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

Xenia there was a long discussion upthread about exactly why that Guardian article comparing GCSE and O-level was terrible.

In a nutshell they shouldn't have been comparing Foundation GCSE with O-level as they are not meant to be the same level. Also, the sample of GCSE questions is dreadful and they fail to give any of the harder questions off the Higher paper - the hardest question they show is Grade B level.

Okay, I see why it was hard to get an A in O Level maths. Because the exam was so easy to pass, that everyone got over 80% per cent, and they granted grades randomly, out of a hat?

Or maybe it's a bad selection of questions, just like the GCSE selection!

Ah, nb, didn't see that. Just scrub my post then.

I think I support a continued unified exam as you can already sort out the sheep from the goats by whether it is GCSE how to do your hair or GCSE French nd you can see grade differences between E and A* and whether that person has 8 or 9 sold GCSE subjects or really practical kinds (which are find for really practical people of course).

Perhaps education most of all needs no change and less interference although we do need to do something about written English. I receive some appalling CVs every other day. I had another today and one yesterday. These graduates cannot write like well educated graduates can so their schools or parents are failing them somewhere.

It is really basic things like putting a capital letter in the middle of a sentence for a work randomly. Putting commas where full stops should go etc etc. The better educated graduates do not do it.

Well said LeQueen. The fact of the matter is that young people are more likely to succeed if they are given realistic options. However the CSE/O level divide is not going to achieve that any more successfully than GCSEs do. At the end of the day, the only way young people can fulfil their potential is by having a wide variety of options from 14. The proposed changes are still stifling the vocationally inclined in a classroom, which is not helping anyone.

This thread has me really worried now.
Earlier I said "Hear Hear" to Xenia, now I'm saying it to LeQueen
and the proof therefore is that Gove MUST be talking bollocks if those of disparate views agree that he is !

The trouble with that model of vocational training is that you effectively 'lock' someone on a career path chosen at 14. Without GCSEs these children won't be able to move between jobs. That's fine when there's demand for their skills but should that job become obsolete or demand falls because of a recession they won't have te necessary skills to work in another sector.
I read somewhere recently that 40% of jobs available now didn't exist when I was born. We need to ensure that those who would struggle to complete a more rigorous course have a solid set of qualifications and skills that will enable them to work productively in different sectors.

My dad left school at 14 with no qualifications. He joined the gasboard as an apprentice, and worked for them for 35 years. Unfortunately he was then injured in an accident, and unable to do his job (he has limited mobility), and the 35 years of practical experience were not much use to him. The golden age of the 50s (when he was at primary school) left him with fairly weak literacy skills really. Two more years learning to read and write more effectively would not have done him any har, in the long term.

And children absolutely do not think they are all of equal ability. It is manifest to them at a very early age indeed that they are not.

I agree. And 'being academic' has much less to do with intelligence or aptitude than social and economic opportunity.

I'd suggest that it was the MIL's expectations - formed by those around her - which was the deciding factor in the course her education and employment took, not whether she was 'academic' or not.

'I think you could have a fantastic drinking game spotting the grammatical errors in the average DM article.'

I suspect that your lips would still be dry and your throat parched after a day of spotting. We are talking about the world's leading online newspaper, and about a paper that was awarded Newspaper of the Year 2012 by the distnuished Society of Editors. We are talking about the creme de la creme of British journalism.'

Surely you jest?
I could get completely shloshed on under three paragraphs most days looking at it online.
Sad days indeed for British journalism if the DM is the creme de la creme...

Xenia, that O-level maths paper looked like something I would have done in second year of secondary in Ireland c. 1978, for mid term exams in the first term.

LeQ --I think 16 is a better age to start separating people according to their strengths or aptitudes. Those two extra years between 14 and 16 make a lot of difference in terms of intellectual and socio-emotional development, and the depth you can go into in a history or literature or science class (if properly managed of course).

Like it or not a selective education such as that found in Germany, Switzerland etc delivers a country more or less the correct number of the different sorts of workers it needs to keep it productive ie. 20% professionals requiring degrees, 40% skilled manual workers and 40% unskilled manual workers. However this system can be very unfair on individuals but we need to decide what's more important: the common good or the fate of individuals. Gove in proposing the return of Olevels is opting for the former.

Mumzy - how is reinstating O-levels going to work for the common good?
Can you support your assertion that the selective education systems in Germany and Switzerland produces the 'right' proportion of workers needed to keep the economy productive? Why do you think that model would work in the UK?

Do you need 40 per cent manual workers? The problem is there is hardly any manufacturing industry in this country. If the manufacturing industry hadn't been ripped to shreds by successive governments there might not have been such a push to get average students into University.

Germany is suffering an extreme shortage of skilled workers at the minute, they had to change immigration rules to fill the gaps I think. I think theirs all buggered off abroad.

sashh's comments are bizarre. Why on earth would you write "twenty-seven" rather than 27? In most British newspapers, for example, house style is to write numbers one to nine out in full, but numbers 10 and above as numerals. And what's wrong with using contractions? Even in formal writing, it's usually fine to write "it's" rather than "it is" or even "I'm" rather than "I am". I thought the post from the GCSE student was well written, particularly compared to a lot of the stuff that appears on this forum.

I stated that the student would not pass 'O' Level English and writing things like '27' would lose you marks.

I knew my own post would be riddles with errors / typos, as I wrote it I thought; "someone will pick me up on this".

Contractions are not appropriate for formal writing. The first sentence from the GCSE student did not make sense, how can that be well written?

if o-level English was so obsessed with commas that they were seen as more important than content and other factors, then I don't see why they called it English and not Punctuation.

English Language 'O' Level was not concerned with content. It was concerned with punctuation, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, the ability to use paragraphs, etc. etc.

Surely this is exactly the context where informal language (e.g. the dreaded contractions) should be used?

You are completely right. I made a comment that you would not pass an 'O' Level. It was a flippant comment made from the language used in your first post. I was then asked why I said that, and that is why I took your post to pieces.

It was not malicious, it was to illustrate a point. For all I know your English, used for academic purposes, is perfect. But as a teacher in FE, I find many students cannot write in a formal style. Some use text speak, many are unable to write 'can not' instead of 'can't' and they all seem to use '&' instead of 'and'.

It is a common comment from teachers / lecturers in FE and HE that they have to teach English along side the main subject. English punctuation and grammar are not usually marked but sometimes it is difficult to give marks because I don't understand what has been written. I do want to give as many marks as possible. Some of my feedback will read, "Your answer to questinon P1 was not correct but would have been for for D2, therefore I have given you D2 mark".

P=pass
M=merit
D=distinction

The numerals indicate the particular criteria.

So have a go at me.

Those were O-level questions? My top set 10yo DS1 could easily answer every one of them. Even my top set 8yo DS2 could answer at least half, and my one-from-bottom set (5/6) 14yo DD with fairly severe dyscalculia could have a fair stab at half of them.

They are all in state schools, Y3, Y5 & Y9. I fail to see how maths exams are apparently getting easier if these are very similar questions to those that are in the Y6 level 6 SATS paper? And they were meant for the end of Y11?!

I think the fact that we currently send 40% off to university and a large % end up jobs that don't need a degree ( call centres and the like) and we have to import skilled and unskilled manual workers indicates we have our education system is not providing what the labour market needs.

Every single piece of research into the social/economic demographics of grammar and secondary moderns shows very clearly that it is these factors - not 'being academic' or not - which determines the path that the great majority of children take.

Prince Harry for example, clearly doesn't have any sort of intellectual quirk. Despite the best education that money can buy, he just about scraped through - appears to be thick as two short planks. However, this education was very 'academic' and he has 'A' levels and a degree as a result of his social and economic advantage, certainly not his intelligence.

An extreme example, but it's part of the same continuum.

I don't suppose anyone wanting a very bright employee is going to think Prince Harry is that because he has A levels (He did not do a degree - he went straight into the army, whereas his older brother went to St Andrews to university).

Our local comp in the years age 14 - 16 has subjects as well as things like English and maths like motor vehicle maintenance, construction performing arts, , child development, dance, health and social care. Sounds quite fun actually. Presumably those are subjects that suit their less bright pupils. (It is not a particularly high achieving comp)

Do you need to spend 3 years at uni in order to do a skilled job? I agree that in the last 40 years many manual jobs have disappeared. However is university really the best training for the jobs that are available?

It seems to be a little known fact, for instance, that with a supportive employer you can become aca qualified without even an a-level.

I think it's fair to assume there were a lot of bright girls shunted into shorthand typing or other 'girls'' jobs where they could earn pin money back in your mother's and MIL's day, LeQ. Look at the sheer numbers of women now graduating from university they outstrip men in fact and it must be obvious that if young women had been allowed or encouraged to believe they had some academic inclination decades ago they would have been represented in the same proportions.