Read this.

[teejay100000]

www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/why%20can%27t%20they%20read.pdf

5candles wrote: Well mrz the standards for a foundation degree leading to a BA in Early Years (at what university a new one?) is not going to be quite the same as the standard for astrophysics at Oxford.

Why not? Surely a degree leading to teaching young children should only be taking the brightest and the best.

Mrz wrote: ?As I said I was until recently a reception class teacher and as such was asked by staff in the CC to mentor them in their foundation degrees (leading to a BA in Early Years ) the quality of their work left a great deal to be desired yet they passed.
Mrz wrote: fivecandles the point is these students are obtaining a degree when a few years ago they would have been lucky to get a NVQ level 2?

Yet these inadequate performers will be given custody overseeing the education of young children. And people wonder where it?s all going wrong!

It seems to me that the last thirty years of education legislation needs scrapping and we should start again from the Butler Act of 1944.

We have a young teacher at school, and she hasn't swept the board with A*s. However, she is magical and inspirational...and I am in awe of her.

RollaCoasta wrote: "she is magical and inspirational.

What is this teacher? Some sort of sprite?

"It seems to me that the last thirty years of education legislation needs scrapping and we should start again from the Butler Act of 1944".

I think many of our problems actually started with Butler.

First he ended the 'Elementary schools' which appear to be the our most successful state schools: they were community based and supported, willingly paid for by local taxes, and achieved high levels of literacy and numeracy. Butler lobbed 2 years off the elementary schools leaving age to form primary schools.

He set up Grammar schools mainly in middle-class areas and gave them the bulk of the investment.

He set up Secondary moderns were sited in less affluent areas and had less investment.

I think most of our subsequent education legislation has been attempts at undoing some of his mistakes.

Breton, of course teachers are needed to help students to learn how to process that information; that is exactly the point I am making.

And if you don't understand or agree with my final sentence, I have great sympathy for your students, who are clearly missing out on a relevant education.

'5candles - what qualfies me to say that? The calibre of many sixth formers and undergraduates. I am not alone. Lecturers have regularly complained of being pressured to award higher marks than work merits and to hand out ever more First Class and 2.1 degrees.'

Where is your EVIDENCE?? This sort of complaint has been around since education existed. Ooh, it's not like it was in my day etc etc drone, drone.

You do understand the difference between evidence and anecdote? Or didn't your university teach you that?

'5candles wrote: Well mrz the standards for a foundation degree leading to a BA in Early Years (at what university a new one?) is not going to be quite the same as the standard for astrophysics at Oxford.

Why not? Surely a degree leading to teaching young children should only be taking the brightest and the best.'

I'm really beginning to worry about your powers of reason.

You cannot see why the standard for astrophysics at Oxford is not the same as a foundation degree LEADING to a BA in Early Years at (you've still not told me the university?). Seriously?

And as I keep saying. As competition for university places gets fierer (for which there is copious EVIDENCE) universities can and are being more selective. Realistically there will be many Mumsnetters who are going to be complaining very soon that their child who has just got Bs and Cs at A Level or even As and Bs isn't able to get into the university of their choice.

I am teaching many students in this position and some of them are going to be very disappointed.

One of my brightest and most hard-working students this year who will have straight As has not got into Manchester University because her predicted grades weren't high enough.

This is one example of a question paper for A Level literaturestore.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-LITA3-W-SQP-07.PDF

It's a 2 1/2 hour paper that involves dealing with texts that are unseen by Shakespeare and Hardy and bringing in students' own wider reading which they will have done during the course and independently. This is far harder than anything I did for A Level Literature 20+ years ago.

Students would have to get 90% on this paper AND on the other paper they would sit during A2 to achieve A*.

And here's an AS paper on Victorian Literature that students might sit in the January after beginning A Levels

store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/pdf/AQA-LTA1A-W-QP-JUN09.PDF

The first question is unseen the second question allows clean texts.

I've just examined a different unit where students were writing an essay on a text by Shakespeare in a closed book exam. They had to compare one passage (given) with another (without the book) in 45 minutes using both linguistic and literary approaches.

Oh, how right you are. Easy, easy, easy. So much dumbing down in evidence.

It's such a lazy, knee-jerk and ignorant response to assume that things are easier now or standards are lower. And it's completely wrong.

I'm beginning to think it's the insecurity of people approaching middle-age to assume that things were much harder when they were young just to make them feel better.

The reality is they would have and would still struggle hugely under the pressures our 17 and 18 year olds face.

Apart from anything else they have to do an extra A Level (4 where we did 3).

BosombytheSea wrote: " of course teachers are needed to help students to learn how to process that information; that is exactly the point I am making."

So how do you propose this should be done? We're not plants we can't do it by osmosis!

BosombytheSea wrote: "And if you don't understand or agree with my final sentence, I have great sympathy for your students, who are clearly missing out on a relevant education."

I never wrote that I didn't understand it I just think it's pretentious pedagogic claptrap and if that is how you teach, god help your pupils. Or maybe you're one of those teachers who can't impart too much knowledge because they don't have all that much to offer. I've met plenty of those over the years!

However, I have sent your words of wisdom to the Eye to be considered for publication in their Educashun (sic) News section!

Just one question from a French AS paper

'(b) Internet occupe une très grande place dans notre société: e-mail, shopping en
ligne, chat et blogs. Internet fait partie de notre vie quotidienne. Mais quel prix
devons-nous payer?
Ecrivez un article pour un journal en France dans lequel vous donnez votre opinion sur
les avantages et les dangers d’Internet.'

Oh how standards have slipped!

An AS history question which students could sit after only a term's study:

'Explain why Pope Urban II called for a crusade at Clermont in 1095. (12 marks)
(b) How important was leadership in explaining the success of the First Crusade? (24 marks)'

Yes, that's right you could probably do it blindfolded!

A Maths A Level paper:

store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceasa/qp-ms/AQA-MFP3-W-QP-JUN08.PDF

No doubt your nursery children could do it!! I don't even know what it means.

fivecandles: "Explain why Pope Urban II called for a crusade at Clermont in 1095"

He didn't. Read that sentence again, CAREFULLY!

If that is the standard of English employed by the examiner then we can all see where the rot started.

Why does the Lit paper have to tell candidates,
"This extract is taken from the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1564 ? 1616).
Unknown to their feuding families, Juliet and Romeo have married and spent the night
together, but Romeo has been banished from Verona because he killed a member of Juliet?s
family. So they must part"

Don't they KNOW where, in the play, that scene takes place, and don't they KNOW what has gone before?

The same goes for the brief synopsis given for Hardy's "The Woodlanders". Why is it necessary to provide this for an A level student? Surely, if they've read and studied the book they should know the plot and the characters!

So, yes, definitely very dumbed down!

FGS Breton because it's UNSEEN. They haven't necessarily studied that particular play before. An UNSEEN paper means that candidates don't know what's going to come up on the paper.

So signficantly harder than A Levels 20+ years ago.

Are you not clever enough to understand the requirements or did you not read the rubric??

Either way you wouldn't do very well with the new A Levels.

And no, not getting the problems with the history question.

Some people just want to nitpit and be negative. Urgh! God forbid that we could admit to anybody else being as clever or as deserving or as hardworking as we are. Feel sorry for people with such an unpleasant negative view of the world and such an inflated sense of their own superiorty.

My apologies but my mind sort of switched off after I?d I read the first half of your first sentence, wherein you wrote, ?It's a 2 1/2 hour paper that involves dealing with texts that are unseen by Shakespeare and Hardy ...? (poor Will and Tom. Didn?t they get to see the texts either)?

However, I still disagree with your opinion that the task is especially difficult. When I sat my A levels a candidate was expected to have a wide general knowledge. It was assumed that candidates selected A level Literature because they were interested in the subject, were already widely read, and eager to extend their reading.

As the extracts provided fall within the scheme already studied i.e. Love through the Ages, I wouldn?t consider the exercise overly demanding for an informed and widely read individual who has been given additional guidance by a good teacher.

BTW I have toyed with the idea of taking my English Lit A level again, just for fun, to see what mark I?d get today!

fivecandles wrote "And no, not getting the problems with the history question."

You teach English, don?t you?

I have no nostalgic view of education when I compare what my parents experienced with what I experienced and my children experienced.

My parents were bright (both went on to Cambridge) but the expectations on them and their peers in the 1950s were so low. My mother was utterly miserable in her primary and secondary environments. Some poor souls who didn't pass the 11+ had to stay in the same school (elementary school) until 15 and didn't get the opportunity to take CSEs or O-levels.

My primary education was much more cheerful although one of the primary schools I went to was poor. (And, though I'm not massively keen on sats, they do ensure that children's progress is monitored such that the poor primary school I went to wouldn't be allowed to continue as it did).

My dds are experiencing a fab education (like the best of my three primary schools) but with much more emphasis on doing if for themselves, being stretched accordingly and much more thoughtful maths teaching. (We just learned 'tables' at that age, which isn't really maths.)

I and my sisters also went on to Cambridge and our experience was very similar with respect to standards as my parents. Infact, it was probably harder because medicine and engineering had moved on so much. E.g. content far greater.

My dh teaches and when I see his pupils' work it looks just like the stuff I was doing 20 years ago and - my dh believes - they probably get the grades they would have done 20 years ago.

However, I think teachers and pupils are much more savvy nowdays. (They definitely weren't in the 1950s!)

Breton, I passed 3 science A levels from a load of dictation, a couple of aborted dissections and an experiment with ticker tape. I learnt the proof of equations using calculus by heart, as our modern maths at O level hadn't introduced us to calculus.

All my O levels were done like this: dictation, doing as little work as possible, committing it all to memory a week before.... no discussion, no debate, no opinions needed.

I found university an alien environment, as I was expected to be using my brain, to be doing a bit of research (unheard of!) AND discussing my views!

A collaborative, 'inquiry-based' approach to learning, is SO important if you want a rounded society. We need people to be creative (and by 'creative', I mean 'thinking outside the box'). I know that as a victim of 'instructional' teaching methods, and that I wasted my entire primary and secondary years because of dire, lazy teaching.

My revision for O and A levels can barely be compared with the amount of work my son has been expected to do for AS and A levels over the past two years. For graphics alone, he has completed 83 A3 pages of coursework this year. Young people are continually bombarded with the idea of failure if they don't put the effort in, can't attain challenge grades, or don't do 2 hours homework a night. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Breton, that is frankly a load of horse shiit. Maybe you were supposed to have a wide general knowledge but this was never ASSESSED. For this particular paper and it's only one of several students are ASSESSED on their ability to compare UNSEEN texts and bring in evidence of their wider reading as part of their comparison making appropriate links between texts that they have never studied and probably haven't seen before. That's the sort of skill which was demanded in Oxbridge interviews when I did my A Level. The actual A Level was very much more straight forward.

But you go ahead. You obviously feel the need to discredit the achievements and standards expected of young people today. You must have your own reasons for that.

When I sat my A levels a candidate was expected to have a wide general knowledge. It was assumed that candidates selected A level Literature because they were interested in the subject, were already widely read, and eager to extend their reading.

And I'm loving the idea that all A Level literature students of yesteryear were widely read and keen. Not in my college they weren't and yet they still managed to get A and B grades. And guess what our teachers used to say to us, 'It wasn't like this in our day. You don't know how lucky you are.' Blah, blah, blah. Once some people get past a certain age they just start talking like old ladies. Forget any EVIDENCE that might contradict their views. There is a record at the back of their heads of things their mothers once said or their teachers once told them and they just hit play. Solves the need for any thinking of their own.

'As the extracts provided fall within the scheme already studied i.e. Love through the Ages, I wouldn?t consider the exercise overly demanding for an informed and widely read individual who has been given additional guidance by a good teacher. '

I think you'll find that 'Love through the AGes' starting with Chaucer covers a pretty big span of English literture. Obviously it wouldn't prove a challenge to you but then we've already established that you're special and things were much harder back in your day.

Despite having an A at A Level (from 20+ years ago) and a degree and MA in Literature I would still find the paper challenging.

'BTW I have toyed with the idea of taking my English Lit A level again, just for fun, to see what mark I?d get today.'

Perhaps you should then. You do the papers and I'll mark them for you. I'll post the mark scheme up in a minute.

Here's criteria for the top band of marks for one of the AOs for that particular paper:

'Candidates
characteristically:
a. explore and analyse the
significance of the
relationships between the
two extracts and their
contexts, making
sophisticated comparisons
b. evaluate the influence of
sixteenth and nineteenth
century culture and
historical period, and of the
drama and novel genre on
the ways in which literary
texts were written and were
? and are ? received'

They are also expected to:

'a. analyse and evaluate
points of comparison
between the two extracts
b. explore connections
between the two extracts
and their wider reading in
the literature of love
c. engage sensitively with
mature and informed
understanding with different
readings and
interpretations.'

'a. identify significant
aspects of structure, form
and language in the two
extracts
b. explore confidently
through detailed and
sophisticated critical
analysis the ways
Shakespeare and Hardy
use these aspects to create
meaning
c. make reference in detail
to the two extracts and to
appropriate sources from
their wider reading to
support their responses'

and

'Candidates
characteristically:
a. communicate detailed
knowledge and
understanding of the two
extracts from Romeo and
Juliet and The
Woodlanders and the
focus on partings
b. create and sustain well
organised and coherent
arguments, using
appropriate terminology to
support informed
interpretations
c. structure and organise
their writing using an
appropriate critical register,
and integrating appropriate
quotations
d. communicate content and
meaning through
sophisticated, cogent and
coherent writing'

Still feeling confident??

And remember you would need to get 90% on this paper and on the other module to get an A*.

Did Assessment Objectives and mark schemes even exist when we did our A Levels?? If they did they were nothing like this.

fivecandles
'BTW I have toyed with the idea of taking my English Lit A level again, just for fun,
I did just that after the birth of my daughter, well mainly to keep my brain ticking over. I could only take so many competitive mums at mother and toddlers, so one day a week at the local college sounded like a good idea.

As I remember English A Level 20+ years ago consisted of questions like 'Discuss the character of Hamlet' and you had two years to prepare for this sort of predictable question.

I agree Rolla. You can't underestimate the sorts of pressures on young people today. Honestly, if some of you could see how hard my students work and how amazingly bright and confident they are. But also how there are so many demands on them. Some of my girls in particular are perfectionists. Nothing less than A will do and they constantly want to know how they're performing and how to improve. Added to this they have all the worries of getting into university and the pressures to look a certain way. They have to do 4 AS levels now and bright students often continue with 4 to A2 which is 1/4 more work than we had when we did our 3 A Levels. Plus key skills and the pressure to have extra-curricular activities to put on their UCAS personal statement.

When I did A Levels pre coursework you could pretty much doss about for a couple of years and do a little bit of revision the night before and if you were reasonably clever you'd come out with As and Bs. I speak from experience.