Eton caught cheating on Pre-U

[BossWitch]

Saw this on bbc's papers round up but can only find a full story link in the Fail, sorry.

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4824050/amp/Eton-deputy-head-quits-amid-claims-helped-pupils-cheat.html

Basically, a deputy head who was a senior examiner and involved in setting the exam leaked the exam materials to staff and students for one of the economics papers for the Cambridge Pre-U so all those marks have been disregarded. Deputy head has now left the school.

I'm quite shocked. What on earth was he thinking? And how much pressure must he have been under to ensure results that he thought this was a good idea?

Any Eton parents about on mumsnet today? What are your thoughts?

Empress

As you say schools like Eton Winchester et al get top grades year in year out because they very carefully select their pupils and chuck them out if they think they're not going to make the grades (as do state grammar schools).

I agree - the primary reason for high grades (on average) are that the pupils are carefully selected and then are very strongly under the school's control, there are no resource barriers to their teaching, and no failings (academic or behavioural) have to be tolerated, as removing the child from the school is (compared to a state comprehensive) easy.

Cheating will be at the margins - the slightly dodgy cohort, the department under scrutiny because their results aren't as stellar as other parts of the school, the pressure brought to bear by parents of a marginal student is too insidious / damaging. The same is true at all levels of education - from SATs through A-levels, there are infrequent (though non-zero) examples of teachers or schools under extreme pressure (or particular ambition) who bend and break the rules.

What seems surprising to me about this case is the toleration by the exam board of an obvious conflict of interest - perhaps a view that 'chaps like us will be honorable', rather than having robust controls.

Have you met the typical Eton graduate in a professional setting? I haven't met one who didn't get a 1st at Oxbridge/Harvard/MIT - would those unis have also cheated to get them their grades?. This scandal is probably limited to the teacher and at most a handful of students. It's not enough to tarnish Eton's reputation in any way.

I suspect the teacher at Winchester was part of what I would call the "old guard" for them it was not about passing exams it was all about academia, and the imparting of knowledge to interested enthusiastic student for sheer love of the subject, exam curriculums, exams and exam grades were of little or no interest to them. But things have changed; schools, parents and pupils demand high grades. I know over the five years my DS was there these teachers were gradually retiring or leaving many saying the school was what it used to be, much to the disappointment of many of the boys who loved their style of teaching.
My DS had one of these teachers, a truely amazing man (now retired) my DS doubts he'd ever read an exam curriculum in his life, he was loved by many of the boys, but not all, as they felt his teaching did not help them pass exams!

I infer from Lweji's posts that she is a university academic. I don't think history is her subject.

Is yours on early 19th century fictional detectives?

Congratulations on your incredible powers of deduction. What gave me away?

I suspect the teacher at Winchester was part of what I would call the "old guard"

It is fine to be 'old guard' who imparts love of the subjects etc AS LONG AS pupils then get the grades that might be expected from such an approach, fairly and openly - probably that the genuinely brilliant get very high grades anyway, but those who could have done with more focused teaching to the test get lower grades.

What isn't fine is to be 'all about academia and the imparting of knowledge' ... and then adopt a blase attitude to the rules around exam conduct to 'cover one's tracks' and get higher grades than the students deserve.

I know, for various reasons, Winchester scholars from many moons ago,. Their education was wildly unconventional, peculiar in terms both of subjects studied, exams taken and general approach, but excellent. Their grades were, in the main, worse than mine - from a pedestrian MC girls' school. That was just the way they did things.

To try to belatedly cover up a failure to cover the appropriate syllabus - however interesting the teaching - through cheating is wrong, and has an element of high handedness ('Our approach is better, we don't need to follow the rules that apply to others, these exam things don't matter much anyway') that is unattractive.

It's interesting. I don't mind my DCs having unfair advantages from being part of a MC very educated family or selective education but I do find unacceptable that there should be an advantage from 'gaming' the exam system from insider knowledge. As said by others it also creates a very blurred vision of what is right and wrong for the DCs.

The preUs are tough syllabus, exams and grading, perhaps even more so because most DCs who take them are from very selective schools so not a 'normal' A level cohort. Certainly Winchester, Eton and other such schools would improve their grades by changing back to A levels but that does defeat the object of challenging bright DCs with a university style of learning.

"I know, for various reasons, Winchester scholars from many moons ago,. Their education was wildly unconventional, peculiar in terms both of subjects studied, exams taken and general approach, but excellent. Their grades were, in the main, worse than mine - from a pedestrian MC girls' school. That was just the way they did things."
I suspect this is how the old Win Coll worked, sadly some would say, its had to move with the times.
I by the way am not defending what went on, I don't even know what it was as my DS left last year, and no teacher should ever adopt a blasé attitude to rules around exams, cheating in any area is never acceptable.
As a child I was an avid solitaire playe,r as was a friend, she used to cheat and then say "I've done it" I used to point out that she hadn't but she couldn't see it. "But your only cheating yourself" I would say "there is no satisfaction in doing it" She never got it.

www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/30/eton-pupils-marks-disallowed-over-second-exam-paper-leak

A third and it will be a pattern.

I have been following the 2 current threads about Eton/Winchester and the very recent 2 about the anonymous Prep with interest. My comment isn't for or against the individual schools or private schools in general, but rather against cheating. We experienced cheating very recently at our Prep school by the Head and several teachers. This involved helping a number of pupils to pass/improve their CE exams. It has not received any publicity and the Head and staff concerned are all still in post. One of the boys concerned happens to have gone to Eton. The boy didn't get a place initially but then did after the strong support of the Head who is linked personally with the boy's family. As this boy didn't get in without help and didn't pass his CEs without help it will be interesting to see how he gets on at Eton or whether further help including with exams is required and received. Name changed and being deliberately vague about exact timing and details, but this is not a historical case.

Having read Anasnake's link, I am not sure how it can be claimed by Eton's Head that the boys have done nothing wrong this time. Surely the boys at Winchester and Eton circulating the leaked exam rather than raising the alarm were acting dishonestly? Where is their integrity and maturity? They are nearly men by that age too.

I'm surprised the boys circulating the questions have not been disqualified - they cheated!

"I don't mind my DCs having unfair advantages from being part of a MC very educated family or selective education"

Well, we differ in that I do mind. I mind that the playing field is weighted against less advantaged economic groups and that education, in a supposedly democratic country, is manipulated and tweaked so as to maintain a middle class advantage. I feel that it undermines the integrity / authenticity of my middle class educated kids' results if everyone of the same innate ability did not have the same chance.

And as for tne CIE allowimg such a crass conflict of interest, but being set up to deal with young people of such extraordinary intellect, what tosh! It is a tiny minority that can afford to send kids to the schools that do these Pre U exams. Believe it or not the top sets of state comps in non grammar areas have some very, very bright young people. You know, genius bright. A list of them will appear on the website of my kids' gritty inner-London comp's website. Sorry, the students of Eton and Wellington do not, per se, have more ability and intellect than high achievers in tne state system.

They just have access to a dodgy exam board with a blatant conflict of interest, to get access to a University that runs that dodgy set up and then admits the kids from these privileged schools in disproportionate numbers based on the results manufactured through the porous CIE system.

Shame, on every level.

And as for these Pre U exams suppposecly preparing students for University, does the data now not show that state school students do better at Uni? Supppsedly because they are more self motivated. But maybe it is because the public school lot got in on dodgy results!

I think copious quantities of Kool Aid are drunk at Public School Open Days. Do the schools really risk results by sitting harder exams? Are they ^really* harder? (Can I get this verified from a non partisan source) Or maybe are but then the schools keep their results high with this sort of cheating nonsense. After all, it is a very tight network.....

As this boy didn't get in without help and didn't pass his CEs without help it will be interesting to see how he gets on at Eton

Apparently he'll fit right in.

Maybe the Pre U are harder but it seems they are easier to cheat in.

Yes, FrenchRoast. If the Guardian's reporting is accurate then I agree with you. At least at our Prep the pupils were reluctant cheaters and younger, pushed into it or at least put in a situation where it would have been very difficult to refuse the Head and staff (although I am prepared to concede that some were possibly more willing cheaters than others). These young men at Eton and Winchester appear to have actually chosen to cheat. How little they must appreciate the notion of behaving honourably and the many advantages they have in life.

It does unfortunately get you thinking that way at times Lweji. Certainly the attitude of certain parents at the Prep was that it's just the way it is.

I'm surprised the boys circulating the questions have not been disqualified - they cheated!

Where does it say in the media that the boys at Eton circulated the questions? The newspaper report that I read says the deputy head/examiner from Eton circulated 'revision' material by email to other teachers who then passed this on to the boys. There is no suggestion that the 'other teachers' knew that these were the actual questions, let alone the boys.

Where is their integrity and maturity? They are nearly men by that age too.
Tell that to the 50,000 undergraduate students at UK universities caught cheating in the last 3 years!

gritty inner-London comps cheat as well
www.channel4.com/news/questions-over-london-school-cheating-inquiry
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/07/19/gcse-exam-malpractice-kingsdale-foundation-school_n_3621858.html

Kingsdale faced cheating allegations covering 6 academic subjects and exam boards dragged their heels for 15 months with their investigations.

"And as for these Pre U exams supposedly preparing students for University, does the data now not show that state school students do better at Uni?*
The data sought to show that in all but the top grades at A level, state school students did better at Uni - but the report failed to point out that up to 40% of privately educated pupils did get the top grades, ie 3 A grades or equivalent and they did as well or better than state school educated students.

I have no prior knowledge or fondness for Eton but facts is facts.
I suppose the only positive for Eton in this matter is that pupils at the school only sat the A level in Economics prior to this year and not the Pre-U. The 2016 exam results are pretty impressive including 37 A*s and 38 As.

correction 50,000 undergraduates/postgraduates caught cheating.

A letter from Eton’s headmaster, Simon Henderson – obtained by the Guardian – sent to pupils and families said details of the Pre-U art history paper “was sent by a teacher at another school to pupils there in advance of the examination.
Guardian Today:
A letter from Eton’s headmaster, Simon Henderson – obtained by the Guardian – sent to pupils and families said details of the Pre-U art history paper “was sent by a teacher at another school to pupils there in advance of the examination.
“This communication was then forwarded to a boy at Eton and circulated amongst the majority of boys in advance of them sitting their art history examination.”

OK so the circulation is ambiguous from this link- who did the circulating? And did the pupils really not realise the significance of the email?

The art history exam was Winchester not Eton.

Eton too Clavinova according to the article above

Clavinova: the Eton Head has acknowledged that the Winchester Art History breach spread to a 'majority' of Eton candidates.

No one on this thread has said that cheating does not happen in state schools. People on the thread have linked to evidence and incidents including alluding to Kings Dale.

The issue here is the conflict of interest. That in such a small network CIE allows the teachers in the schools that sit the exams to also set them. This is not allowed on other boards.

Also that it is within a system that already affords the students a huge advantage.

Ok, I didn't know about the art history at Eton.

This is not allowed on other boards.
I'm not sure about that though. I've seen a job advert (from a few years ago) for a geography teacher at Peter Symonds Sixth Form College which stated that there was a Geography Chief Examiner on the college staff and a WJEC Chief Examiner also for Geography appears to have been working at a Welsh comprehensive school when he wrote his report.