The return of the O Level.

[hermionestranger]

Leaked reports suggest that the government is to scrap the GCSE from 2015, 2013 option takers will be the last year to take them.

I'm sorry it's the mail bug they were first on my twitter feed. I 'm on my phone so can't link properly.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2162369/Return-O-Level-Gove-shake-biggest-revolution-education-30-years.html

Can't come soon enough. GCSEs aren't worth the paper they are written on now. You could get a decent job with good O levels back in the day.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2162369/Return-O-Level-Gove-shake-biggest-revolution-education-30-years.html

It's the prospects of the 80% of children who didn't get good 'O' levels (partly because they didn't get the chance to sit them) that concern me.

Sorry, didn't see this here, so started a thread in Politics.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1499852-Gove-does-it-again

In short - this is absolutely superb!

It will be back to the old stream system next then? There's something to be said for o levels.

Yes, I'm sure they'll totally change the system.

They should change the system. The current one is failing everyone, even the kids who get good grades.

so after millions of pounds, and lots of think tanks, and consultations, and people being paid lots of money to come up with brilliant new ideas.....the conclusions is that we just go back to doing it how it was done 30 years ago? i could have probably done that for free.

DD is currently killing herself with stress over GCSEs being sat way too early....she started this exam lark at 13.

i wish they would just settle on a system and stick to it. so far it seems it changes year on year.

and what happens to those who dont do well in exams, but do well in coursework?

and what happens to those who dont do well in exams, but do well in coursework?
They fail. Coursework is a joke, and plagiarism is rampant.

But the problems with o levels will still be the same as they were before- too exam based and CSEs were seen as crap- once you were doing a CSE you were unable to move. There was sometimes a 16+ exam where if you got >x you got an O'level but below you got a CSE - but i think this was the model for GCSEs.
They just need to make GCSEs harder - or make the grades relative - eg top x% get an A - as i think grade devaluation is a big problem

I think the change is needed.

However I worry that the more academic kids will start being singled out from about 12, leaving the less academic ones sidelined.

Posted this in Secondary Education but will stick this in here:

I have a dd who will be in the first year of the new qualifications and I think it is a complete nightmare. Firstly, the Tories will almost certainly be out of office by 2016, so the new, probably Labour , govt, will enter to be faced with some half-started and totally undesired changes. If they then try to return to GCSs it will be a complete shambles. Plus the dates state that those doing exams in 2016, like my dd, will sit new Maths, English and Science O levels, but no mention of other subjects, whic apparently 'won't be ready'. But GCSEs won't be recognised. So what exactly will they be sitting in other subjects??

Plus one exam board sounds very nice in subjects where there is an agreed universal body of knowledge, like maths, say. But what about subjects like English or History? Will all pupils across the UK have to read th same 3 books or study the same 2 periods of history or whatever? Doesn't sound very desirable.

And all this is happening at the same time that A Levels are being revised! Poor secondary school teachers, they won't know whether they're coming or going.

I don't see what's so fantastic about O Levels - I was the last year to do them and on the whole, I think GCSEs are better - particularly insofar as they are one qualification only, so candidates aren't labelled as inferior by being made to sit a lower qualification, as used to happen with O Levels and CSEs. Plus in some subjects, like history, which went from being rather easy rote learning to skills-based, I think the GCSEs were actually much harder and more stretching. Certainly my dd's lessons generally seem to teach at a higher level than my (top of the league tables) grammar did back when I was at school.

Those who focus on dumbing down now seem to have an unduly rosy-eyed view of education in the past. The truth was it was pants and a shockingly high proportion of school leavers left with NO QUALIFICATIONS AT ALL. Which is probably what Gove and the Tories want - to ensure that our proles stop being so uppity and aspiring to ideas above their station, like university. They should eat their gruel and work for free and be grateful for it.

The education system has changed rapidly. In the past the majority of people left school at 16. Nowadays very few people leave school at 16 and there are plans to raise the school leaving age to 18. I hope A levels get scrapped as well.

As other posters have said, GCSEs are not worth the paper they are written on.

They have just brought in a two tier system in Scotland, my DS is in the guinea pig year. He will be doing a mixture of natinal4 and national5 (5 are the higher level, four the more basic). He was about upset about being put in the national 4 stream for Maths as he can't move up for two years but in our system he will have the chance to move up by doing a level5 the year after his level 4. The beauty of the Scottish system is that not having A-levels, we do our university entrance qualifications ( Highers) in the second last year of high school and effectively have a spare year in sixth year to do extra exams, resits, change direction or catch up if you are a late developer ( as I am hoping DS will).

By the way, we have also always had a single, government run exam board here, love the way the Tories keep borrowing ideas from the Scottish Government and claiming them for their own.

I am 40 this year, so was in the first group of children to sit the GCSEs. It was a shambles, no one knew what to teach us, our courses were changed half way through on at least 2 subjects. The test papers weren't in any way a preperation for the real thing. No one had tught to course work before so didn't know how to help us.

Whatever the pros and cons of GCSE v "O" level, the children in the first cohort will suffer. THe only difference now is the public will care, I most definatly didn't get that feeing back in '88.

I actually agree with Gove that the introduction of GCSEs was a mistake. The new GCSEs were noticeably easier than the old O-levels. The coursework element allowed, indeed encouraged, a fair amount of cheating by teachers and parents to go on.

This was exacerbated by the fact that exam boards were in competition with each other for schools, so schools inevitably chose the exam boards that had the easiest papers/most generous marking. So it's been a race to the bottom ever since. Compare a modern GCSE French paper with one from say 1980 and you'll see what I mean.

I'm not at all sure that reintroducing O-levels is a good thing, however. Couldn't they just make GCSEs a bit more rigorous?

As for the single exam board - well, that solves the problem of exam boards being in competition with each other. However, as breadandbutterfly says, it means you have every child across the country reading exactly the same books. It gives enormous power to a single examination board to determine the curriculum - and, as the exam board will be under the control of the education secretary, it effectively gives that power to whoever is in government at the time. It's the national curriculum taken to extremes. No wonder Gove is getting rid of the NC in secondary schools - they won't need it if there's a single exam board.

Doesn't it depend what level they are set at. If it is the equivalent to GCSE's its a case of same shit, different smell.
From what I have seen recently as I have looked at 14-16 provision, O levels are still used albeit not as part of nc for schools. If they are set at the same level as they were it will be good for the average and above average, not so for those below. However, if provision is made for those below it would be fair enough. It was far better to sit 5 O'levels than kids today doing 10 GCSE's and .5 (half GCSE's).

I think you should all just come and join us in Scotland. Apart from different councils allowing different numbers of Nat4 and Nat5s the new Scottish system seems much more sensible.

Come on, hop over the border.

Tumbleweed, the mad scramble to move kids into out of catchment schools because of the difference in schools' approaches RE national 4/5 numbers worries me as our lovely strightforward, sensible schools admissions system is starting to resemble the complicated stressful English one!

Anyone else not in England get annoyed with the navel gazing about the English system, seriously you seem obsessed with bloody A-levels and never look around you at other countries systems for comparison. Do any other countries have such a narrow senior school exam curriculum? Do people get into Russell Group universities without the sacred A- levels, yes including several members of my family and many overseas students.

Rant over.

@Josephine Can't come soon enough. GCSEs aren't worth the paper they are written on now. You could get a decent job with good O levels back in the day.

You still won't be able to get a decent job with good O levels now. The world has changed. Wasn't there some article on the guardian a few weeks back saying all the new jobs will be in the knowledge industry? You'll either need to be a entrepreneur or in trades and be self employed, or you'll need a university degree to do the new professional jobs. (Of course you can still work in the low pay service industry).

However I worry that the more academic kids will start being singled out from about 12, leaving the less academic ones sidelined.

Agree with nancy66.

wiggly If we lived closer to somewhere doing more than 6, DD1 would be on the bus at the crack of dawn. We're stuck with it here. She'll be the second year through it, and she's already stressing about what she's not going to be able to do. It truly boggles my mind that in some areas of England 12/14 subject is the norm. That's really too far the other way.

Sorry just posted on other thread but better here!

Just when the students/teachers/we the helicopter parents get to grips to what they need to do at age 15-6 for the best chances, they change it for the next ones in the family who have to do something different...

Modular...linear... GSCEs...O levels...etc.

Why is it such a bad thing to have a two tier system and single out more academic kids. I was one of the people who didn't do O'levels, I couldn't manage them as I had severe learning difficulties not recognised at the time. It didn't bother me, infact it did me a favour as it narrowed my choices. I ended up doing what I wanted to and built a successful career. I did finally go to college and uni many years later, but it made no difference to my life at all. Apart from more choice came into the equation, I still continued on the same path as I started. We are a country where everybody strives to get an academic or vocational degree. Where are the trades people, you can never find a flamin plumber when you want one. (Not saying plumbers aren't clever, but a degree is not what is needed)

If 50% of kids can't get 5 'good' GCSEs in the current system, how will they manage with even harder exams that favour not the academic, but those with a good memory? I fail to see the advantage of this change, all that it will achieve is an even bigger gulf between those 'academic' children and everyone else.

IMO the most desperate change that needs to be taken is to get rid of the league tables - it is because of them that teaching to the curriculum and grade inflation started. Scrapping the A* and giving more worth to the A grade wouldn't be a bad idea either. I think what's forgotten most of the time is that a C is average, not a bad grade.