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...

I am having a laugh, but I do actually agree with Gove too. I think we need higher standards and exams were getting too easy and too many people were getting As and A"s. I think it was devaluing our international reputation, and some schools were moving to IGSCEs in an attempt to maintain the gold standard. We can't afford to have a debased education, we can't suffer grade inflation, we have to maintain a sterling value.

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

There is only one Gove, they didn't make him in cloves, when they made him, they broke the mould.

or so I've been told

Claig, it was the last Tory government that scrapped O levels and brought in GCSE's so why are you blaming Labour for them. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought they were brought in in 1986.

Tressy, I think you are right. I think it was a Tory progressive who brought that in, which one I can't remember. I blame Labour for persistent dumbing down and grade inflation. It's a shame they didn't scrap GCSEs and that we had to wait for Gove to do it.

When results go up it's due to exam board fiddling and robotic teachers teaching to the test.

When the results inevitably go down as success is narrowed to a thin number of subjects tested over a couple of weeks I presume this will be the fault of thicky teachers who lack the intelligence to teach children enough to pass these exams.

Personally I think it's a money saving exercise combined with a middle class, home counties, 'I'm more successful than you because I work harder than you, not because I've had loads more opportunities and chances' vote winner.

I don't agree that they have been dumbed down. Standards are much higher at aged 16 than when I was at school doing O levels and CSE's back in the day.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11342847

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9295162/Exams-must-be-dumbed-down-if-the-text-being-studied-is-mine.html

www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6187337

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225643/Sack-exam-chiefs-dumbed-science-says-Royal-Society-Chemistry.html

Mine did higher tier English and it was on Shakespeare only a couple of years ago.

In principle I have no objections to raising standards. But I'm very as to whether bringing back O levels is the way to do it.

I was one of the first years to switch to GCSE. Back then it was still very much O level standard. The drop over the years in standards has been because it has simply been allowed to drop.

There's absolutely no reason to say we cannot simply make GCSE questions tougher. Remove/reduce the coursework requirement.

We need to genuinely improve standards so we can compete in the world economy. So whilst making GCSE exams harder is one way, another is to discourage all these soft courses. All these GCSE 'equivalent' courses in drama, dance etc. All flipping useless and a waste of time.

The problem with reintroducing O level & CSE level exams is for those children who are in the middle. Which do they do? Do they stretch and go for O levels at the risk of failing? Or sit the easier CSE and smash it with no real effort?

I do hope that there will be substance, rather than spin, in changing the status quo. I remember that '1950s' school programme a few years ago on Channel 4, where pupils who had just finished their GCSEs had to go 'back in time' and learn and be taught as it was in the 1950s - they took real O-level exam papers. The difference between what the scored at GCSE and what they scored at O-level was pretty significant. O-levels, I think, were harder. Also, people who were at school in the 1950s can, invariably, read, write, spell and do basic maths. These are skills that are lacking today. I know that the way in which DD has been taught is pretty different from how I was taught (I went to an independent school in the 1980s/1990s. DD is at an outstanding primary. I don't think she's been taught the basics as well as I was, or as well as children in the 1950s were).

I know that the old system wasn't inclusive, it wasn't good if you had special needs or didn't learn by rote. But, the current system is also failing large numbers of pupils too, so I wouldn't accept that going back to the old style will necessarily do a disservice to pupils.

I wasn't around in the 1950s but was the poor spelling, the bad punctuation, the lack of mental arithmetic skills etc all quite so prevalent then as it is now?

Ken Baker introduced GCSEs, last time I looked he was a Tory.

I don't understand why we can't take the good things of each system to create something better, rather than reverting to a system that was considered inadequate 25 years ago.

I did O levels, and being put forward for CSEs was a huge deal in our school. NO one wanted that to happen. It was like being marked for life :(

I don't agree that they have been dumbed down. Standards are much higher at aged 16 than when I was at school doing O levels and CSE's back in the day.
Tressy that is utter tosh. I did GCSEs in the mid 90s and when we looked at old O level papers they were far harder than than the ones we were doing. The standard of GCSE today is shockingly low, and teachers tell kids exactly what they need to do to get top grades, rather than just teaching the subject.

I love how the Daily Mail has told this story, as though it's a done deal. It's nothing more than a suggestion. The Lib Dems have serious doubts and are mumbling about not supporting the proposed changes. This is nothing more than Gove throwing ideas up in the air probably to deflect the news from other more damaging stories, lets not forget he only leaked it to a Tory friendly newspaper

When I listened to teh news headlines this morning, they said that two papers had the story - the Daily Mail and the Guardian

Blimey, it seems that Keith Joseph, a mentor of Margaret Thatcher, had something to do with GCSEs

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/21/scrapping-gcses-hurt-children

Josephine teachers tell kids exactly what they need to do to get top grades, rather than just teaching the subject. You do realise that students have to know the subject in order to get top grades? Exam technique is very important but you can't get an A (in my subject at least) at GCSE without knowing the entire* specification and knowing how to answer the questions fully.
There are problems with GCSEs and A levels, there is grade inflation, some subjects are a great deal easier than others but to get rid of them is foolish. I wish Michael Gove would look further than his own experience as a student in the 1970s for inspiration as to how to reform the education system.

'In 1984 when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government introduced GCSEs, the Guardian reported on education secretary Sir Keith Joseph saying that the new system would be "tougher, because it would demand more of pupils; would be fairer because pupils would be judged by what they could do and not how they compared to someone else; and would be clearer because everyone would know what had been tested."

Claig, the story was only given to the Mail, The Guardian got wind of it from them in the early hours (insider knowledge)

Oh, I didn't realise that, headfairy.

I think Gove is a bit of a superhero. Real changes seem to be happening in education, and it's tangible things that people understand and identify with. Hooray!

'I think Gove is a bit of a superhero.'

Quip, you're not alone!