to think the tories are making education elitist?

[ThatVikRinA22]

just watching the news, they are making the A levels harder, saying they are too easy

my boy did maths and physics and trust me - they were not too bloody easy!

my dd is doing GCSEs now, (at 14!! too bloody young imo!) and was doing one science syllabus, the government changed it recently and now, where she would have been awarded a C, she ended up with a D. The science teacher had a rant about the tories at parents evening....

so, now A levels are going to get harder, getting into uni is going to be harder plus more expensive, does this spell and end for opportunities for all to go to uni?

is it going to be the reserve of the very bright and the very rich?

My son is doing mainly iGCSEs. I have to say I thought the biology one looks pretty easy. English is easier than the O level I studied too, as they seem to be able to choose mainly more modern texts. No Chaucer. No Keats.

Yes, mumzy, they do read whole texts.

Anything else you want to ignorantly criticise?

How many O-levels did you do and how many GCSEs is your son doing?

Also, Abra1d, I wouldn't say that more modern texts are always easier, it depends what they are.

The Miller's Tale Vs Mrs Dalloway?

No contest.

Well I think if you are 15 it's probable that approaching a text that is in language not obviously recognisable as modern English you are going to have an initial, at least, challenge.

But I would hate to give any pupil Mrs Dalloway. That would be cruelty. I had to study VW at university and I hated it.

They should be made harder. They are supposed to be 'Advanced' levels and it should not be the case that almost anyone can pass them.

But at the same time more effort has to go in to either vocational courses or perhaps academic courses between GCSE and A Level. Everyone will have to remain in education or training till they are 18 and A Levels are not for everyone.

Abra1d, I completely agree. Virginia Wolf needs roundly ignoring.

20 years ago when I left school vocational courses were well regarded. Lots of friends did Btec Nationals in Business & Finance and secured good jobs, dh did a Btec in Civil Engineering. Why are they sneered at now?

With so many going to university, a degree doesnt actually guarantee anybody a job any more. It should be just the top x percentage that go.

Rather than have "fun" degrees have more vocational courses for those that want to learn a trade.

I kind of feel like it's a red herring tbh.

I am 34 and I did my a levels, god when?? in 1996 (?? ) and people my age went to univerisity of they had done BTECs rather than A levels, so I do sort of wonder what point is trying to be made here, especially as the tories were in power then too.

I actually thought my A levels were more difficult in places than the degree I did tbh.

Also, i think there is a great deal of snobbery surrounding the traditional way into qualifications. My dh is a highly skilled engineer and he did, hnc, hnd, ba, msc all whilst working and he is still looked down on by the Brunel, mummy and daddy lot. I think it will take forever to get rid of the ingrained old boy school mentality in this country tbh. But hey, that's just my experience and opinion.

The sneering attitude towards Btechs, nvqs etc and other vocational qualifications will never go away , you only have to read MN to know some of the attitudes towards them.

I can't stand Virginia Woolf. I honestly can't see what the fuss is about.

I realise what a pointless contribution that was, by the way :)

I had English support all the way through my degree (2:1 in social policy from Sheffield) and my Masters (Manchester) because I have a learning disability ...and we had to HAND WRITE all our work back in the old days

I left school with 1 O level - I guess I would be classed as a 'thicko' - bloody glad my mother gave me enough self esteme and support for me to think 'fuck em' and go to college anyway

A levels are not easier - it is just that kids have more options now and only the brightest tend to do A levels - certainly through the 2 years (I am sure many examples of peole your next door neigbours cats dog knows will be brought forth to disprove this) - Gove is a tosser

Oh I know usualsuspect, it does my head in. I think most of these opinions come from people who have had choices in life too. Life is alot harder, even if you are bright, if those choices are taken away from you or you have limits to your choices. But it seems some of the brightest amongst us find that quite a difficult concept to grasp.

I hardly dared come back because I always assume everyone else loves VW.
I always think a few shoot-outs would make the books more readable. Or a chain-saw massacre.

I did my A Levels in 2000-2002 and was the first year to go through the modular AS/A2 system. I don't know if it has changed a lot since then but it was certainly academically rigorous, there were 6 modules to be taken per subject over a 2 year period, usually with 1 set of exams in January (covering 1 module per subject) and another set in June, covering 2 modules per subject. All seperate exams although they could be scheduled to run consecutively.
Exam length was 90 minutes per module, so for 3 subjects x 6 modules this would be 1,620 minutes of exam time, or 540 minutes per subject. So 9 hours of examinations per subject. According to an earlier poster (sorry I have not had time to read the whole thread) 9 hours of exams at the end of 2 years is what we should revert to. I don't see the difference to be honest between cramming everything covered in 2 years into 1 final block of exams and spreading them out into 4 sessions. Except of course that you are examined on the material shortly after learning it, clearly this is making it 'too easy' and I should have my A Levels taken off me because I wouldn't know where to start with differentiation these days!
I found that with Maths particularly the second year of exams was actually easier than the first, probably because I had got used to the standard by then. It took me a while to 'click' with some of the syllabus so I re-sat 2 modules - I think I pulled up my grades for those modules from C/D to A/B. The 'pure maths' was much easier when I had a second crack at it because I had been practicing those principles for another 18 months and fully understood them. I think the modular system is a system that suits the majority, those that can get it right first time (which was the case for me with 16 of 18 modules I completed to full A Level) and those who sometimes need a bit longer to grasp a concept.

Oh and I have an English Literature degree and have never read any Virginia Woolf.

When people go on about about too many degrees the problem is that they do not see that many of them actually are "vocational" but because they are at a certain level they are taught by Universities. Lots of higher education is done in the workplace now too you know. Yes I agree that Blair's 52 pc was always going to be unachievable but I find it laughable that some think(like a previous poster pointed out) only the vairy vairy brightest should go to Uni ( their own children presumably?)

BBTS, yes people have to make decisions about future scenarios where they have incomplete information and have to plan for future scenarios based on that. And there are frameworks, often developed in the social sciences, about how people plan and manage in those situations.

You seem to be under the impression that if we have incomplete information the whole thing somehow becomes less based on facts and knowledge, when in fact the more incomplete our data, the more we are required to base it on solid understanding and facts of how to plan in such situations.

You do seem to be labouring under the illusion that the scientific element is dry facts to which you are then inventing some novel kind of analysis which is about being 'able to think' which has come from nowhere. It hasn't come from nowhere. The first part - knowledge of species, climate, predictive models based on incomplete information etc is based on both facts and modes of analysis from the natural sciences and the second management part that you seem to think is some kind of dark art of being 'able to think' is simply both facts and modes of analysis from the social sciences.

I think any intelligent student of GCSE Geography would be able to understand that you are simply combining natural and social science methods in an interdisciplinary project. But the former (natural sciences) does not equal facts and the latter (social sciences) does not equal 'how to think.' It would perhaps be more useful to students if you showed then the specific social science based planning framework and asked them to try and use it rather than simply asking them to make stuff up, giving then the impression that is how environmental management works!

I do not see why you think that students don't get taught how to do the things you are talking about. They are taught this kind of thing at KS3, with an understanding that it is simply taking knowledge from different areas of the curriculum that are being brought together. It simply isn't the job of A level Biology alone to cover the whole of Geography, Ethics and Social Policy. Although I find it hard to believe you have picked up a GCSE Science text book if you think pupils aren't taught about these kind of decision making processes. DS has being doing something very similar to this, looking at decision making in the siting of power stations in GCSE Physics.

I think your post simply highlights why people who are not secondary school teachers should not be deciding what is in the A level syllabus, because it just becomes partisan ideas about their own subjects areas rather than bringing forward the understanding that teachers have about how schools actually works across the whole school curriculum rather than in a narrow field.

If you are getting in people doing jobs in conservation who are educated up to A level, it is up to you to provide them with further training once they start the job. It is not up to schools to provide specific training for one particular job. I think that is part of the confusion for Gove. A levels are summative assessment for a wide range of pupils. They are not intended to be entrance tests for a particular career or even for a particular university course. They cannot be all things for all employers. I don't see why A levels should become elitist simply because certain elite universities don't want the hassle of organising their own entrance exams and tests or because certain employers don't want to provide training and expect schools to do it for them. The role of a school is to provide a general, broad based education. The role of the employer or the university is to teach more specific skills.

'I don't see why A levels should become elitist simply because certain elite universities don't want the hassle of organising their own entrance exams and tests '

It's not just that. It's that they have to run remedial courses on things that used to be taught at A level. Or before.

Abraid, yes I can see that there is scope to have more difficult elements at A level that could be taught to the more capable students. But some universities don't take the more capable students, so will have to accept that they teach at a more remedial level or perhaps should close their courses.

But A levels are no longer just for pupils who are heading to good universities. Maybe the answer is to have a lower and higher tier, or for the more capable students to do A levels plus university entrance preparation or to do Pre U instead.

The level of difficulty is a different issue though to a desire for A levels to become more subject specific to particular university courses or careers. That kind of specific skill set is what vocational qualifications are meant to be for.

Agree with whoever it was further up who said that this is tinkering at the edges again.
The education system & structure needs an overhaul & just fiddling about with A level standards is not the answer.
The plethora of useless university degrees is depressing - but they came about to fulfill a stupid Govt initiative of getting more students into university - regardless of the fact it would qualify them for nothing & just make them run up debt.
I think there is alot to be said for apprenticeships - but I don't know what the evidence is for how well that works in practice.

I think we need to be more clear too that 'more capable' student will only encompass those students who either have the ability or support to be 'more capable' in a traditionally academic sense. It doesn't necessarily mean they are 'more capable' overall and yes, traditional industrial based apprenticeships were a brilliant source or learning, both hands on and academic alongside paid work - but do those sort of a[apprenticeships readily exist now? i am not sure they do really, and maybe it would be more beneficial long term to look at that and the lack of, at the same time. But my feelings are that it again comes back to snobbery and even some of these posts there is an undercurrent of 'more capable = must go to top uni, bright but less capable for whatever reason = lets send them all to poly darling. Which is a return to the days of old and my issue with that is to how you are regarded post university/training and why we allow a level of snobbery to exist into our adult years where our background and socioeconomic standing is called into question, rather than our capability to perform a high level of skill in our job or when applying for a job.

I think its ALL weird. My children's school's next year 9 will be starting on their GCSE courses in September ...a 3 year KS4. That means, that this time next year, when my son will not quite be 13, he will have to choose his options!! How the heck does that work? He's only just beginning to find out what he has apptitude for!
Meanwhile, my daughter is having to do EBacc because she is in the top sets at school (She is in Year 10). She took part of her science GCSE recently and got a C. (She got an A in her English Lit exam).The school were all for her re-taking in the summmer,to try to improve on it. She doesn't want to follow anything to do with science when she leaves school. She wants to be a Music Teacher.
I thought that the C grade was really good ,for her , because she really doesn't like doing science, but has no choice in the matter. This is all about the school's reputation, not what is good for my daughter!!! It was a struggle to fit in the Music GCSE lessons in her timetable, because that doesn't fit in with EBacc ! I
I am so fed up with successive governments messing about with education,one way or another.

Agincourt, I suppose it depends on the job. It is relevant to know what the education of a dentist is, for example, because they need to have a degree in dentistry. I would also expect a plumber to have specific qualifications if they were doing anything with gas.

But for a lot of jobs whether or not somebody has been to university or which university they went to has no relevance.

I think the 'more capable' thing is quite important. We can't make judgements about who is more capable 'overall' because that isn't what schools or exams do. In fact making a decision about who is more capable 'overall' is never going to happen at any point in life. I am not going to be lined up next to a hairdresser, a postman, an MP, a musician and a brain surgeon and be judged on which of us has the greatest overall capability.

So we come back to what are A levels for? They are mainly for determining a narrow academic capability. The main change in education has been the demise of work based training for teenagers, and yet schools are being blamed for the lack of capabilities of young people in the workplace! I think we have to decide who is responsible for teaching what, and who is best at teaching what.

I don't notice dentistry lecturers moaning that A level students come in not knowing how to fill a tooth. Presumably because they expect to take in students who got a general education at school and then the university deals with teaching the vocational skills.

If we expect everybody to stay in education until 18, then there have to be courses that are actually suitable for what everybody wants to do. I don't know if schools are the right place for that to be delivered.

So many jobs that now require you to have a degree - didn't in the past. Years ago you were articled for lots of jobs, like law & accountancy. Yes, you went to lectures to learn about some of the more academic aspects of your job - but in the most part you trained on the job. It would be an interesting exercise to go through all the professions & see which ones actually needed you to do 3 years at Uni, or which could be far more usefully learnt on the job!