Gove to announce scrapping of GCSEs

[Itchyandscratchy]

But before anyone is taken in by the leak announcement in the Daily Hate Mail here, take the time to then read this for a more informed version.

With any luck they'll be out of a job in 2015 when this is sposed to be brought in, but there's no doubt GCSEs will be scrapped. What I woud hope is that Labour will get is finger out and propose a system that has had full consultation with schools, teachers, employment agencies, industry chiefs and unions.

It will change how every child is currently taught at secondary school. And I hope that doesn't mean some children's futures are determined by the age of 11.

Thank you Mr Gove. After today's announcement, I now know which two political parties I will not be supporting in the next general election. not that I ever thought I'd vote tory...although Boris is good fun

animaltales, if it gets to only 5% going to uni, then what will happen to the universities and courses that are in existence now? Also the economies of the university towns. Will they be filled by international students? Also will there be plenty if jobs/apprentices for the other 95%. I know the current government is setting up schemes at £2.50 and hour but the uptake is low atm.

'Thank you Mr Gove. After today's announcement, I now know which two political parties I will not be supporting in the next general election.'

I agree with you, SomePeople. I too won't be voting Labour or LibDem.

''what will happen to the universities and courses that are in existence now?''

Media studies out the window then !

Perhaps a return to Polytechnics for the vocational courses.

That's what I was thinking might happen. However, the polytechnics still needed funding and students.

There'll be lots of acting from Labour, but I doubt they will pose an effective opposition to Gove. He wiped teh floor with the progressives in parliament today, and that shows that Labour are not really up for it. Very few of their bigwigs were present for such a mjor announcement which will affect millions of children and shape the country's future. A "baccalaureate" is probably right up New Labour's street.

www.fabians.org.uk/make-the-english-baccalaureate-the-local-baccalaureate/

I'm sure they will still get the students - grades may be 'dumbed' down in comparison to the grades we have been seeing over the last few years but further education will have to reflect those changes .

I certainly agree that school leavers shouldn't expect to go to university which seems to happen. Because there is currently very little alternative on offer - apprenticeships, vocational courses people seem blinkered into university.

The countries we should model ourselves on are Germany and Japan. Their education systems nurture the academically able but also provide high quality vocational education for the more practically minded. As a result they produce and export innovative high quality products which people around the world aspire to own. Their populations enjoy a high quality of life and everyone makes a valuable contribution to the economy and society.

Thankfully my DC will all escape the 'gove' level, but I hope to help that some of the points made today will get knocked into touch during the consultation.

One important point not mentioned yet, I think, is how they can reasonably adjust three hour exams? My DC have SEN and are entitled to 25% extra time, But it is not unheard of for adjustments of 50% or more extra time. A three hour exam is bad enough, but some kids could be faced with exams of 4 hours or more.

Presumably Gove thinks that we should return to the O level days when kids with SEN were not allowed to take qualifications. It certainly looks like he wants to move in that direction.

mumzy I agree with Germany, but Japan - the suicide rate among school age people is staggering because of the pressure and the amount of work they are expected to do pretty much 24/7.

Germany does stream at an early age, with children deemed to be 'not academic' forced into vocational schools. The Dutch system is very similar. Neither system really allows late developers to blossom.

My DD watched a recent programme about the youth in Japan, she said they were under huge pressure to perform well in interviews.

job interviews

Animaltales, test me on Biology then. For I have an A at OL.

I still bet your Biology is better than my DS1 who got an A in Biology in 2005. (sets up quiz between BoffinMum/Michael Gove and DS1:))

I took GCSE Maths in 1990, 1991 and got D each time. I took GCSE Maths again in 2002 and got a B. I thought the third exam was easier than the previous two, so I am in the camp that exams got easier. I think had standards been kept GCSE's would have stayed.

Im not sure if was overdue to.

we have employers saying kids not ready to work.poor numeracy, literacy and interpersonal skills- not tarnishing youth but had some pretty dire teenage shop assistants/cashiers unable to even greet a customer and lacking confidence.

I do wonder if private schools do better as they do instill a confidence and wider skill set than state schools not just the academic side of education.

we have uni lectureres saying they have to spend 1st year degree going over stuff students should have learnt at alevel.

we live in global market places now.
we have high unemployment and high youth unemployment which was also bad in boom years.

we have lots of older more mature students applying for jobs they overqualified for.

Its a currently an employers market as lots of people with good interpersonal skills, qualifications and work experience from with uk and abroad.

This makes it even tricker for school leavers who leave at 16, even 18.

Most jobs they can get are low skilled retail jobs with cheaper min wage , sometimes temporary mostly part time.
Some employers do in all fairness after being in retail management for many years offer nvqs but these are not challenging and pretty much no better than the gcses and alevels they may have done.

when i was 16 a lady from yts came in and tried to sell the scheme it was awful low paid seems really rubbish-not sure if still exists.

unless we have credible vocational courses and options to go too then what do they do? often think staying in education until 18 way to fiddle unemployment figures.

My 1st job was sat job-pound shop £1.05 an hour in 1995.

Like I said think fe colleges better than my 6th form and give better options for late bloomers.

I think changes need to be phased.

I like idea of bac as means even mix of subjects rather than drop one and realise you needed it later, schools steering kids to easier topics to manipulate results and maybe higher uptake of modern languages.

Personally I think we have a cultural problem within uk.
A reasonably percentage just not bothered.
we see the news the happy smiling youngsters clutching their a,s but they just small percentage.

some schools in my city less than half achieve c pas rate.

so 50%of every year group-what happens to them?
they cannot move onto alevels.

some schools here and few private chosing igcses and international bacc anyway as lost faith already in current system.

As for academic requirements going backwards cant see that happening.

we seem to have lots of people moving here to do jobs that no one wants here. theres far too much snobbery about jobs.

But as a parent we just want the kids to achieve their potential and what rest of the world consider as done good.

its a hard sell to convince parents on vocational streams.

mumzy -agree absolutely.

claig - this plan is only good if your priority is not with the future of the country, or 100% of the children, but only with the top 25% of the children.

And no, to whoever said that this change was only disliked by those who performed badly in traditional exams,I was in the last year doing O Level and did v well, and personally find exams easy; but object to the current proposals because they really do not seem to offer much to the 75% of less academic students, nor provide the country with the varied skillset it needs. We need mechanics, plumbers, creatives, nurses, not just bankers, lawyers and doctors. We need people doing those jobs to be able to access appropriate vocational training. To do this we need to provide the training,and if, as for nurses,it is going to be degree level entry only, then we need to ensure that the entry qualifications to university are no so onerous that it excludes most of those who would to be nurses (and who would make perf

Gove cares about the whole country. He wants teh country to be rich, he wants business to flourish, he wants children to be educated so that they can invent new things and create new products and artistic creations. He wants freedom for teh people and prosperity. That is why he is changing the system. He wants to improve standards, raise the bar, raise the game and reverse dumbing down and grade inflation which has harmed education.

Schools are not there to train plumbers, car mechanics and nurses. They are to provide a common educational curriculum to all children. You can learn how to fit pipes on the job. Employers won't introduce you to Shakespeare, Dickens or algebra. That is what we pay our taxes for schools to do. Schools provide teh broad common base that our society thinks is important for every citizen. People can specialise out of school. School is not to train hairdressers; it is to broaden horizons and pass down our common cultural heritage and acquired knowledge.

A modular approach in Languages was insane - how can you possibly do an assessed subject in the first three months of a course to equal the standard you will achieve after you've been studying the language for 2 years?

If Gove really didn't care about 75% of children, then he would allow the New Labour dumbing down to continue, because you don't need to write essays about 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in order to stack shelves or cut hair. But he refuses to lower aspirations and lower the bar. Instead he is fighting tooth and nail, against New Labour opposition, to raise the bar, to introduce rigour and to reverse dumbing down, so that all children will receive a high quality education. He said he will stop controlled assessment and coursework so that middle class children no longer have an advantage over poorer children. He wants everybody to take the same exam devised by the same single board. The reason he is doing all of this is to ensure that everybody gets a better education and where their grades and achievements have not been devalued by grade inflation.

It's not that hard a sell for those of us whose DC's WOULD do better with a rigorous vocational system. Instead we have a laughable system where those more suited to vocational training are offered a choice of just 4 courses in my town at 14yo - Hair & Beauty, Childcare, Mechanics or Basic Life Skills (which consists of no formal qualification, just teaches them how to make a sandwich, ride a mountain bike, contraception, and basic Numeracy).

If your vocational skills lie in a different area, then you cannot do anything about it until post 16, and even then it is dependant on C/C/D at GCSE.

If these proposals included a sensible, well thought out plan for good quality vocational training, so that NO ONE was left having to 'kill time' at school, or do an irrelevant course, then fair enough.

Why make someone who wants to be a plumber continue to learn French after 14? NOT everyone can learn a MFL, my DD was allowed to drop MFL at the end of Y7 - her school had persevered for a year, and accepted grudgingly that pushing a DC with SN's to attempt to learn a MFL when they don't have a great handle on English (their first language btw) is a pointless waste of everyone's time, and a far better use of that time would be to try to get her English and Maths advancing to something approaching a basic level...

That took almost a whole year of fighting, but it has paid off. My DD got far more SN help from the LSA Dept by being available when her MFL lessons were timetabled.

But Claig - learning about Shakespeare is not going to help my DD to learn to make chocolates, is it? What relevance will that hold to her life in years to come? None. What help will it be to her? None. Far better for her to spend those two years doing an NVQ level 2 in Catering, and the first year of her NVQ level 3, so that by 16yo, she has a decent basic Catering qualification under her belt, and half of a higher level. Then she would just need to complete the second year of her NVQ level 3 post-16, then specialise by doing a 2 year Patisserie course. Which would significantly rise her earning (and tax paying) potential.

Far more than Shakespeare ever will FOR HER.

If this was an option for DD at 14, to do NVQ level 2 in Catering, I would start her tomorrow!

A pass or distinction in that qualification means far more to my DD's future than a 'G' or 'U' in English Literature GCSE ever will.

After 13 years of New Labour grade inflation and dumbing down, with approx a quarter of pupils now getting A and A* grades, Gove has had the courage to grab the progreesive by the horns and say "Halt! Enough! So far and no further' He has raised the bar, removed the limbo, and given the dumbers down an asbo.

And the issue is, that though Polytechnics will eventually catch up to the new system and start offering a better choice of vocational courses, what about the first few years of DC's, like mine, that won't have that option?

The Polytechnic system isn't going to catch up quickly enough for the current Y10's.

Are their lives just collateral damage? It's a phrase this Government seem all too fond of, and being 'collateral damage' is going to affect my family in so many ways, this is just one facet of it.

claig Are you Gove posting undercover? Schools provide teh broad common base that our society thinks is important for every citizen. it is to broaden horizons and pass down our common cultural heritage and acquired knowledge. Because Gove is just about the only person in the world of educational professionals and employers who is spouting this guff. Broad horizons don't come from rote learning a common view of our society and our past, quite the opposite! What we in elite universities want, I am an academic in an institution rated second in the country for our course, is young people who are open minded and curious, able to research and assimilate information, analyse and reach opinions of their own adopting an objective perspective. That is what even Gove's beloved Niall Ferguson has done, he has one perspective but our students are expected to study all perspectives and reach their own conclusions. We are training minds that can go into education, government and commerce and apply those skills in competition on an international stage. Education professionals in Singapore were highly amused at Gove falling for their confuciam traditionalists' brain washing because they believe that to compete on the world stage they need the rigour, yes, but also the creative and critical thinking that the US system is so good at delivering. As I posted below what we do not want is an exam that merely points up the brightest who are good at exams, and makes it harder to identify the brightest who for whatever reason do not perform to their best potential in a three hour exam on a given day. Some of our brightest and most talented students on my course have SLDs but with support they contribute ideas and perspectives that really enrich our studies.

And employers, most especially these days, want employees at all levels with thinking skills, 21c economoies don't need automotons that calculate and process, we have computers for that. They need employees who will deliver value added, think for themselves. There are some seriously ignorant comments on the nursing profession below. 21c nursing is a world away from nursing in the past. Increasingly nursing assistants do the clearing up of poo etc. but if your neo natal baby needs nursing care or you are being treated by a chemotherapy or paliative care nurse I think it would be reassuring to know that they had the intelligence to have gained a degree in the science and skills required.

What Gove is not doing is listening to the professionals who work in our schools, universities and industries about what is needed at 16, an educational strategy aimed at the skills that Britain will need in the 21c. Instead we are going back to the system that universities and employers convinced Sir Keith Joseph was not fit for purpose thirty years ago!!