Different exams for boys and girls

[OrigamiYoda]

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/18/boys-girls-different-gcse-course

What do you think ?

Gove's academies will be able to offer the igcse, I believe.

I hope so, that will be good news

vaguely remember hearing someone saying the downside of IGCSE English is that you don't study Shakespeare - anyone know if this is true?

(The idea of a boys' curriculum/assessment v. girls' is laughable of course. But shows how hard it is to stop people imposing ideas of gender.)

great stuff, I think Gove is doing great things, changing things for the better

The Guardian article says
"Experts believe that this year could end a 20-year trend for girls to outperform boys in GCSEs because many new courses have no coursework. Instead, pupils complete work over a prolonged period, but under exam conditions."

If coursework is scrapped results in exams will be totally different to what they are now. Coursework was introduced to change the results, but we may now be seeing a reversal as coursework is increasingly seen as less rigorous and is no longer favoured by the political establishment.

ImNOT

The problem with 50/50 is that obviously if they don't perform well at course work then they will lose 50% of their mark.

People should accept that in general there is differences between boys and girls they are not the same and different things suit different genders in general better.

I am not saying that a persons gender alone defines who they are or that this applies to everyone there are individuals who need to be taken into account also i am simply referring to the general population.

For example this www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23389856-boys-do-better-than-girls-when-taught-under-traditional -reading-methods.do shows that when taught in a certain way boys can do better than the methods used to currently teach them.

"The use of more traditional phonetics-based lessons helps boys catch up with girls - even doing better on some tests - and prevents some children from needing 'special' schooling, according to new research findings."

Hold on

there is a cap of 40% coursework?

Now I am really confused.

When the papers have been going bananas saying that qualifications now favour girls because of coursework, I naturally assumed that the qualifications they were referring to were based on more than 50% coursework. Surey any qualification which is based more on exams, is thus "favouring boys" if these are the narrow definitions of "who is good at what" that people want to apply.

The whole argument is nonsense as far as I can see.

sammyuni I am not going to even bother reading an article from "thisislondon" I mean blimey you can find anything to say anything on the internet.

the fact is that adjusting things to serve the majority is unacceptable.

People talk about "the majority" behaving ina certain way, but what of the rest? How much is this majority? And even if people conform to stereotype in some ways, they may not in other ways. This idea will do a huge disservice for those who perform in a non-stereotypical manner.

If girls are put in for the lesser coursework qualification, what of the ones who would have performed better at exams? The whole idea is ludicrous.

I am also a bit at people who aren't any good at coursework losing 50% of their mark. This shows concern for the boys over and above the girls. As the girls (on that basis) will be losing 50% of their marks on the exam sections. But you don't mention that, do you?

i would also maintain that anyone who cannot manage to complete a piece of coursework (we used to call them essays I believe) probably does not deserve a qualification. These qualifications are to prepare for further education, and work, and to give students the ability to independently study and apply methods of analysis to what they find. If a student is incapable of preparing a piece of coursework (ie look into something and write a report/essay) then clearly they have not met these criteria.

"People should accept that in general there is differences between boys and girls they are not the same and different things suit different genders in general better."

So why stop at exams?

Why not return to the days when boys studies a-levels, and girls studied secretarial qualifications? It was not so long ago after all, it happened to older sisters of my friends.

I think all girls and boys should do exams without any coursework. This was the way it used to be done, and they didn't do things like that in the 1930s in order to favour boys. They did it because it is the best way to test people's knowledge.

When you take a driving test you have to turn up on the day and do the test. All of your previous 3 point turns done over the preceding months don't count for toffee. It is the same in the theory exam, you turn up on the day and sit the test. Everybody has always known that this is the best way to run exams, but the social engineers changed it for political reasons and as part of the dumbing down process. I hope we go back to real standards and that everybody takes the same exams. Otherwise we will get a two-tier system and girls who choose the coursework option will be at a disadvantage. Top schools are moving to IGCSE etc. for both boys and girls because they can see the writing on the wall, they know that dumbing down has to stop and rigorous exams need to be reintroduced.

ISNT

I'm not sure where you got that from in my post i said different not that one is better than the other.

I am also talking about children saying that in general males and females thrive better in different kind of environments or need different teaching styles.

The exam v coursework question is another one. I have my own prejudice as to what I think is more rigorous, and I prefer, but I understand that is a prejudice. I don't really know anything about coursework, don't know what form it takes or anything.

Claig there is surely something in the point that if a person can't look into something and write a report, then the teaching they have recieved has not been fit for purpose. It is a skill that will be required in almost any walk of life I can think of, and is necessary for personal development. If students have not been equipped with this skill then that is a huge failure.

Yes

Girls thrive in pink environments where they can sit quietly, do colouring in, and learn about how to get into the caring professions.

Boys thrive in strctured environments where they are exposed to a lot of running around and shouting, and in between they can exercise their skills of logic and analysis learning about maths and sciences, leaving them well placed to go into high earning/high prestige occupations.

One is not better than the other, of course, all of those skills are valuable and perform a function in society. The children will be happier doing what comes naturally.

Sounds wonderful.

It is ludicrous in teh context of the society that we live in, to suggest that things that are "male" are not valued above things that are "female".

There is no question in my mind that the "male" qualification would be considered the superior one by employers and further education providers.

I am prepared to be flamed for this, but in my (limited) understanding, even controlled coursework is checked by the teacher and "helpful" feedback given at the "draft" stage so that students can take it away and improve their work.

Perhaps in the interest of fairness we should do this with exams too, so perhaps you could start the exam in the morning, show your draft to the teacher and then finish it in the afternoon

It is the elephant in the room, coursework was deliberately introduced to make exams easier. The PC crowd said it was unfair that certain children freeze on the day and that everybody deserves prizes. It was dumbing down and they knew it and wanted it, that is what has caused the ridiculous situation where such high percentages of students now get A grades and they have had to invent A* grades etc. It was inevitable that eventually someone would have the courage to call a halt, because this is damaging our children's education and damaging the country.

Exams always tested people's essay writing skills. You would have to write an English essay or a history essay on the day, without any dictionaries and with no internet help. That way it was possible to really see the capabilities of students. Exams are not about "personal development". Children can do as much coursework and homework for "personal development" throughout the school year. Exams are there to test knowledge and differentiate between students, rewarding those who demonstrate higher knowledge with higher grades.

The new government is kicking out the PC crowd who have undermined our education system and ruined our international competitiveness. They have dared to say "the emperor has no clothes". They haven't gone far enough, let's hope they have the courage to throw the PC brigade out of the temple.

Yes I am dubious about coursework as well JGB. I quizzed a neighbours daughter about how many "goes" they were allowed to have and meanwhile the "horrified DM" bit of my brain was chuntering away to itself "it's a disgrace, standards are slipping" etc.

But I know it's a prejudice of mine as my children are pre-school and I don't actually know anything about it, just what I've heard.

I do think the argument that people "can't do it" is a bit thin though. If they can't write a bloody report (especially if they are getting help and lots of goes at it), I really think that they shouldn't be getting the qualification in the first place.

Poor old boys disadvantaged by coursework

yet still somehow managing to outearn women on average

boo friggin hoo

and yes, I have a son

edam - with IGCSE English, the syllabus doesn't require you to study Shakespeare, but it can be included if the school/teacher wants to. My DS did IGCSE and he studied Hamlet as part of his course.

There may be scope for including different forms of assessment in the same course, if they are careful how they go about it. eg for DSs science IGCSEs he wasn't able to do the practical assessment because he was studying at home, but there was an option to do a second exam in place of it. His qualification doesn't show that he did the exam version, the two are treated as interchangable and the certificate is the same either way.

The difficulty with any system where there are two options is that people will believe one is better than the other, no matter what the official line may be. It's like the idea that a high grade in an old CSE exam was "just as good" as a pass at O-level. On paper maybe, in the heads of many employers, no way! That's why they merged the two into GCSEs in the first place - so there was one qualification for everyone.

It depends what you think our education system and exams are for. I would say they are there to prepare children for the world of work, or further education, and to give them the ability to investigate, study and analyse information independently.

if a person can't write a bleeding report then that is a big fail on that front.

however, claig, your argument is a different one to the topic of this thread. I understand that you want to talk about a pure question of exams vs coursework, standards etc. But this thread is about having different examination methods for boys and for girls.

Claig does demonstrate the problem well though. If s/he was an employer, and a woman came with a 100% coursework qualification, he would think it was worth jack shit, and give the job to the boy with the exam based qualification. it is foolish to pretend that would not be a widespread attitude.

Having just vicariously experienced the writing of 83 A3 pages of graphics A level coursework, I can vouch that it isn't the 'easy' option. No-one could ever do coursework for every exam on this scale. (My ds was doing art coursework at the same time and it was a nightmare, purely because there didn't seem to be enough hours in the day to complete everything properly.)

sigh ISNT seriously i am talking about how the best teaching methods and learning environment for boys and girls differs (in general) for learning the same things.

I am not saying one should be taught only certain stuff and the other something else i am talking about how they should be taught.

I'm sure you are going to come up with some new way to twist this comment i just made now to make it seem as if i am disparaging girls

How about Science claig (which is the subject in question)? Is it a better test of knowledge and skill in Science to "write an essay on the day", or to plan and carry out an investigation, interpret the results and evaluate your design? Which is more scientific?

Slightly devil's advocate here, but interested in your views...

yes I agree with you ISNT having two different exam systems is very bad news as those choosing the PC option will be disadvantaged in the real world. As AMumInScotland said, no one really believed that a top CSE grade was equivalent to a pass at O level. Even the PC crowd didn't really believe it, even though they were the ones who kept saying so.

That's why I am saying we need one high quality exam system for everybody. Top schools are rebelling and breaking free from the PC crowd's grasp, they know that the current system is flawed and they are no longer prepared to stand by and watch children's education being flushed down the drain. Anybody who carries on believing in coursework as being equivalent to the other form of exams is either fooling themselves or being duped and it will harm their career prospects if they don't realise it.

What they need to do is

Decide what the qualification is to show, and thus what form it should take (continuoius assessment, exams, coursework, vivas, whatever) and in what proportions.

And then apply that to everyone.

I would have thought that a qualification should show retention of knowledge, understanding of principles, ability to apply that knowledge, ability to communicate that knowledge. I would also have thought that people looking at the qualifications would like to know that it also meant that the knowledge was retained long term ie not crammed and then forgotten, and that the person would have to have a certain level of ability with written and verbal communication, an ability to work independently, to gatehr infromation and report on it. These things are essential in most peoples lives.

What sort of people do better at which should be irrelevant. The examination method/s should be decided based on what the quaification needs to show to people looking at it.