the past. The Chief Examiner's report on an exam was always available, but teachers didn't BOTHER reading it - it wasn't that they thought 'Oh better not read that in case I inadvertently help someone.'

It's unfair to expect a student to sit an exam without knowing what they're to be tested on. I sat an A level English class that I studied at night and found that in fact we should have studied six books and had only studied five. Are you thinking that would be a really good test of someone's abilities?

YABU and inflammatory.

Nice blog post here which explains why much more eloquently than I could:

here

isoldeone - I couldn't agree more. The point I was making was that these chaps' peers from Commonwealth countries (their equivalent in virtually every respect other than nationality) were streets ahead of them in terms of basic literacy and I put that down to a difference in methods.

Commonwealth classrooms have far worse teacher-pupil ratios than we do (I taught English in India years ago, to 50+ pupils at a time!), so it has to have something to do with teaching methods, to my mind.