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?

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 feel quite sorry for young people currently. Parental expectations seem to be higher than ever (I accept this could just be a MN/my social circle thing) regarding what schools their DC attend, grades achieved etc...At the same time the achievements of those same DC are constantly rubbished by wider society/media as not good enough/not worth the paper they are written on. I'm not surprised a lot have no clear sense of what they want to do.

My DD is in her first year of a sandwich course degree. She's not that academic and it is a very vocational course, a year of which she spends working in the industry. Tbh if she had been born a year later I would have advised her to enter the workplace rather than succumb to such high tuition fees. She is however gaining a lot of life skills whilst at uni and is a hard worker with good people skills so I am confident she will be fine whatever she ends up doing.

I think the lack of manufacturing base in this country and a diminishing respect for non academic skills have caused a big problem, particularly for young men who IMO need to feel they are valued and have a future career in something achieveable ( as a mother of 3 boys age 11 and under I am more concerned about this than my older DD's prospects).

It's not a-levels that are the problem. it's the whole NC. Children are being spoon fed ( from the EYFS) information in order to 'make progress' to satisfy OFSTED criteria - a case in point is the new Y1 phonics test being introduced.

As Gove and his minions have demonstrated (with their poor grasp of maths) it's not good enough to have an average number of children being, well, average - ALL children must be made to jump through these artificial hoops in order to tick boxes and be assimilated on league tables.

There is no room in learning today for independent thinking, for enquiry, for creativity - everything must be homogenised. There must be lesson by lesson data to demonstrate how children have met the 'criteria' for their 2 levels of progress per keystage. And this is why teachers are totally hogtied - abandon a lesson plan to a group of interested, engaged kids and meander into the whys/wherefores of (say) the LHC...you'd lose your job. Deliver sterile, ofsted compliant powerpoints that tick boxes - you're outstanding.

And that is why fucking around with A -Levels is like trying to stop a dam with a toothpick.

And this is why any change will disadvantage state school kids who are being taught in a system where staff literally have one hand tied behind their backs by bureaucracy.

I think the lack of manufacturing base in this country and a diminishing respect for non academic skills have caused a big problem, particularly for young men who IMO need to feel they are valued and have a future career in something achieveable

I completely agree with this themightyfandango

My dh work in electronic engineering and he worries too as there are only high level jobs left, fine for him with quals and years experience, but for the young him there wouldhave been sweet FA

Seahouses - not sure how I simply managed to paste your answer and post it as my own. Sorry!

I actually don't disagree with anything you say which leads me to think I'm explaining myself badly.
It's also worth saying that I teach kids for a day, maximum. I'm not training them for a career but they are on a field trip to see how things really work and to get slightly different angles/takes on the way things might be taught in school. And to have access to someone who has facts that a teacher may not - I've got an in-depth knowledge of my subject that a teacher couldn't hope to have because they haven't trained for it.

"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".

This started as a response to people who said 'Kids aren't taught enough facts now'. All I was trying to do was explain why A'Levels need to be about more than just learning by rote. I hand out facts - what I try to do is set them in a context (why we need to know them, maybe how they were attained) and then I try to establish settings in which the facts are important. All I was trying to say was that the 'being able to think' bit is just as important and valid to nurture as learning facts. I didn't claim it came from nowhere, or that I invented it.

"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 didn't say that anywhere! I just said it's what I did, and why. I didn't once claim I was the only person to be doing it or that it was novel and out there. Maybe I should have put in a qualifying post that what i do is part of a panorama of teaching. But again, I was answering the 'teach more facts' folk with an explanation of why sitting on your backside learning great lists of facts by rote isn't an improvement on what is currently being done.

"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".

But all I talked about is what I can try and achieve in a field trip, not what I think needs to be covered over two years of a subject! I thought it was relevant because of the approach (taking a real life setting to explain facts, why they are important and how they are used). Doesn't for a moment mean that I want the curriculum dominated by my subject area, or think it should be.

But again it comes back to what A'Levels are for. Do we want them to get people to a certain standard for University, in which case what happens to those who don't go to uni and how do A'Levels prepare them for what they may go on to do? All I was trying to say was that we shouldn't assume that everyone doing A'Levels will go on to be an undergraduate and get the requisite level of training there. I was actually trying to argue that A'Levels should not become elitist, because you do not know what the kids will need to go on and use them for.

Agincourt - my DH would agree. His firm cannot get enough technicians. Once upon a time, a 16 year old with decent GCSEs but who didn't want to carry on at school would be fighting to get a technical apprenticeship with the opportunity to gain qualifications whilst being paid. Now, they are all being pushed into sixth form.
If they took on an apprenticeship they would be able to get training ... up to degree level whilst being paid and getting useful experience.

That's exactly what my dh did Lilymaid (he is 42) but yes, exactly the same in his company (which is a no 1 player) there are no apprenticeships at all

Maths and Physics A level have been dumbed down too far and the country is suffering for it. In fact the entire secondary science curriculum is in need of a drastic overall. Thank Gawd this is being reversed.

"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...."

Why is that a bad thing? Your dd can do a PROPER science curriculum and get tested at 16. She will hopefully be able to malipulate mathematical formule, balance chemical equations and be able to write a coherent essay on the function of the kidney. Sometimes science is hard and boring, but its the hard and boring stuff you need for good science and engineering.

The previous govenant tried to make science more interesting by getting children to discuss issues like global warming or the ethics behind genetic engineering. Unless the child learns RIGOUROUS science then you have nothing more than a debating society.

IMHO children should not be sittings GCSE early unless there is a 90% chance of them getting an A*. Your dd should be concentrating on learning maths and science rather than passing exams which have limited value.

Do British school leavers ever look at the Irish when choosing courses? Graduates walk into jobs all over Europe and elsewhere.

Since they were founded as Regional Technical Colleges back in the 60s and 70s they have been the engine that drove Irish economic growth.

Sorry -- look at the Irish institutes of technology, formerly regional technical colleges.

As well as making A levels harder we need to shut down half the universities. Only the very best universities should survive and make sure that all children who are intelligent enough should go and regardless of background or wealth.

Only 25% of children should go on to uni and places should be fully funded as they were in my day 30 years ago. The total money now spent on universities shoudl be kept the same but spread over far fewer students.

Unless we shut down half the universities, they will still fill up their lecture theatres with students who should not be there. The A level grades they set as the entry level will just be reduced if the A levels are made harder.

Apprenticeships were always the choice of the not so academic back when I left school.

There are no apprenticeships any more , because there is no industry

Many of my DSs friends will go to university because there is nothing else for them to do.

I was going to say precisely that, usualsuspect.

The problem is that people need a degree for more or less anything, therefore ALL qualifications have been devalued. To be honest, the way things are going, I would far rather any children of mine learned a trade as an apprentice than went to University and got a mickey mouse degree. There will always be the need for electricians and plumbers and it pays well.

but you were an apprentice for all sorts of things usual. The guy who plastered my ceiling, teaches plastering at college & he said that they cannot get young people to sign up as a plasterers apprentice because they don't want to do manual trades. My cousin is a Master Carpenter - another trade you apprentice. Just because we don't have a big industrial sector doesn't mean that there aren't loads of jobs you could be an apprentice for.

I asked further up - what jobs actually do need 3 years (or more) at university? That is how we should be looking at it.

Polys should have remained a parallel system. Converting them into universities denigrated the education and training they offered and presented academic degrees as a superior goal for students, to the point where the old polys all rushed to change their names to 'university' as soon as they could when they were able to grant degrees.

The problem is , doing a vocational course is seen as second best.

By whom though? Parents? Teachers? Employers? The students themselves?

there are apprenticeships !

Anglia Ruskin University was originally called Anglia Polytechnic University but it changed its name when 'polytechnic' was identified as a term that was putting off potential students.

All of the above, Ariel

Yes their are apprenticeships but no where near enough

there*

When I was a teacher I had a TA whose son had mild learning difficulties, but he was good at painting and wallpapering etc and enjoyed doing it. She looked into him doing a Modern Apprenticeship in that area, but the problem was that it involved two days a week in college, when he could barely read and write. I remember her (and his) frustration when they'd found something he liked and could do well, but he would have found too hard because part of the course was academic.

What are kids like this supposed to DO? The GP's answer was "Don't worry, he'll be able to claim benefits." What parent wants a lifetime of benefit claiming for their child when he is fit and able to work and do a job well?

Reallytired, the changes to the science GCSEs pre-date this government. This government are responsible for terminal assessment, not the new specification. You are thinking I think of 21st century science, which came out of the university of York, and while I am far from a fan myself, balancing an equation, rearranging formulae and describing how the kidney works are all there.

We do need to shake off the academic snobbery. IMO, being a skilled craftsman, which usually takes years, is a far more valid qualification than a Degree in Surf Science (yes it really exists) from a former college of higher education.

My younger brother was unremarkable at school and shy. He had a passion for film but was not Alevel material. He did an NVQ and went to university and excelled. He has an amazing job is in huge demand and he learned and grew into himself at university. Education is for all and he wasn.t academic but he read voraciously once in that sort of environment and did well.