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

'IMO traditional doesn't necessarily = better.'

I think that is precisely what Gove intends to change.

The Flynn effect is the effect whereby different cohorts, presented with identical IQ tests, score higher results year after year after year.
Given that an IQ of 100 is defined as an average score, this means that the standard IQ test needs to be recalibrated regularly to be made more difficult. There are a variety of explanations for this effect, but the simple "they're more used to doing tests" one does not appear to be adequate on its own.

However, the level of improvement seen amongst the British population in the UK has flattened out over recent years and would certainly not be enough to explain the rise in grades - personally I think that it's hardly surprising that if you start putting schools and teachers under huge pressure to achieve high GSCE grades and penalise them for not doing so then that's what they'll do.

Oh FFS. You're not just analysing the picture and it's about understanding the effect on the reader of a high level text such as a broadsheet newspaper in its entirety, which includes presentational devices.

Students still have to show that they understand Dickens, Shakespeare, Owen and a wide range of other canonical Literature. They have to be able to demonstrate that they can analyse a wide range of texts, not just ones by dead authors.

Seriously, I will send you a copy of the GCSE papers and you can do them and I will mark them. Until then I am going to go and do my marking as I don't think that you and I are ever going to agree Claig.

" universities put on remedial classes because students can't cope with the level of first year undergraduate maths"

There are a few issues here, claig. The Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education estimates that 330,000 undergraduates require some level of post-16 maths but only 125,000 sit a post-16 maths course. Given the lack of supply of maths-qualified candidates, a lot of courses can't specify a requirement for AS or A-level maths despite their courses needing it. Thus of course undergraduates will be insufficiently prepared for these courses and require remedial maths.
The next issue is that because of the lack of continuing maths provision post-16, those courses which only require GCSE are then faced with candidates who haven't done any maths for 2 years. It is unsurprising that they might be a bit rusty.
Then those maths departments who complain that their undergraduates are insufficiently prepared because the A-level is insufficient preparation for a maths degree are guilty of not following developments in post-16 maths and amending their entry requirements accordingly. As post-16 maths take-up is so ludicrously insufficient for requirements and after a 15% drop in uptake following the Curriculum 2000 review, a decision was taken in 2004 to make A-level Maths deliberately easier and move some of its content to Further Maths. Take-up has been improving year-on-year since - which is a good thing. However, university maths departments (I'm looking at you, Russell Group universities) have ignored these developments and haven't amended their entry requirements accordingly to include AS or A-level Further Maths which would provide them with sufficiently prepared undergraduates for their courses.

Thanks, I didn't know about the Flynn effect. It sounds very interesting. So it sounds like more people can get into Mensa than they did before. That is fascinating, particularly as in general IQ tests are not actually taught to most people. That would mean that IQ levels have risen since teh days of Plato and Socrates and Shakespeare and Mozart. Interesting to know how and why.

It is indisiputable that more children get A grades in GCSEs than they did in 'O' levels, and it may be that children have got cleverer and work harder and smarter than they did in Margaret Hilda Roberts' day or Harold Wilson's day, or it may be that exams have got easier. Both are possible, but not equally likely.

'Seriously, I will send you a copy of the GCSE papers and you can do them and I will mark them'

I think I would prefer an external examiner, as I am not sure about your subjectivity over this matter, given your scurrilous reference to the 'Daily Wail'.

Technically speaking IQ cannot be rising as IQ is normalised and the average is set at 100. Therefore the tests are set so 67% of the population are within 1 standard deviation of scoring 100.

What has improved over the last 50 years is that we have universal education in linguistic and numerical skills (the things tested in a Theodore-Binet IQ test).
Therefore you would expect the population that has been taught these skills to be better at passing IQ tests, however, in terms of life achievement IQ scores are fairly useless and only measure a small number of skills.
So a medieval peasant or medieval woman for instance would completely fail an IQ test, only a clerk or monk would have had a chance to pass it.
Also note the first IQ test was in 1901 or thereabouts so we can't have been measuring them over 300 years.
We have had universal education for all children in England only since 1967 (this was when Devon was finally told it couldn't prevent girls from going to school on the grounds they were needed at home) so on that basis it is not the slightest bit surprising that many women in WW2 would have had terrible IQ scores compared to today, although they may have been perfectly articulate and able to add up their change after shopping.

End of pedant bit.

Also, being one of those families that keeps the exercise books in an old trunk I had a look through at my grandfather's exercise books from 1901, my dads from the 20's and DH's from 1980's and I can definitely say that 100 years ago there was way more emphasis on neat handwriting, spelling and grammar. Granddad wrote in perfect copper plate for instance, DH I can say, doesn't!!!!

Mark schemes are available online. It's only after looking at some of the mark schemes and seeing how pedantic they are that it becomes clear how hard it actually is to gain marks in most GCSE papers.

LeQueen so do you deduce that exams are easier now then as IQ hasn't changed? Really? People have mentioned teaching standards going up, also social mobility has increased so previously it was easier to write off sections of society whereas today, not so much.

Plus with league tables and targets etc leads to teachers under immense pressure to teach to the exam. I feel sorry for teachers.

More people can't get into Mensa, because 2012 IQ tests are fixed so that only 50% get more than 100, and only 2% get above 130. But the test is more difficult than it would have been in 1980 in order to get those percentages. If today's 18 year olds took a test from 1980 then more than 2% of them would get above 130 on that test.

Off topic, I know, but interesting, and it often comes up in these threads because someone can always be relied to say "children aren't any cleverer" in a way that is simple, obvious, logical, and wrong.

'a decision was taken in 2004 to make A-level Maths deliberately easier and move some of its content to Further Maths'

OK, that is a shame, given that a higher level was standard before New Labour's 2004 decision.

I don't think anyone would dispute the change in emphasis of spelling, grammar and handwriting, Miggsie.

I do know my dds had far more emphasis on these things than I ever did. So I think things are moving in the right direction again. Although I would hate to think any child today, would have the threat of a wrap on the knuckles with a ruler, if they didn't spell a word correctly.

You might think it's a shame, claig, but you have to consider which provides the country with a better maths-qualified cohort. A harder exam which hardly anyone sits, or an easier exam which more people sit, coupled with an increased take-up of the Further Maths option.

With a news report today saying that a lot of adults don't need to hand-write anything for up to six weeks at a time, one wonders how much time it is worth giving to perfecting copperplate.

noblegiraffe, you are right. But this is the recipe for failure in a competitive world. Far better to spell out teh importance of maths, to inculcate it from an early age, to increase teh respect for it, to get parents to value it higher, to promote it on TV soaps etc., to put maths quizzes on TV and cut out the odd singing contest, to create prizes for quiz teams and quix shows, to make it a national priority. Really raise the bar, not lower it in the New Labour way, and then say that standards have risen.

The road to decline starts with a single step. In 2004 they made it easier. What is to stop them making it easier in 2014?

this may have already been mentioned.

Some serious commentators think Mr Gove may have been rowing an early route to Tory leadership. The theory goes G. Osborne has lost his chance with the budget; and Gove wants to place himself as likely first inline. Its a bit far fetched. But it was odd how the GSE thing was leaked with Cam/Clegg on duty abroad. Politics at the top is ever devious.

As an aside, noblegiraffe, I remember that you told your pupils where they came in the weekly test. Did that competition change anything, did it work, did some students improve as a result of it, and are you still doing it or was it not worth it?

My son (One Of Those Schools) came over all gloomy during Easter and told me he had 'failed' one of his chemistry modules.

Translation: he 'only' got an A not an A*

So: he is rewriting it to get his A*.

Exactly what is the point of this? I love him dearly, but whilst capable he is not brilliant. So how do the universities judge between him and a brilliant child? If he went to a state school he would probably have got a B, because he wouldn't have been taught by the calibre of demanding teachers he is now, and he would be required to motivate himself - a hard ask for a teenager.

Lots of issues there leading to a different outcome but it's all silly. There needs to be ONE national exam written by all, and it needs to be more rigourous.

Not least because only this will rout the left wing mentality out of state schools. If everyone writes the exams, and their results are consistently crap, then their teaching and world view is clearly identifiable as the problem.

Dilys you make a good point. The 'IQ' of people (as a result of our technology) is getting higher.

Except that it isn't. It is an adaption to surroundings. Put our kids in the Kalahari and see how they cope: exactly how a Bushman would cope in the city. Each has the wrong IQ for their situation.

'IQ' is pretty much irrelevant. You can get someone with a 'low IQ' and train them extremely rigorously, and as long as you don't require them to think up new ways in which to do it, they will do it very well.

In fact, they will probably make a better more loyal employee than the higher IQ, more easily bored and more innovative risk-taking person. [This is why countries welcome immigrants. Because the people taking the risk to move and start again are the bright, energetic ones]. Something for employers to think about. Get someone 'dull' and train them well.

What is to stop them making it easier in 2014?

Uptake is increasing year-on-year. Further maths uptake is also increasing as it becomes more widely available - it went up by over 10% in a year I think, in 2010. There is nothing to suggest in the figures that there is a need to make it easier to improve uptake further. Evidence does suggest that if it was made harder, take-up would plummet again which would be a disaster.

You are correct in the need to spell out the importance of maths. Universities need to play their part in this by actually including maths in their requirements - they say there aren't enough candidates to fill needs here, but if students knew from the off that they needed maths, they would be more likely to take it in the first place. Giving maths a higher profile in general through popular media as you suggest is also a good plan (have you seen Chris Moyles getting popular bands to sing maths questions? and of course Dara O Briain's School of Hard Sums on the Dave channel). However, given the 15% drop in uptake after Curriculum 2000 it was clear that drastic action was needed rather than just these options which will take longer to bed down.

Maths A-level uptake can also be improved by improving the Maths GCSE which currently (especially since the scrapping of 3 tiers) gives too much of a leap, leading to a high failure and drop-out rate in the first year.

Clalg: absolutely. My DS1 is again perfectly able but not brilliant.

He is taking maths A level and is due an A. This is ridiculous. He works hard and has PhD qualified teachers but in the 'old' system it is highly unlikely that he would have done maths for A level, or he would have got a B if he was lucky.

I know we are supposed to view our children as geniuses, but I am telling it like it is!

please can you clarify what the 'left-wing mentality' in schools is?

i give up. i live on mars. i teach a subject that many recognise as rigorous and academic, i don't feel that the content is radically different in terms of level of difficulty from when i first studied it, but apparently in mumsnetland anyone can sneeze their way to an A* at A level by scrawling nonsense in crayon as guided by marxist teachers who want nothing more than to destroy education and learning with their crappy teaching

okkkkkkkkkkkkkk

claig re telling students their position in class based on test results (it was termly, not weekly tests, btw so we haven't had that much opportunity). I did it with two year groups, my Y9s and my Y8 top set. I abandoned it after a couple of goes with my Y9 as they simply weren't interested. My Y8s have a handful of very competitive boys who are interested, however I wouldn't say that it has actually changed anything in their achievement levels, merely given the very high achievers (which these competitive boys are) a chance to crow even further about their accomplishments, and put others down in comparison. Students who come further down the group are interested where they place, but not publicly. I think if I were to continue this in the future, I might give students their rankings but not publish them for everyone to see, so that everyone has the information about themselves, but can keep it quiet if they wish.

"in the 'old' system it is highly unlikely that he would have done maths for A level"

That would have been a shame seeing as he clearly has some ability for maths and dropping it post-16 would have been a scandalous waste.