Gove does it again!

[longfingernails]

An end to dumbed down GCSEs, and a return to the O-Level!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2162369/Return-O-Level-Gove-shake-biggest-revolution-education-30-years.html

He truly is a simply unbelievable reformer. It is so refreshing to have someone who really cares about education, putting pupils first, and not caring about whether idiot teaching unions bleat.

No doubt we will have Christine Blower ineffectually defending the ludicrous notion that standards in British secondary education have "improved" year on year on year despite international evidence. Watching the militant unions get their comeuppance - yet again! - is a delightful little bonus...

yawn
Gove is a twat

Haha, agree with custy

Isn't it going to take a little more time than that to organise the dissemination of the new content of these new exams, the production of text-books, the familiarisation of teachers with the new syllabus, etc.?

I'm afraid I have my wry face on.

Having said that. I have a son who is not pleased with me because I talked him into taking the three sciences separately and we've both been a bit surprised by some of the content.

In Singapore the O'levels are very challenging. I think the old system of O'levels and CSEs worked well, mind you it's what I know and remember.

The teachers should know their subject inside out, if they don't, it's time they were sacked.

Teaching to the exam is the main problem with education nowadays. It's not the driving test. Teaching should be about teaching the subject, not just teaching the pupils how to pass the exam.

Great - until it's your child confined to the CSE equivalent. Or who suffers from severe hay fever / another illness so can't perform as well on the day of the exam.

This obsession with the one-big-final exam baffles me. There's nothing like that in RL that people need to prepare for - it just seems macho rather than practical. My (excellent) university did modular degrees. It simply meant as I entered my final year I had just over half my degree in the bag already and I already knew a 2.1 was more likely than not so didn't explode with stress.

I do accept that coursework can be done by parents though - as an attender of boarding school (so I got no help at all!) that did annoy me a bit. Although coursework was in its infancy when I took my GCSEs, and very little of the final mark.

Or who suffers from severe hay fever / another illness so can't perform as well on the day of the exam.

Maybe we should take the opportunity to rearrange the school year so that exams are not in peak hay fever season as well ?

On the bigger question - I am ambivalent. I am not a fan of the current standard of GCSE but I am sceptical that it will be properly thought through and cater for everyone. Or that it will be funded properly.

I am also very sceptical about where all the teachers are going to come from for the primary curriculum revamp (are there really masses of language teachers who are good with young 'uns queueing up for jobs ?).

Another thing that puzzles me is the national curiculum for primary seems to become even more prescriptive for primary (which hoop each age group should be able to jump through), while all curriculum is to be removed from the senior schools and leave it up to heads to decide.

It is fantastic news. Gove really is amazing.

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The new exams will ?meet or exceed the highest standards in the world for that age group?.

Wow. Raise the bar and children will rise to that level. Amazing.

'Mr Gove?s proposal is nothing less than an attempt to reverse three decades of academic decline and create a system that Labour could not reverse if its wins power in 2015.'

Gove doesn't believe in just dipping a toe in; he dives right in.

Labour will not be happy with this at all, they'll probably be spitting teeth. This reverses dumbing down and grade inflation for good.

Of course Gove has done this. Exam only assessment traditionally favours boys. girls, as a rule and because of socialising, tend to work more consistently throughout the year. (Anecdotally, as a teacher, getting coursework out of boys was like pulling teeth, but the girls would at least have a go and hand something in). Girls, especially in their teenage years, can have issues with heavey periods and PMS that boys don't have to deal with. Over the exam period you can guarantee that at some point many girls will be sitting in an exam at some point wondering if sh's going to leak.

Boys results are dropping. Girls have, since the introduction of GCSEs consistently outperformed the boys.

Just saying............

'Boys results are dropping. Girls have, since the introduction of GCSEs consistently outperformed the boys.'

But as a whole, our international ranking has declined. The numbers getting As and A*s have spiralled. Gove is going to make our exams some of the toughest in the world. The reputation of our students will then be second to none and they will build their education from a base of excellence which will follow through to higher levels.

What will Gove do next? Reintroduce competitive sports days?

This is revolutionary and overturns New Labour's rotting apple cart for good.

Just read the comments of Daily Mail readers. They are very pleased. How are Guardian commenters taking the news? Have they had to swallow some pills to settle themselves on reading this revolutionary news?

So a restricted curriculum with a focus on core subjects, end weighted examination only, separate courses for those deemed not academic sounds like a solution for 40s rather than today.

I think the system does need reforming but not reducing and Gove with his absolute inability to hear anyone else who tries to communicate with him will continue clueless but purposeful. His cock ups negating the successes.

Three cheers for Govey!!! He must be in pole position to Camerons eventual replacement by now - he's the best performing Tory minister by a country mile.

Custardo is quite right, Gove is a twat. You know you're a bad policy maker when the only idea you have for improving education is to go back to how it was in the good old days.

Only the dimwitted believe that educational problems, social problems can be turned around by changing the type of exam people do.

If Gove carries on like this, they're going to create a new Olympics medal category and award him gold for commonsense. This is nothing short of a revolution, a real evolution over Labour exam dilution. Gove demonstrates the sagacity of a Confucian.

This is nothing short of perfection, a long awaited Labour correction, Gove could single-handedly win an election.

It's going to be hard for the first few cohorts because a. the courses won't be properly organised or the teachers experienced with them, and b. people used to routinely seeing CVs with 1,345,346 As on them will think "oh dear this person is fick" if they have something like 4 As and 6 Bs. Which used to be considered excellent.
Why can't they just fix GCSEs? I kind of agree that everyone getting a million As is ridiculous - even if the kids are getting absolutely cleverer (chinny reckon), then it still benefits everyone to discriminate more finely between them.
Also I agree that coursework is prone to horrific fiddling and also favours a certain kind of workload-stress-immune workhorse over people who might write brilliant essays, without coaching, but can't happily work till 10 o'clock every night for two years.
But why can't they fix these problems without bringing back a deliberately devisive system, from a time when a life without qualifications still allowed you to get worthwhile and financially sustainable work? Now that you need a degree to serve coffee ("entry level position in the leisure industry" I suppose) what is going to happen to the people who can't pass the exams at 16?

I'm not sure why you are knocking labour for the GSCES's it was the tories who introduced them back in the late 80's.

I'm not a labour fan but you can't criticise them for something they didn't do. The grade inflation since, well that's a different matter and criticise away.

Good point, whathaveiforgootentoday. I can't remember which progressive was responsible for GCSEs, but I think it was a Tory.

Just when the students/teachers/we the helicopter parents get to grips to what they need to do at age 15-6 for the best chances, they change it for the next ones in the family who have to do something different...

Modular...linear... GSCEs...O levels...etc.

DC1 is only 12 & I feel old already, there have been so many education changes already that DC4 will face (starts reception in September).

GCSEs need reform but I don't think going back to a divisive system is the way to do it. You need an education system that works for everyone and I don't think O-levels/ CSEs are the way to achieve that.

claig are you having a laugh or do you really agree with this pig's tripe?

claig, are you sure you're not actually Gove?