Are schools nowadys teaching our kids or are they teaching just pass exams?

[Michael007]

Hi guys, I have been having discussions with friends of mine who are parents about teaching to the test and whether schools nowadays are more focused on teaching children to pass exams rather than to actually grasp subject knowledge.

I'd love to know what parents think about this. Are your kids being taught the subject or just to pass the exam?

Thanks :)

Do you think you can pass exams without subject knowledge?

The recenr curriculum changes have meant that its much more gesred towards learning content for the exans rather than the skills around the subject.

Schools often have Knowledge Organisers and theres a school of thought where studetns "self quiz" every night and have tests ebery morning to learn by rote these facts.

So sort of true and not true. They are learning far more content than in my day (we got given formulas and open book exams) but less of the skills, and I think the focus on learning facts has gone too far. After all we can google facts...

Also with all the extra content there isnt much time in the curriculum to go off on tangents and teach around the subject. You have to drill gor the exam.

What skills are missing now that were taught back in the day?

I think it entirely depends on the teacher TBH. But certainly there are a lot of pressures on teachers which might be preventing them from giving a more rounded education.

But recent studies have shown that children are being taught short-term knowledge, to pass the test, compared to teaching more in depth knowledge of a subject. Then coupled with pressure from schools to achieve certain grades, does this not create an environment where teachers are fast-tracking learning just to pass exams?

Studies?

Which studies are these?

Also, whoever has found a way of “fast-tracking learning to pass exams”, please send that along to me because it’d really help! As we have a set number of teaching hours for a qualification, fast-tracking can only be a good thing, as it would leave more lesson time to learn around the subject, discuss and synthesise learning.

Unfortunately for me, it usually takes all the time allotted to cover the content. If I could speed through that and spend the rest of the time on wider subject knowledge and creative stuff, that’d be great!

What do you mean by short term vs in depth knowledge?

According to the study by researchers at the University of Oxford, Britain and the US are the worst culprits for educating students just to pass an exam. The statistics were taken from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings and the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), both of which are administered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The results show that while UK 15-year-olds are close to average for maths, literacy and problem-solving, performance drops significantly among 16- to 24-year-olds.
According to Professor Dorling, a social geographer, the findings suggest that UK schools focus on short-term knowledge acquisition to help pupils to pass tests, and this knowledge is then quickly forgotten.

I'm just presenting the argument btw :)

We certainly don't keep Maths going past 16, unless they fail to get a 4. Way back when, I'm pretty sure it was mooted that all students should do Maths post 16 (GCSE, Core Maths or A level) but it died a death pretty quickly.

That's a 2015 analysis btw

New exam specifications since 2017/2018.

Well, specifications since 2015/2016, exams since 2017, 2018

Teachibg to the test is not a new thing.

It could be argued that it began back in the late 80s when The National Curriculum launched. Certainly exasperated when national league tables were launched and OFSTED judged schools according to exam outcomes.

I teach a core subject and there is enormous pressure to teach to the test for 10 and 11.
I have asked not to teach those years because it is depressing and formulaic.

I taught for twelve years, secondary English. Over that time 'teaching to the test' went from largely frowned upon, what you might do with your C/D borderline students in year 11 just to try to get them over the finish line, to How You Must Teach. As in, you are a terrible teacher if your year 8 students can't parrot the assessment objectives for this unit of work, all feedback and target setting must be specifically linked to and use the language of the assessment objectives etc.

At GCSE it gets narrowed even further - students are specifically taught how to answer AQA English Language paper 1, question 1. Then the next couple of lessons are on q2. And then onto q3. And so on, through four different exam papers. With frequent (constant) reference to the mark scheme. Which assessment strands are being tested on each question. How many marks is it worth. What are the key words that differentiate the bands of the mark scheme for each question (i.e. what the mark scheme descriptor days for 7-8 marks for that question, as opposed to 5-6 marks). How many minutes to spend on each question. How many minutes to spend reading the material. Exactly how to use those reading minutes - skim read for content; second reading for linguistic and structural devices & annotations; third reading for layers of meaning.

I hated teaching my subject by the end. It was one (though not the main) reason I got out. Utterly soul destroying, not building any deep or meaningful knowledge or skills, terrible at preparing students for further study.

Yep unfortunately- but teachers don’t create the curriculum they deliver it according to what the government decides.
Our children are not encouraged by learning , teachers are expected to assess , assess , as parents and the government believe this is the best barometer to measure the ‘success’ of teaching ergo learning .
By the time you cover the knowledge that is expected to be able to pass the test there is very little room for much else .
It’s sad.

Obviously not all schools insist on that type of teaching, but from my experience over the last five years of my career a lot do. I did supply for a year post mat leave and saw a load of different schools, very different catchments and outcomes, all doing it.

Are these just schools in England, OP or Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland too?

Dylan Wiliam did recently write an article that he thought the current curriculum was too full and anecdotally for my subject, the new 9-1 GCSEs have far more content than that of their equivalents in Northern Ireland, for example because in the rush to get the new spec out after Gove dropped the bomb and than ran, a lot of the AS content was just shoved into the GCSE. My subject is also on the third incarnation of the 9-1 GCSEs (third new spec starting this Sept-not sure any other subject has had that many changes in 9-1 though) as well so having to constantly keep up and change has been frustrating.
I would personally prefer to teach the Northern Ireland equivalent GCSE but not allowed to.
On the flip side though, after spending years altering the Key Stage 3 content to better prepare pupils and going back to a two year GCSE, I think that Years 7-9 in my subject are getting a more in depth experience than before.

The analysis the OP refers to highlighted the association between poor performance on the 16-24 testing and social inequality. Teaching to the test was explained in terms of the difference between the highest and lowest paid, and the lead researcher says that parents would be less worried about exam results if there was a smaller gap between the highest and lowest paid.

And, as I said, this is based on the results of children taking the old style GCSEs, not those currently studied.

Having one completed exams and other doing more taught to pass exams but not really teachers fault
There is not much room for children to express themselves in certain subjects like they used to and I exam technique etc seems to be crucial to getting better results ,

Anecdotally, teaching to the test in English at GCSE level has definitely worsened since the introduction of the 9-1 GCSEs.

exam technique etc seems to be crucial to getting better results

Absolutely. I have sat in "feedback on the exam" moderation meetings (loads of teachers from different schools, run by someone from the exam board, going through exam scripts and working out why they got the mark they did) arguing that a candidate's script should be full marks. Was told that if it was an a level exam answer it would be, but on the GCSE mark scheme it didn't do enough of whatever bullshit assessment objective so it couldn't get above a band five (of six). How can that make sense? Here's a brilliant piece of literary analysis that at a level would get an A or an A* grade, but at GCSE only deserves a grade 7?

Year 11 is most definitely just teaching to pass the test. Probably yr 10 as well. Years 7-9 shouldn't be though, but there is so much pressure on teachers to prove progress that it probably, unfortunately, is more test focused then it should be

@SirSamuelVimesBlackboardMonito exactly makes no sense and my dc both now hate English which is a real shame