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?

*tough remembering

Fair enough, I know it can be useful. I just think people will end up with a poorer grade for it, and people who they need to show that grade to may incorrectly infer that they are unintelligent or bad at English, when it's just the memorisation part that stumped them, iyswim?

It's another reason I think coursework elements are a good idea. Exams don't suit everyone and I think students with very good abilities get penalised for exam-related anxiety.

As you say, it's never going to be a perfect system.

Uyulala

I don't think it is a perfect system, but I prefer the ability to see the very, very top more clearly than we could before. It's a shame that some students with less precise memories who are just as smart as those with better will get lower marks, but as I say, I like that it tests memory.

Buxbaum - yes, this is exactly the group that are going to be let down badly. How disheartening for any child with an AEN who puts in 110% effort and the same amount of hard work.

Having just sat English Language GCSE I can tell you that it was way harder than the o level I took at 16. I comfortably got a B despite being in the CSE set. I think I will be lucky to get a 4.

They now have to memorise 15 to 18 poems? That’s fucking insane.

It is nothing short of disgusting how the lower ability pupils are being treated by this system. The idea that they have to go into a maths exam and potentially get to the top of what they can achieve so early on in the questions - it doesn’t matter if you then set a stupidly low mark for a 4, they’ve still got nothing but a sense of absolute failure from the whole experience.

Yes, the exams had become too easy, for the top pupils. They hadn’t become too easy for the pupils with significant SEN or who struggled. In the old days they could work hard and make a good effort at foundation, hopefully get a C even and feel pleased with themselves. Now they might as well not bother.

And the brightest, maybe in time they will get to a point where they feel like a 6 is a bloody good grade (as it will be for many). But for now, all they know is that 9=A=top and they think they have to get all top grades because unis will still demand them, never mind how much easier A became over the years.

The governments’s complete disregard, if not distaste, for the vulnerable or lower achieveing is evident in what they have done and I am sickened by it.

I’m a teacher, mostly of high achieving pupils, and a mother of a DC with dyslexia and processing problems. I would like to move countries if this is what he’ll be facing in seven years’ time.

GlitterGlue

No, they don't have to memorise them. They have to know some quotations from that number of poems. It is challenging, but not an impossible ask from the vast majority of students (I'm marking the exam now).

They now have to memorise 15 to 18 poems? That’s fucking insane.

No no no no no no no no. They do not.

Ok, that’s marginally better. But does memorising (part of) poems actually improve their ability?

GlitterGlue

It depends on what you mean by 'ability'.

When I was at university I encountered a professor with a profoundly accurate and long-lasting memory. He could tell you what questions were on his undergraduate papers and how he went about answering them. It was annoying, but the man was a genius - he had all the information he would ever need with regards to his chosen area of expertise at his fingertips. Not for him the labouring over old texts to try to recall an argument or a quotation.

In summary, yes, I think it makes a student better at Literature to be able to remember pertinent things from texts they have studied.

scipio my DD finally said to me the other day that there is nothing wrong with a 7 (A).
It’s taken her 2 years to come to that conclusion (even though we had been telling her that) because in all of her reports since year 10, the poor girl had been told by staff that she was ‘not achieving’.

That was because her gcse targets were all 9’s....based on year 6 SATS. Well, a long time has passed since year 6 and she is a very different person to that 11yr old child. Who is to say she would ever get 9’s?
Anyway, we will be happy if she gets the grades she needs for A Levels and passes the rest...if she gets 8’s and 9’s great but if not, 4’s and 5’s are just as great.

My dd is 15 and in year 10. He sat his proper GCSE English lit papers a few weeks ago, a year early.

This was a tactic by the school as only the top two sets didn't do it and will do it next year. Ds has AS and struggled with revising.

The only good thing is here that he now relalises just how much hard work is involved with revising, retaining information and then getting that information down on the paper.

I bought him all of the revision guides, Romeo and Juliet, Blood Brothers, A Christmas Carol and unseen poetry plus he had to memorise 18 poems which seemed to have been his strength.

He is now doing his mocks and is devising a revision timetable to start over the summer holidays.

I feel sorry for him to be honest, he is bright and able but massively struggles with getting what is in his head onto the paper and tends to waffle a bit like me and ran out of time on paper one.

The pressure on them is huge.
I hope his marks are as valued as mine were back in the day. It's all high b, low b etc, was easier when a b was a b.

Autocorrect sorry should say DS

Only a lunatic tries to memorise entire poems.🙄 You become familiar with specific lines to use as quotations.

No offence to your son, Zoflora. Merely a manner of speaking. Haven’t read the thread but the above is definitely true.

Taking texts into an exam is ridiculous and counterproductive.

Re. quotations embedding shorter quotations into your sentences is the way to do well.

Re. quotations, ...

I actually think it's been really beneficial to my son to have to learn by rote.

Last week I sat my GCSE English exams after 12 years out of education, I did this at college, so it was the combined English language, completely different from when I sat it at school and had to memorised poems. I am dsypraxic so found it incredibly difficult to memorise anything let alone 18 poems.

English isn't really where the need for facts is important, also it's not as simple as looking at just one subject.

Many, many years ago when I did O level history you didn't have to revise the whole syllabus. You could select the parts you were most interested in and choose a question on those topics. Now you have specific questions you have to answer so you need to revise the whole syllabus- everything you have been taught.

You could do an O level in 6 months by focusing on certain topics - Politics for example. Now you need to invest in the whole subject.

Therefore, across all subjects you have a wider body of knowledge to engage with. Biology has a particularly large syllabus that sucks up many hours of revision if done as a single subject.

Verbena I’m very glad to hear that about your daughter. I had to work hard with my top set group last year (they did the old GCSE) to persuade them that a B (even!) wouldn’t be the end of the world! It’s hard now when they’ve been predicted such high grades and had all that date - when I did GCSEs (mid 90s) I don’t think we even had predicted or target grades (that we as pupils knew of).

I hope she does really well, but as you say important not to care too much and see it as a means to an end and in perspective.

all that data

Educationalists and exam boards have never explained why they lowered standards for GCSEs compared with "O" levels in the first place, at least as far as I am aware.

Grade inflation, exams being too easy and an inability to usefully differentiate between students.

No complaint in education is ever new. They were probably making the same complaint in the 1950s and the 1920s.