To think GCSEs and A levels are crazy

[Chimichurrie]

I think there is far too much pressure on the kids in secondary school with GCSES and A levels. DH and I grew up in different countries and didn’t have to go through all this. We went to have successful careers.

We feel we enjoyed our childhood and teenager years without this constant pressure that exists in the UK about exams and success. Maybe is the same in other countries.

Our kids used to be very creative but once they started secondary school that just got to be put behind; school seems to consume their life. I have always worried whether they are having a nice childhood.

Do you think there is something wrong with the curriculum? Should our kids have s bit more opportunity to do other things to be more rounded?

I have never taught outside England. Perhaps others could help. The systems are different.
I'm sure you meant NI, because Ireland is an independent nation.

yes. Northern Ireland,

I am referring to England, maybe other part of the UK are better.

In answer to the question, it’s to do with league tables and performance related pay for teachers.

Nobody really cared how we did when I was at school, other than for reasons of wanting the best for us. Everyone went to the local schools, and teachers got paid and progressed through the various pay thresholds regardless of results.

Now teachers are under massive pressure to get results in order to keep the schools up in the league tables, because if parents vote with their feet, bang goes the budget. If they don’t manage to get those results, they’ll quickly find themselves stuck on a lower pay grade and in capability procedures…which can lead to massive stress and often being managed out.

Add Ofsted to the mix and all the stress that brings, and you’ll see that schools are under huge pressure from the top down, and ultimately all that pressure is on the students. That’s why we have a mental health crisis in schools.

It depends what you mean by "better".
There are pressures for good results. However, good schools will have processes and procedures in place for support.
Most of the students in my groups get through with no problems, especially with good support from home.
The whole system is ripe for reform imo, until then, we have to follow the process.

I feel for the teachers as well as my children.

I hope a reform comes soon. It is just sad the current pressure; no enjoyable for anyone.

The current system is going ti collapse with many teachers leaving education

I think the GCSE system (in England), which is what my child has just been through, is too high stakes. I also dont understand why pupils are put through qualifications they know they won't do well in. It seems so odd that it's not more usual to leave with a mix of level 1 and level 2 qualifications that include gcses and vocational ones too, taken at different points.

It's not really a system set up to show what pupils can do, it more ranks them against there peers.

My son has spent his whole school life so far “working towards age related expectations”. He’s around 4 yrs behind due to SEN but we only know what the gap is because a lovely teacher went back and measured him against lower age expectations. Before that, all we knew is he was behind but the bar was about to be raised again as he moved to another year. None of the standard assessments helped us understand the gap prior to that.

We’ve fought for the support, but he’s still assessed with the standard chronological age assessments. He’ll leave school never having passed any test.

I think of him as going to school to be “schooled” and we educate him at home, making small steps progress that school’s assessments will never see.

I don’t think there is that much pressure but I’m British Chinese and British people have no idea how much pressure and extra work some Asian parents give their kids. There is a reason that this ethnic group along with Indian children have the best exam results in the UK. Plus some of those kids will also work in the family business, I did.

The whole attitude to parenting is just so very different. I am far less strict than my parents but DS still had the strictest Mum by far diluted by very liberal white DH, we had a few clashes over parenting.

YANBU

I live in Sweden and it was quite an eye operner getting my UK grades translated. My UK O-levels/GCSEs are the equivalent of 18/19 year olds school leaving certificate and my A-levels equal to the first year or two of university.

I don't think you can change the school system unless you change the whole world we live in.
I know parents who said, don't worry, these exams don't define you, just relax about them.
So they did, came out with 2s and 3s and were then scrabbling around for a college place. Then had to reset English and maths because you can't get through the door anywhere without these.
GCSEs - 4 above a 4 - are the absolute baseline you need to get on and really, it's a disgrace that after 11 years of state funded education that so many kids are leaving without them (SEN aside). That, after all, is the point of going.
So yes, I put pressure on my kids to get through their exams with good results, because a lifetime of experience shows me that doing well in your teens can relieve a lifetime of pressure brought about by working in menial jobs and worrying about where the next penny is coming from.
Parents who try and save their kids from exam stress really are just creating more stress for them over the course of the rest of their lives.
And yes, there's always the off example of such and such who left with nothing and is now a millionaire - but it's not the norm.

How would that be helpful to the many kids who struggle to get a grade 4 ?

I don't agree with this. Both mine carried on with a variety of hobbies and interests until they went to uni. And school encouraged extra curricular activities.
My DS did a lot of singing - choirs, concerts etc, and continued with his Scouting commitments as a Young Leader. DD did 3-4 dance lessons a week and continued with her Girl guiding. She also did her DofE, and did knitting/crochet to relax.
Both had active social lives too.
All this was fitted round homework.

Not all of my y11s got grade 9s, but most did well enough to progress to A levels or a college course of their choice. Those who vaped all break time and spent the lesson with their heads on the desk got grades 1-2 and struggled to find a post 16 course.

@Seeline - I think you have a good approach. I have yr11s who play in bands and orchestras, are competitive swimmers or cyclists, do dance and ice skating. There's enough of this to suggest it's manageable, and at least some hobbies are continuing!

With the best will in the world some kids are just not academic what's the point in piling on pressure when it isn't going to achieve anything and just make kids feel evennmore of a failure.?

As far as English (my subject) goes, more students are failing to achieve level 4 because Mr Gove scrapped the Foundation paper and they all have to sit the Higher.

The system sets the students up to fail. Paper 2 asks the kids to engage with a piece of 19th Century non-fiction, ffs. In what world is the average kid going to be able to do that?

No wonder English A-level take up is plummeting.

Many are switching to Functional Skills, which is so sad. It’s fine, but not exactly enriching.

Yes I've heard the same from lots of people who were educated in various other Countries.

Not all.kids are academic ,my son isn't he's never vaped in his life ,he tries his best ,you seem very narrow minded if yoy think Alevels are the only way forward?

I think you have the wrong poster. I never said A levels were the only way forward.

I worked in higher education so the students had already been filtered multiple times by exams but you can clearly see the ones who found it a breeze and the ones who had to put effort in. That’s the issue with all educational systems and exams, different learning styles of individuals plus deep down there is the raw level of intelligence that may or may not come to fruition as that is dependant on multi factorial situations.

I think it’s bonkers that GCSE grade boundaries around around percentage of students who reach that grade.

They’re literally designed to ensure students fail.

Surely it would be better to have GCSEs designed that if you can demonstrate you can do XYZ you pass that subject. Then have an advanced paper which is graded.

But I agree with PP dragging non academic pupils through the current system of ‘you need to get a least a grade 4 in your maths and English or you’ll never get a job’ is just demoralising. Functional skills, yes, learning the connotations within poems? Nope.

Maybe they were disengaged because they were doing a totally unsuitable qualification. Perhaps if they had been doung a Vcert in sports science, or engineering or a level 2 in construction, or chikdcare it woukd have invigorated them to focus on English and maths too.

I have very academic kids. They got A stars, and are now ant Oxbridge and other top universities, blah blah blah. I still hate the system.

I found the GCSEs so uncreative. Subjects like history and English, it was all about how to score the maximum marks. They were taught how to use the right words and how to reference back to the question in order to score maximum marks. There was so little chance for creative thinking or debate. Obviously this was not the school’s fault. I found it depressing.

And I honestly think A-levels are the most high stakes exams kids can do. The results they receive on the day determine which university they will go to and which town they will be settling in etc. I really wish they could apply after their results.

So yes, I do hate the exam system, even with my academic children.

I agree. Totally. Those boys should have been doing a vocational course. It's not a good system.

Gove's reforms took much of that out, @PresTud and increased the content.
I think a reform of his reforms is necessary.