Gove says schools will not teach "bogus science" or "fake theories"

[UnquietDad]

here

Dangerous promise to make...
Does that include faith schools?

I got caught out by the difference between GCSE and A Level all the way back in 1995. GCSEs were ridiculously easy. I did v little work, partly because I'm lazy and partly because I was ill but didn't want to resit. And still got 7 As. A Levels were a bit of a shock! (No AS then to try to warn me...)

wow, no more "bogus science or faith schools". Does this include global warming, will they bin Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Falsehood"?

sorry, meant "no more bogus science or fake theories"

And what about ACE schools? Surely someone shoud do something about them?

Shaz 10 - same here and I am ancient. Took 'O' levels in 1981, not a shred of either work (I was a PITA) or revision and passed the lot with As and Bs. Thought I was a genius until 'A' levels when a similar approach resulted in straight fails (not even an E grade). There has always been a big jump as far as I am aware. DD1 is a young un in her year and working hard on her GCSEs. They don't seem ridiculously easy to me.

What are ACE schools?

I think ACE stands for Accelerated Christian Education, not sure exactly what this entails

I remember the 0-level/A-level jump too. It wasn't quite so bad for me because I had been HEd until about 14, so I was used to being self-motivated, but the ones who had been carefully taught to pass O-levels found suddenly being responsible for their learning a real shock.

oh, looking forward to ed balls and gove picking holes in string theory and question time!

stuff about ACE

It's a hobby horse of mine since I heard it being talked about in Radio 4. Can't bear the thought of more schools being created for children to "learn" in this sterile narrow way.

It will be interesting if the Steiner schools opt to become free schools (ducks for cover).

erm, some of the theory taught in GCSE science is so brushed over that it does have to be unlearned at A level, and then again at degree level...

the double science curriculum is particularly at fault in this respect. Dsis is working on the new stipultion that the course should 'stretch and sweep' (or something like that ) for a reasearch topic into science education - baicaly she hinks the GCSE curiculum is not challenging and a poor preparation for A level - more so than it has ever been.

as for 'Vardy' schools..i have met Peter Vardy...he should stick to his own subject (Philosphy of religion) - for someone with frankly rather wishy-washy beliefs to advocate not teaching kids to challenge them, is v. wrong in my eyes..

I did GCSE's in 1988, I found them pretty easy and the amount of work required was minimal, they in no way prepared me for A level which was a complete shock to the system. The leap between the two levels was much too great imo.

I didn't notice the gap between GCSE and A level, tbh. Certainly didn't think A levels were that much harder.

There has always been some truth in the view that science has to be unlearned at A level and again at degree level. Those involved in teaching science will say, "If we hadn't taught you that, you wouldn't be able to understand this". Much of this, of course, is down to the fact that school science tends to concentrate on older, simpler theories which work in most situations. For example, schools still teach Newton's laws. They work fine at low speeds but start going measurably wrong at the kind of speeds involved in space travel, breaking down completely as we get nearer the speed of light. However, they are still useful and most people wouldn't have a chance of understanding Einstein unless they understood Newton first.