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

I would be very grateful if politicians would stop meddling in education, at least for a few years!

The current GCSE which we are doing was introduced in 2010, so we have only just completed one cycle of it this summer. Now we have been told that it is changing again as there will be no more modular exams for students beginning the course in 2012. So we will have 2 years of that course before yet another one!

Preparing for a new course takes a lot of time and money as there are new plans, new resources, new books, modified teaching methods, not to mention the time spent away from the class room on courses to train for the new GCSE.

Whilst all of this change is going on, we are aware that the guinea pigs are the students for whom this is there one and only chance to take their exams.

Please give us some time to catch our breath before changing the GCSE again.

"Mmmm....so no-one had got a good job or got into university or trained to be a doctor since 1987 then?"

Probably not. I think the poster meant getting a good job with only O levels. No, you do not get to university with only GCSEs. I certain would not go to a doctor who had only GCSEs (and indeed I am not sure that one would be able to practice in UK without a recognised degree, though it's not actually illegal), and no, I do not think the type of job which can be secured on GCSE only is really comparable to those in say 1960s-1980s.

when th epreviosu government asked wha tto do this is the answer it got (and ignored) from The Tomlinson report

In response to Ephiny, we are in agreement I think. I said that you need to remember information for Science GCSEs, and again for A level. But that in itself is insufficient. As it should be.

You don't get to hand in your exam paper the day after with controlled assessments. They are exams. Timed, and carried out under high control conditions.

I suspect that the people who are saying 'oh marvellous' are quietly confident that their DC will not be shunted onto the CSE path and doomed to an exam that no bugger is interested in. Note the poorly thought out comment that they could do an exam in bus timetables and making change, FFS how utterly uninspiring. Apart from the fact that in the modern age those skills are becoming more and more redundant with easy access to information on the Internet and tills that calculate change for you, even the bottom 25% (E and below) could cope with more of a challenge.

For those staying on at school to 18 and then going on to higher education is there any point in public exams at 16?

TalkinPeace2
the Top 5% get an A*
the next 10* get an A
the next 15% get a B
the next 20% get a C
the next 20% get a D
the next 15% get an E
the next 10% get an F
the bottom 5% get a G

This is why one year you got good A/A and the next year poor A/A

but those that got B grades in the first year will never be as good as those with the poor A/A*

noblegiraffe
"I suspect that the people who are saying 'oh marvellous' are quietly confident that their DC will not be shunted onto the CSE path and doomed to an exam that no bugger is interested in."

this is exactly the case, but I know that they will complain and have them bumped to the higher exam and complain about the teachers when their DCs fail.

Noblegiraffe but itsn't it better for a child who is average or below to be allowed to shine in an exam or a more vocational area than to get a spectacularly low grade in a GCSE. Furthermore with the introduction in recent years of NVQs and BTecs in schools there is a two tier system in operation anyway. In that case what is wrong with the GCSE becoming more like the old O'Levels. Two tiers have been introduced via the backdoor anyway and have been embraced by schools because it has given them a way to boost their Level II results. In that case what is wrong with the top of the tier aiming for excellence?

When i read these threads i wonder if i live in a parallel universe, as what some posters swear is what happens bears little to no resemblance to what i see as a teacher

I think this is the one part of UK culture I will never be comfortable with: the premium placed on exam scores. It is appalling to me that a teenager's access to higher education, or a decent apprenticeship, or a well-paying non-minimum wage job, could be cut off based on exam performance alone - which is exactly how it all comes across to foreigners.

Yes, I suppose some high school coursework could be plagarized, but honestly... how many parents are really actually wading in there and writing their children's coursework for them? When most of us have full time jobs demanding our time? When most of us can't remember trigonometry? Usually parents are told that we're not involved enough! How many teachers marking essays haven't thought of whacking a few sentences that are a little too well-written into Google?

I'm probably still missing some details about how high school coursework is done here - a lot of the education system details have been percolating in as necessary. But this discussion just reminds me of a good friend of mine in high school. She was one of the most intelligent, intellectual, and academically capable girls in our grade. She was also one of the most hard-working, and put in way more effort with her classwork than the rest of us. She had one of the best GPAs in our grade and aced her class final exams each year. Her grades and essays won her enough scholarship money to pay for her first year at a selective, private university in the northeastern USA (which she was accepted to on early decision, IIRC - tuition price per year in the tens of thousands of USD - that is how much money people were willing to pay her to go to uni). Following a Bachelor's in Mathematics at this university, she went on to do a Master's in Mathematics for the fun of it, and then finally decided to teach high school mathematics. She is no slouch.

Her SAT exam scores at age 16 were lower than mine. Some people bomb timed exams, no matter how much they try to study or how much they try to relax during test time. Would you really have shut that girl out of your university math programme - a girl who was taking Advanced Placement Calculus at age 17 and getting A grades in the class - based on the exam scores she managed to achieve at age 16? Would you really have made it all about one test?

Boney, sorry I do not get what you mean. If you are in the 11th centile of intelligence then you will get an A regardless of the paper.
People's relative positions do vary, because of differing rates of maturity BUT THAT will not be affected by the year in which you take the paper.

"those that got B grades in the first year" are therefore in the 16th to 30th Centiles. So will get B's.

Sorry, maybe that is not how it comes across to all foreigners. It does come across that way to me, though!

I think the concept of one exam board is better - like for like that way....I was the 2nd year of GCSE's and they were quite hard....for music, for example, I had to compose and have recorded 3 pieces of music; play pieces; and do a listening/written exam....although I know others who have done music with their instrument as a triangle, and can't read music!! NOT COMPARABLE!!! In the past, lots of those who were unsuccessful academically, went in to trades, and are doing well for themselves - others have stable jobs in factories/although are now at constant risk of redundancy with little transferrable skills. Unfortunately it doesn't matter what the exams are called, if they are crap, they are crap!!!

Married, it is not the 'top tier aiming for excellence' if the reports are correct. The headline that this is a return to O-levels is complete bollocks if they are to be sat by 75% of students. This is simply 'writing off the bottom 25% without even giving them a chance'.

TalkinPeace2

If the top 5% in year one score 90% - 95%
and the the next 10% score 80% - 90% etc.

it is entirely possible that in the year two

the top 5% score 80% - 85%
the next 10% score 75% - 80% etc.

in the first year those that scored 80% - 90% will only ever be 'A' grade students, they will be seen as lower ability than those of year 2 even though they scored higher marks on the exams.

the grade will have no refference to ability or exam score as the grades will be based on where they are in the exam cohort.

I also don't agree with the idea that we'll always need more hairdressers, plumbers, electricians, etc.

I'll admit that I've had trouble getting joiners, plumbers and electricians to turn up for RFQs, but news reports from the USA indicate a lot of tradesmen have been desperate for work since the house price crash - especially in areas where there was a construction boom only a few years ago. You get that kind of downturn here, and there may well be an oversupply of tradesmen. Meanwhile, Yell.com is telling me that there are 101 results for "beauty salons and consultants" in my city alone, and it is a podunk city in northeast Scotland. There are not enough affluent women here to support all of the teenage girls who think they could pay rent by waxing eyebrows for the rest of their lives.

It is really not good enough to write children off and pigeonhole them into careers at ages 14-16. Kids are dumb. A lot of them don't freaking know what they want or what they're capable of at that age!

The problem with talking about anything to do with educational achievement in terms of the 'top X%' or 'bottom X%', is that what it's pertaining to talk about 'intelligence' or 'aptitude' when, actually, social and economic factors are determinant.

Gove's plan is clear. Nice middle class kids get to do 'hard' exams and get good jobs. Kids from low income families have a ceiling put on their opportunities as early as possible and learn how to count out change in a shop. Someone needs to be serving lattes to commuters and it sure as hell isn't going to be his kids.

*Boney.
Yes, exactly. The paper may vary but the relative measure will stand.
A hard paper will have a lower pass mark than an easy one, but the grades will show who did best at that paper, rather than just giving lots of A's for easy papers (which is the ONLY way 53% of students can be categorised as A grade)

THis ties in with how UK students stand against Chinese / Indian / Korean / German students. Everything is relative, little is absolute.

Once in an exam I came top across three schools so got an A. I got 35% . It was a bastard paper, but I was the best.

Surely an exam should measure your performace in that exam, should demonstrate that you have mastered the skills/knowledge to an agreed standard in a particular subject.

What an exam should not be expected to do is to rank you vis a vis your cohort nationally.

There is no logic in a candidate who is of A grade standard in one year magically becoming a B grade candidate in another year, just because the teachers have taught beter and the other pupils have worked harder. That is incredibly unfair.

The standards should remain the same year after year so that an A is an A is an A, whatever year you do it. so that employers know that if you have an A you know X and can do Y.

Grade inflation is not an automatic consequence of the end of normalising exam grades. It is, I suspect, a result of league tables, which have meant that schools have been forced to focus on raising grades at all costs, even if the resulting grades are worth less. There is no reason why the standard of a grade A can'r remain static year after year, whilst the numbers achieving grade As rises year after year. Pupils are unlikely to become brighter but there is certainly room for teachers to teach better and pupils to try harder.

I'm all in favour of the return of O Levels and CSEs.

I remember thinking when GSCEs were first introduced that they were a great idea, but I've changed my mind. They were, I thought, sold as one exam that everybody would sit. Pupils would be able to get a grade based on their performance in that exam, so those who were borderline for CSE/O Level wouldn't have to sit both exams. However, it's my understanding that those pupils are really badly done to by these exams as they are put in one set with no option of hedging their bets. The return of the old system would definitely benefit them.

And I'm still in the camp that thinks there should be a vocational option at 14 rather than just academic so that there is a chance that the country could once again have proper, time-served tradesmen (and women) who have done proper, five year apprenticeships. And we need to get a move on with that since the people who actually went through that system are probably all coming up to retirement!

But surely the 25% or 50% would be doing the BTecs or NVQs that have already been introduced in schools.