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 don't see bring back O-levels as a way strengthening the education system.

*of strengthening the education system

By showing the world our education is rigourous.

Rigorous for a minority, those who will achieve at A level and degree level. It's only a rigorous system for the small proportion of children that will go through it leaving the majority with 'soft' qualifications. I can't see how leaving the majority of children behind is rigorous.

If they are bringing back O levels will they then bring cse exams as well.

I'm all for raisilng the standards but as a country we've never really got to the point of being able to say that vocational courses carry as much weight or respect. Now that is a problem and they need to once and for all address this.

I'd be happy with o levels back but what are they going to do for those who are not going to do them for whatever reason. What on earth happens to these children?

Have GCSE's helped deliver a meritocracy?

The question I'd like answered and I wish there were statisitcs about this is:
Has the A/A* working class boy from Newcastle or the black caribbean boy from Peckham managed to enter top training courses like Medicine because he reached the standard but not quite the standard of those that are privileged (and sometimes feel entitled) and educationally offered the best from the age of 3. Or were such professions self-selecting and taking girls ( as they mostly are now) from their types and speaking with their accent?

One thing is for sure, and I think not all Tories are like this, but Gove is - he does not care a damn about classism or elitism. His agenda is not about being fair.

daffodill2, what we do know is that social mobility declined under New Labour.

Gove was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was adopted and worked hard at school. He didn't have the privileges of a Blair. His agenda is about excellence, he wants children to have high aspirations, high standards and a good education.

What he is doing is unpopular, even with elements in his own party and the Coalition, and will have New Labour spitting teeth. He will get all sorts of criticism for it, but he is doing it because he believes it is right to increase standards in education.

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

That's what he wants, and that's what his opponents want to stop.

This is a crazy way of designing an assessment, mixing up being 'hard' with being 'rigorous'.

We could wander round exam rooms sticking pins in pupils. This would make exams harder. But it wouldn't make them very rigorous, because the difficulties aren't coming from what is being assessed. An improved pass rate says ziltch about whether a test had become less rigorous-whether it accurately assesses what is being assessed. The test has to be not whether it is hard, but whether it measures what you want to measure. We don't argue driving tests should be made harder because most people eventually pass, we just want them to rigorously assess ability to drive.

Most people want exams that measure how quickly and effectively people can take in knowledge, and how skilled they are at applying it, because most people use their exam results not to follow up on the subject but as a general sign of aptitude in areas in which they get further training.

O-levels simply weren't that. They didn't reward bright pupils who were quick on the uptake because they tested at the end of a whole period of teaching when the slower kids who were bright-ish had caught up. They didn't reward application of knowledge because high marks could be obtained by regurgitating identikit answers. They were totally unfit for purpose as a sign of anything other than an ability to be schooled.

GCSEs need reform, but a return to O-levels is not that reform.

Well said Adela

And in any event, people want a return to O-levels because they have been conned by rising GCSE marks that their child will be one of the ones to take O-levels, not CSEs. They will change their view when they are informed that their child will not be entered for O-levels.

conned into thinking that their child will be one of the O-level takers, that is

It's a similar issue with grammar schools. Everyone assumes (or far more people than actually would) that their child would pass the 11+

O levels weren't rigorous. They were a way of finding out whether you had a good memory. Teaching was by dictation, and O levels were a means of regurgitation.
I regurgitated. I got good grades. I forgot everything I'd learned within a week of reading the notes I'd written.
(I even, to my pride, regurgitated a page of calculus in my physics A level. I had never ever done calculus in my life (I did 'modern maths' for O level that just consisted of colouring in a few bits and pieces as I remember) but I really liked that funny 's' sign that went with it!

Interestingly Paddy O'Connell (I think it was) did an English GCSE and an English O Level for Broadcasting House this weekend. He did better on the O Level.

Fluke?

Have a look at the difference in standard

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnj3

The BBC page says 'Let us know how you got on', but there appears to be no comments section at the bottom of the page where the public can give their view.

I think the reason that the public have left no comments so far, is because they rattled and breezed through the GCSE questions, but are still struggling through the O level question, with the help of an aspirin, an extra-strong latte and a bumper pad which is already full up with workings.

By publishing this article, the BBC may have inadvertently increased respect for the 'good old days' and Queen Victoria. It wouldn't surprise me to find that this article is quickly wiped from the web, cleared from the cache and removed to Room 101.

I think they probably read it before they put it up!

Have a listen on iPlayer - the examiner gives reasons why he does better on the O Level - it's quite interesting and (if memory serves, I was having a conversation about rice krispies at the same time) is based on the GCSE needing a higher standard of analysis as opposed to memorising and repeating.

Thanks, I will listen to it

www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01k2b1l
It starts at 11:20

O level questions was "Describe somebody in your school or community who pretends to be much better that he or she really is"

GCSE question is "When is it important to listen to other people?"
followed by speech bubbles which helpfully and conveniently suggest possible things to consider.

Aside from the fact that the O level question encourages independent, sceptical thinking with questioning of authority, and the GCSE question encourages obedience and respect for elders and betters, we are told that
O level answers are almost mathematical (i.e. right or wrong), whereas GCSE questions are more of a "personal response". Is this a euphemism for anything goes, prizes for all points of view?

Robert Peston said that the GCSE maths question "seems" a bit a easier.

The GCSE question is
"Mark is organising a party for his group of 17 Scouts?
Each Scout will need ..."

Someone emailed the BBC and said why is the word scout spelt with a capital 'S'?

Not that one - the presenter had done an exam himself - talking about Ernest Hemingway

The quote from Ernest Hemingway was one of the speech bubbles which gave GCSE candidates a clue about how to answer the question "When is it important to listen to other people?"

The O level candidates received no clues, no speech bubbles. The GCSE candidates received more than one clue, they received several speech bubbles.