GCSE's- Dumbed down or not?

[boozefree]

If you were watching the 1950's programme about O-Levels/GCSE's-do you agree or not? I think exams nowadays are much easier, kids get loads of stuff off the internet and most kids think the world owes them a living. They don't see why they should be polite etc to teachers/parents and it wasn't like that in my day.

DISCUSS... BTW I have the greatest respect for teachers, that's what I wanted to be OMG I'm so glad I didn't. I think I would probably end up decking some mouthy teen, or 11 year old whose parents told them they'd sue if I upset them, that didn't show any respect for me or their fellow pupils. BTW I have teens so I know what I'm ranting about. No coursework in my day, just hard work and exams. In that programme, apparently, you have to get 16% pass rate to get a GCSE?? WTF is going on with our education systemn?

Rant over

Beef that's what I said earlier, how can they be getting brilliant GCSE results and yet failing the O levels? It just shows there is a vast difference.

I think the main advantages of the GSCE system over the old O level/CSE system were

1. If you fail at the higher grade, you still get a lower pass mark. In the old system if you failed the O level you didn't gain a CSE unless you resat an exam.

2. Exam nerves won't ruin the whole thing for you, you have your course work to fall back on.

Overall though the passmarks and what is actually taught seems to be very dumbed down.

Well my dd is probably sitting in her Maths Sats test at the present moment and having done some of the papers with her, I think they are quite hard. I haven't read all of this thread and I haven't watched the telly programme either, but I don't consider that the maths my dd does as being easy. Although I don't have a degree in maths, I do have an OU Diploma in Maths, so I consider myself pretty good at it.

She is going for a level 8 in her SATS and some of the work is quite hard.

Quadratic equations - true the majority of us will never touch another quadratic in our life after school. However, in terms of engineering, you would need to know about quadratic parabolas, etc. I have never had to write an essay about Henry VIII since I left school, but it is nice to know about it.

The argument about lacking basic general knowledge despite being academically bright, has been around for about 50 years - I was told this donkeys years ago and I did O and A levels, but I was still a bit of a dodo when I left uni. I am sure that 40 years ago kids came out of school with very little mathematical knowledge too - we just didn't record it and publish it on the internet then.

I don't know if it was easier years ago, but I know that they mark the GCSE papers in a different way now and I think this is the major problem, not the children who are sitting the exams.

The complaints here are very knowledge-focused. And one of the deliberate pedadogical differences between the O-levels I took decades ago and GCSEs is that the former were more focused on testing the acquisition of knowledge, the latter on testing ability to manipulate information.

I'm a university lecturer in a humanities subject. My impression is that our students come to us having mastered a smaller body of knowledge than was the case 20 years ago, say, but their interpretive and analytic abilities are more advanced. So they can deal very well with the new knowledge we offer them, on the whole.

I know the lack of basic knowledge is more of a problem in science subjects where learning is more incremental, though.

I agree with that Honeyflower. The kids today are often taught how to do things, but the questions that they are asked involve the manipulation of that knowledge into other situations. This is what my dd has found difficult. It isn't just a question of blindly applying method.

It's all very well and good to be trained in acquiring knowledge. But some of them don't seem to have put that to any use in actually acquiring much knowledge! A bright 18 year old who doesn't know the difference between general and local elections is barred from contributing to society at a fairly fundamental level.

I agree figroll - it's not that the kids aren't as bright as kids from earlier decades - that's ridiculous - I firmly believe though that they aren't stretched to achieve their full potential.

Having said that I also believe that having a bag full of exam certificates doesn't necessarily lead to success and happiness - although it helps

I think honeyflower's comment hits the nail on the head. I don;t knwo if it is typical, but my y7 DS in English has to write and deliver a 5 minute speech. He has been taught 8 methods of persuasion. I did Eng Language and End Lit O levels and never had to make a speech ever - and that really is a useful skill to have. O levels were about memory - if you had a good memory, you could pass almost any O level. I was taught how to read and write French (and German and Italian), but the oral was a tiny part of the exam.

Latin is taught at DS's school as a mixture of ancient history and language. He has not yet had to learn amo, amas, amat. The last thing our Latin teachers ever considered was whether the subject was interesting. For the O level I learned by heart a translation of the whole of one book of Caesar's Gallic Wars, and was able to regurgitate the relevant passage for the exam. In what way is that better than GCSEs?

I did GCSE's and yes an E may be considered a pass but you need C or above to get into a decent college

plus i never had the internet either

and for creative subjects such as Art based subjects and English Language, coursework is very important

I did O levels - in fact I did commerce at O Level which included discussion of parliament, etc. I found it so desperately boring, that I don't think I took much in at all. I most definitely didn't know the difference between local and general elections until I was at uni. In fact, looking back I was extremely naive - I didn't know that you had to borrow money to buy a house. The word mortgage meant nothing to me. I don't believe that I was taught any better than children are today.

I think you need to look back over your own life and consider what YOU were like at 16 or 18. I remember being baffled at uni for a while. They used long words that I didn't understand. I am not defending education today (it is very difficult to be perfect), but I most certainly would not defend the mind blowingly boring education that I had in a state grammar in the 1970s.

Having taught A level Biology I would say that current A levels ask for far less application of knowledge than the old (pre GCSE days A levels). There are fewer topics covered in the curriculum as well. I think the idea that the subjects today involve less rote learning but more application is bollocks (I did a GSE a couple of years ago as well- Japanese).

When teaching A level I used to refer the students to my old O level book (there was one in the library and it was good for specific topics) but they all said it was too difficult, and boring because the pictures were in black and white.

I also had to set essay questions (one essay in the whole exam) and the number of students who didn't have the faintest idea how to structure a longer piece of writing. Most stuggled with 3 mark questions. By stuggled I mean struggled to get the ideas down in a coherent manner, they usually knew the answer.

Having said all that I think AS/A level students work harder than when I was taking A levels, because of the constant pressure of modules. I'm not a fan of the current system at all. In Biology at least doing well require rote learning, rather than understanding.

I don't really understand what you are saying though. Do you think that today's kids are thick, or are you saying that English teachers haven't been teaching them how to write?

Both my kids can write, spell, do maths, etc. If the teachers aren't doing their job properly I would be concerned.

Just remembered my boss showing me a test he'd set. He was a Chief Examiner for one of the exam boards and he said "ha I've set them a question from an old paper, that'll confuse them" or something like that. I do remember asking him whether he thought standards had changed and I can't remember what he said! I think he said yes but there were far more people doing A levels these days or something like that. Could be wring though.

No I don't think they're thick, I think they haven't been taught how to write essays, or express themselves in sentences. Partly because so many questions in exams now require one word answers, or can be answered without writing a full sentence. Consequently I was teaching students who wanted to be doctors (some not very realistically it has to be said, but some were very bright) who were unable to structure a sentence. So I'd set an essay and get some random phrases not even arranged in paragraphs. It wasn't worth teaching the students how to write as they could get high marks without being able to write in sentences, but I don't think its good preparation for the working world.

And yes a frightening number of A level students do answer questions using text speak, and think its OK.

Don't get me started on Maths in education! The one thing students of all levels (right up to A level) always stop and ask me to re-do slowly, is long division. They cannot understand how I can do it on the board quicker than they can on their calculators. And they always react with amazxed surprise when I look at their answers and tell tehem without checking, that they've got it wrong (But Miss...the calcualtor says...) The concept of decimal places is a bit of a mystery to them.

And as for English. Ha! Yesterday, for fun, I gave my A level computing students some grammar lessons. They did not know what a proper noun was, couldn't tell if a sentence was incomplete and don't get me started on their random use of apostrophes. It's those little issues that get me, they don't understand that there is no such word as 'softwares', a group of staff members is not referred to as 'staffs' and putting random capital letters in the middle of sentences is not particularly good English. Very few of my students grasp the concept that their name should satrt with a capital letter. I once had a student who refused to capatalise her name because it 'looked prettier this way'.

I've recently moved from teaching in the independent prep sector to teaching in a grammar school.

One of the first thing I have noticed is that spelling, punctuation and grammar is important in Common Entrance (the 13+ Independent school exam), where it seems to be irrelevent in GCSE (I'm sure it's important in English, but not, seemingly, in Science).

I'm struggling with GCSE coursework at the moment because I am a natural pedant, and it's really difficult to OK substandard work - but I do think we should value the scientific knowledge (where we can decipher it), so it is a conflict for me personally.

At least they don't say 'da' instead of 'the'.

I can't say that I am particularly impressed with GCSEs. I didn't personally do GCSEs or O-levels, having gone through the Scottish system, where there is only one exam board with little choice in papers.

I think that GCSE coursework is a joke (talking about science here), given the high level of teacher direction, among other issues. Couple that with easy modular exams (ie 80% of the questions can be tackled with general knowledge rather than specialist teaching), and a terminal exam that allows one word answers.

I agree Scienceteacher. Am also one. Also agree with the stuff about A level pupil's inability to write in coherent sentences (and mine, it seems!). I've just marked a set of AS Bio mocks (AS exam on 5th June - oh dear!!) and I know they know the answers cos they can do it orally. Can they write it on a paper to meet the mark scheme criteria? No chance. Even the bright ones. Is very distressing.

sadly I have to agree with both science teacher and sunuffy And Jimjams.

Independent thought and application of knowledge is almost totaly beyond my students. These are the ones that complained because I have sugested they do 3.5 hours revision a week! (at A level!!!!!)