New GSCEs too difficult?

[Trishtrash]

"In GCSE English it's all exams – there is no coursework – and pupils are not allowed to bring in any of the texts. They effectively have to memorise three texts and 18 poems. The expectation is killing them.'

The above is a quote from today's Daily Mail - sorry!

Am I being unreasonable to think that that is not an unreasonable thing to require of an A-Level Student? I did my A-Levels over 30 years ago in a bog-standard comprehensive and we couldn't do any coursework ahead of the game and we certainly couldn't take any of the texts into the exam (that would have made it so much easier!!).

I remember having to memorise vast swathes of poetry (Keats, Wordsworth, Somerset Maugham etc...) and chunks of text (Doris Lessing, Return of the Native, A Winter's Tale are ones that I vaguely remember) in the expectation that we would need to quote from the poetry/texts to support a variety of themes/ideas that we might be asked questions on.

I have no idea about the rest of the curriculum as I did Art, English and History. I definitely had to memorise tons for the History element (I did modern History so stuff about Russian Revolution, WW1 & 2 and the EEC). I know that kids are under enormous pressure now and I got an A for my English Literature but there was no A* around then from what I remember (it WAS a long time ago!)

Is the problem that the teachers haven't been adequately prepared or supported to teach for this style of exam? If the kids are going in after two years of expecting another style of exam then I really feel for them but is this the case?

Memorising a poem is a lovely thing to do.

A lost art.

crunchymint

I don't teach English Literature (or Language) but if you go to the AQA website, you can easily look at the mark schemes for the exams. There, you will see that to achieve certain mark brackets, students need to:

Selects simple, limited textual reference(s) for 1-5 marks
Selects some appropriate textual reference(s) for 6-10 marks
Selects a range of relevant textual references for 11-15 marks
Selects a judicious range of textual detail for 16-20 marks

So, in order to gain as many marks as you can, the longer the sections of text you can memorise and include in your answer, the higher your marks.

Memorising a poem is a lovely thing to do.

That's fine by all means memorise a poem if you wish to but don't make it mandatory for GCSE, it will be off putting for many students and doesn't promote any skills that are useful in the workplace or academia.

With my Dyslexia I would have completely failed my English lit and Lang without my textbooks and coursework! I was annoyed at the time as the year before they stopped us brining our textbooks with our own notes in. I only got a B and C (just).

My daughter is very bright and always breezed through examinations. She is doing her GCSE exams at the moment and has found some hard and some easy - but she has approached her study with a view towards focusing exactly on what the exam boards require.

So her writing for English has been a tick box session of including all of the mark-gaining requirements. A semi colon, a hyphen, a similie, a metaphor etc.

There is no critical thinking, no room for expression or creativity. it has taken the joy out of English for her - equally history where similar tick boxing takes place.

In maths and science she has found it more straightforward. But the exams were long and required fast work with little time for checking. (this is for a student who is expected to get a 9 in maths).

Overall, the exam approach has helped her as she is academic. But so many children don't learn in this way and will fail. there's no room for different learning styles. We are setting up children to think of themselves as successes or failures.

Incidentally - the one subject where my daughter still had course work is music where she gained 100% in all of her course work and felt the exam went quite well. Course work does give students who work hard to chance to gain really good marks - but not sure how fair it is as a mark of ability and understanding.

I can’t memorize, I get more of a general jist of things.

GCSE isn't just about preparing for work or academia.

Its about enjoying and learning a subject. Memorising a poem seems to me to be a reasonable part of that. Literature used to involve memorising - it helps with understanding, rhythm and is plain enjoyable! Some people find relentless "analysing" off putting by the way.

Fashion we aren’t talking 1 or 2 verses.....some of the 15 poems have 7 or 8 verses!

I haven't read the whole thread but I totally agree that GCSEs have got ridiculous in terms of the number of exams and they are difficult now. I don't think high standards are bad and able students should be tested but to some extent it has gone too far.

One thing I would question though is about the relationship between memorizing passages/texts and the display and development of critical/analytical skills. In order to be critical and analytical you need to show understanding and in order to develop understanding you must have knowledge. Unfortunately, that knowledge does come in large part from reading, re-reading, reviewing and, yes, remembering. That is the foundation on which critical and analytical skills are based. It's irrelevant that the knowledge is apparently available at the touch of a button. If you don't know stuff (ie it is available in YOUR brain) you simply cannot be critical and analytical and you cannot make connections between different theories and ideas. Gaining that knowledge is often a slog, it can be dull and painful, more so for some people than others. But it is IS necessary.

I say this as an academic who teaches students who do not read (let alone re-read!) and hence do not know anything. Therefore they cannot be (and are not) critical or analytical.

Its about enjoying and learning a subject. Memorising a poem seems to me to be a reasonable part of that

But it’s not just 1-2 is 15-18!!

Its about enjoying and learning a subject. Memorising a poem seems to me to be a reasonable part of that. Literature used to involve memorising - it helps with understanding, rhythm and is plain enjoyable! Some people find relentless "analysing" off putting by the way.

That is total rubbish. Memorizing a poem doesn't help anyone enjoy it in a way that analysing it in the depth does. It doesn't require any higher level faculties. It's off putting and wastes times that could be spent actually engaging in critical thinking.

underestimation

Wile you're correct that to analyse in depth you'll have to be incredibly familiar with the text. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have access to the text during the exam. If you haven't read the text many times and become very familiar with it having it with you won't solve that issue anyway.

Yes I totally take that point Bottle.

I was thinking after I wrote my comment that I could have put it a little differently. I don't think memorizing whole texts is necessary but some sort of deep familiarity with whatever literature you are dealing with really is, to get to the higher levels of analysis. In my case (A-levels twenty years ago, I was a lazy thing), deep familiarity with Brodies notes (anyone remember those?) was how I scored high marks. I didn't memorize the texts I was expected to read but one way or another I was 'memorizing' something!

I think I get frustrated sometimes by the suggestion that because we have the internet we don't need to 'know' anything anymore.

I did my GCSEs seven years ago. My little brother is doing his now. The main difference is that I did all my Year 10 exams at the end of Year 10 and all my Year 11 exams at the end of Year 11 whereas my brother is doing both Year 10 and Year 11 exams now meaning he has up to 30 exams. I also had coursework, my brother only has coursework for his engineering. In order for my brother to get the top grades (9) he is expected to know A-level stuff and there is some confusion over what a C grade is- some are saying it’s a 4 others a 5. No wonder kids are stressed

crunchymint if you read my post properly you will see that I'm talking about A level (in general, not Eng Lit specifically), and certainly not GCSE Bitesize.

under I see what you mean but I think the current English format offers quite a lot of opportunity to cover gaps in that deep understanding with superficial memory.

I have a dc sitting GCSEs this year, as it happens he is studious, academic , committed and well balanced in that he does lots apart from academics . He is number 3 ,one of the others is also fairly academic the other has significant difficulties so we have done the whole spectrum. To be perfectly honest I think the exam boards, the dept of education and Ofsted have lost the plot.

Surely the point of a GENERAL certificate of secondary education, which every school leaver takes is that it should enable them to show what they DO know after 11 years of compulsory education and that they have reached a minimum standard.

It should not involve obscure or trick questions, or exam papers which examine in total such a small part of the syllabus that weeks and weeks of revision and effort has gone unrewarded .It should not involve such extreme time pressure that the able are unable to get down on paper what they do know and the less able have too little time to process what the question is asking for .

They have simultaneously increased the size of the syllabus and reduced the time for the papers so that it has become a tick box exercise where the best way to do well is to learn the Mark scheme and not the syllabus.

In history for example there is no time to order your thoughts, martial your arguments and plan an answer because the time pressure has become ridiculous .My ds started this exam period on May 14th and will end in 10 days time , he is still cheerful but white as a sheet and shattered, he will be fine though.Some of the less able members of his cohort ,particularly those who have diligently worked hard to do their best, will not.

For context I took O'levels in 1981 ( open book for Eng Lit by the way) and got 3As, 3Bs and 3Cs and Alevels two years later, ABC .That got me to one of the top universities in the country, who now wouldn't look at a candidate without at least 6A equivalents and AAA at A level .Universities are still saying this is what they will want in two years time so the higher level pupils are striving for this despite the extra difficulty and despite the fact that the exam boards have made a mockery of the whole thing by saying that they will keep the grade proportions consistent with previous years.

How can a system where scores of children are going to come out after 12 years of compulsory education with nothing to shown be right. Nothing to show that they have turned up every day. Been punctual, always been polite etc etc and continued doing their best to strive towards a goal, albeit a low standard . This system offers nothing for them.

This cannot be an efficient or effective way to run an education system .

peaseblossom22 that’s the best post I have read in ages. Brilliantly put!
You should send it as an open letter to newspapers and Dept. Of Ed.

@RolyRocks So, in order to gain as many marks as you can, the longer the sections of text you can memorise and include in your answer, the higher your marks.

I think you have drawn an incorrect conclusion. I think it is a good number of useful short quotes used appropriately and with good analysis that gains marks. Not just quoting long bits of text. In fact my impression is that long quotes tend not be encouraged, you have to pick out the key words or phrases.

In general re the new GCSEs:

• I think the lack of tiering is a shame and does less academic kids a disservice
• I think the general lack of course options for less able kids is a shame
• I have the impression that MFL is now much more fit for purpose
• I think we will need to see an adjustment back to 8 or 9 being the standard, with only the most academic doing 10 or more. So the increase depth of some subjects will end up being at the expense of breadth.
• I think coursework was so discredited it had to go
• I think ensuring pupils have done science experiments is a good thing, whether or not it 'counts towards grades'. Science would be nothing without experiments.

My Dd did computer science this year - there was so much outright actual cheating going on in the coursework component that it was withdrawn DURING THE YEAR it applied to, so instead of having a decent tranche of actual coding - which is ultimately what computer science is about, it is all exam based - despite the kids doing the work and banking on it to balance out a poor exam score.

I did GCSEs with coursework, and honestly, I do think the coursework was better preparation for uni and work than exams- I learned how to structure an essay, conduct independent research, work to a deadline, edit and improve my work, manage my time and so on. Certainly in science subjects, I think the coursework was more valuable and taught me more about the scientific method than memorising facts for the exams.

I know coursework was open to abuse and cheating did go on, but I do think that if we worked hard enough at it, we could include some coursework in our examination system. However, I always felt there was an element of "girls do better than boys at coursework" with an undertone of sexism- obviously if girls were better at it, it must be easier.

I think prior to sixteen, cutting out whole sectors of subjects (e.g. humanities or arts) is not ideal, and at sixteen, separating out the gifted from the merely very clever is not really what exams should be about. To me, this is more the function of A-levels, which are obviously only intended for the more academic students.

Surely, the purpose of a GCSE is to show basic competence and knowledge in a subject area? I don't think anyone has ever got a job based on having an A* rather than an A?

I think it must be incredibly demoralising as level 5/6 (so B/C) student to go into an exam and find you cannot tackle 30-40% of the paper.

I don't know if the GCSEs are actually "too hard" although last year's 80% to get a 9 and 65% to get an 8 in maths suggests they might have been. I do think the pressure on young people at 16 is already immense and these exams have made it more so, for no real good reason.

Ive not read all the thread yet

Thanks Gove, you bellend

This with fucking bells on

My Dd did computer science this year - there was so much outright actual cheating going on in the coursework component that it was withdrawn DURING THE YEARIn that case it was, I believe, a teacher published the unseen exercise on a website and by the time it was removed, too many people had seen it.
My dd is doing it too.

I don't think they're too hard. However I think schools will need to go back to the years of doing smaller numbers.
At my school, which was selective, only the top people did 9, most people did 8 and the bottom end did 7 GCSEs. Now at dc's school they all do 12+ and she did 16

So, in order to gain as many marks as you can, the longer the sections of text you can memorise and include in your answer, the higher your marks.

I think you have drawn an incorrect conclusion.

And I think you have misinterpreted what I have said in context with me directly responding to another poster. What I meant was, here is the evidence that the more you memorise, the higher the mark, that they were asking for - whether that is lots and lots of short phrases or one long phrase is irrelevant. The fact is, the students who want to do well, need to memorise as many lines as they can.

YANBU. I've read/scribed in exams for the last 4 years and they are undoubtedly harder this year. For example it's been Geography today and it was distinctly harder than previous years.

I also tutor science and the content has increased considerably with the new syllabus.