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.

I would say the Daily Mail headline lacks rigour.

There is no coursework any more. And, as I have said three times on this thread, neither is there the opportunity for re-sits for the 2012 GCSE specifications.

Is that the case for all boards?

Mouthy.

Really sorry about your plight. Just thought it was worth a mention. Do the college not offer free courses up to level 3 anymore? It used to be if under 19 and you didn't already have a level 3 it was free. I feel so sorry for you all and wish there was something I could suggest. Education for all is something I am really passionate about.

i dont get it, what are they replacing gcses with?

Yes, it is claig.

If you are going to criticise the status quo, you should know what it is.

Controlled assessments are the new coursework. They are, however, quite different. In Science the marks come from two written exam papers.

And no re-sits from 2014 (first teaching this September).

Yes, Claig, TFM is correct.

Honestly, you need to read a bit more than your beloved Daily Heil to get your head round this one!

GCSEs haven't got dumbed down - we've just got better at teaching to the test. Some half-arsed O Level revival will probably be less work for teachers - but not as good in terms of kids actually learning useful stuff.

'If you are going to criticise the status quo, you should know what it is.'

I don't know what it is, that is why I asked you, a teacher.

Then you are right that the Daily Mail is throwing a few bones to their readers and pushing their buttons.

We have no idea what they are going to announce yet!
With the greatest of respect, academic qualifications need to be suitable for the majority of students. No system is going to be ideal for all.
The current system certainly isn't.
Couthy if a Btec (or whatever) level 2, which is still modular, how can it be a waste of time for your DD if it gets her what she needs to progress in the manner that suits her?

ravenAK, I agree that teaching to the test has improved greatly. But there are also many stories of easier questions than in days gone by.

Are the stories in the Daily Mail?

There are questions that distinguish between a G and a U. Obviously, these are pretty basic, and, equally obviously, they wouldn't have appeared on an O level paper, as discrimination at that level was not required.

I don't know about CSE papers. I haven't seen one.

I'd recommend reading the 2nd link in my op to see just how insulting and warped the DM's take on this is.

I see the announcement has been brought forward to tomorrow, not Tuesday, because of speculation about the leak which Gove endorsed.

Ironic that Singapore in conducting their own review of their education system is looking to the UK for ideas on teaching thinking skills and a more creative curriculum, just as we take backwards steps away from this. Why is 'progressive' treated by DM readers & politicians to mean 'left-wing farty claptrap' ?

'Are the stories in the Daily Mail?'

One or two have appeared in that newspaper, yes.

Good point about the differentiation of grade levels being more explicit in GCSEs, which is why some questions can appear easier.

& 'stories' is what they are, Claig.

You can't compare like for like, as the GCSE has changed so much.

Eg. in English Lit (which I examine):

-the O Level was closed book. Learning a few dozen key quotes & having practised stringing them together into a coherent essay was fine.

• GCSE is open book. There is a requirement to analyse the text in great detail to attain a high grade.

I still have my old exercise books, with my practice essays.

I got the top grade, at O Level. I now teach young people who are aiming for the top grade at GCSE.

The skills required are totally different; but they centre on understanding, not recall. I know what I consider to be the higher level skill.

Yes, I agree understanding is a higher level skill than recall.
But the Daily Mail says that some English literature exams did not require essay writing. Was that the case?

No Claig, that is not the case. English Literature GCSE exams are essay-based. Controlled assessments are essays written under timed conditions. The Mail on Sunday is talking shite as usual.

'The Mail on Sunday is talking shite as usual.'

I think that is a grossly unfair generalisation. But, in this case, it does appear that the article may not be as rigorous as the norm.

No, it wasn't. I spent all July marking the damn things for AQA, so can claim confidently that neither Gove nor some Daily Fail hack know wtf they are talking about.

Eng Lit for AQA.

• one long Controlled Assessment, completed in classroom under exam conditions & marked by teachers. We compare Romeo & Juliet to To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell. I wrote the teaching scheme. Extended essay. 30% of the marks.

• one external exam on two prose texts - a modern novel & one from another culture (everyone did 'Of Mice & Men') - two essays. 35%

• other external exam on a selection of modern & 'canon' poetry, plus an unseen poem. Two essays, 35%.

So it was examined via no less than 5 essays in total. One of them a sustained piece completed over 3 hours, the others approx 45 minutes each.

PLEASE stop believing what you read about education in the DM...

Yes, that sounds tough and rigorous. We didn't do poetry in my day, and we didn't do 5 essays.

So maybe you can understand why the teachers on this thread are ever so slightly irritated at people complacently telling each other that everything they do is a bit shit, has been for years, & isn't it lucky that nice Mr Gove is sorting it all out?

This is a NEW specification by the way. The kids who have just left were the first to do it. I wrote/created two of the schemes of work/sets of resources for our place - each took a couple of weeks of my holidays to develop, not to mention untold hours in school. Colleagues wrote the others - I make it around 10 in all, for all controlled assessments & exam tasks.

All to be scrapped now, apparently to further the shitweasel Gove's career & to please people who read the DM uncritically.

& to devalue our students' achievement for the next few years so the last remaining state schools can be Cackademied.

I am a bit pissed off about it, frankly. In case you couldn't tell.

Yes, education is not as bad as it is sometimes painted. But that doesn't mean that there is no room for improvement. The competing exam board thing and the seminars giving information on possible exam topics etc. have contributed to some decline in standards. Some changes have to be made, but I see your point that some of it may be about academisation etc.

Competing exam boards was Kenneth Baker under the last Tory govt. - it always stank.

& the seminars thing - well, I need to be up in 5 hours to go & teach, so I'll just say that it applied to 3 rogue examiners, on 2 exam boards, behaving completely unprofessionally.

Scrutinising past papers to guess at likely questions is something all teachers & more clued-up students have always done. Likely to be far more widespread under Gove's proposals for all terminal exam - just as it was for O Level.

Yes, you are right. I agree with you. Get some kip. Good night.

Sunflower. It's finances. Or rather the lack of them. I can't afford to pay bus fares to college for DD AND DS1 at the same time. Not if I wish to actually feed my DC's too.

The lack of EMA is really going to hurt me!

It's also to do with Housing Benefit and Council tax Benefit rules, but if she has to do the 1-yr lvl 2 course, the 2-yr catering course, then the 2-yr Patisserie course, my money will run out when she starts the second year of the Patisserie course - no CTC, no ChB, HB won't cover all the rent, lose my 25% single person discount on my CT, no CTB to make up the shortfall.

I didn't plan on being dxd with a disability. I didn't plan for having my DLA and ESA stopped, and having to fight an indeterminable length fight to get it reinstated. I didn't plan for Gove to change modular exams to linear.

And where is the money to support my DD going to come from? My Neuro won't sign me as fit for work, do that's a no-goer. £75 maintenance a calendar month won't even cover her bus fares. She won't get HB to move out until she is 25 - so if she can't get a paid apprenticeship at the end of the 4 years when she will be 20, then I will have to feed and clothe her on fresh fucking air.

DS1 is clever enough to get bursaries etc when he gets to 16, due to how poor we are. DD - FUCK ALL AVAILABLE.

She won't be able to claim JSA because she won't be available to seek FT work because she will be a student, she won't get ESA if I do, because a parent and a child in the same Lone Parent household aren't 'allowed' to both be disabled. You are allowed to have a disabled parent AND a disabled child IF you are a healthy parent in a relationship with the disabled parent, but you aren't allowed to be a disabled Lone Parent with a disabled DC (or two in my case.

DD has had her only real chance of gainful employment snatched out of her grasp, and won't even be afforded benefit help to survive.

I can just about do it till the end of her 4th year at College, but tbh the period from her 20th Birthday in March to the end of that Academic year in July will be hard enough.

And as soon as she finishes, DS1 will need that money for bus fares to get to the 6th form college to do his A-levels. Local schools have no 6th forms.

DD NEEDS to be working even on a pittance wage by the September after the end of her fourth year in college.

And then just as DS1 heads off to Uni, I'll have the stress of trying to find a college course for DS2, who also has SN's.

Gove's a disabilist bastard IMO.

I don't understand the objection to retakes. You could always do retakes for old style O and A levels (my big sister went to a crammer for A level retakes in order to get into Oxford and that was 30 years ago) and they are very very common for professional exams. It's considered a sign of the rigour of the exam, whenever I've worked with accountants it's almost expected that they will fail at least one of the accountancy exams, and like a driving test it doesn't really matter (just costs more and takes longer).

Couthy I'm so sorry about your dd, it really sucks that even though she will have demonstrated competency in what she wants to do she has been stopped from progressing. I suspect she's not the only one caught in this trap.

From what I've seen the problem with modular exams and controlled assessments is that so many many lessons don't involve any actual teaching but only preparing for these assessments. So for example in Modern Languages many lessons are spent drafting then redrafting a piece for a controlled assessment in speaking, then the students learn it off by heart and then they regurgitate it in the CA. But in actual fact they can't string two words together spontaneously in the language.