Dumbing down of A levels?

[Happygardening]

My DH went to St Paul's boys a long time ago admittedly but it has always been very very selective. He reckons when he was there out of 150 boys only about 15 (10%) got three A's at A level and those boys were considered to be unbelievably bright often boarding on the dysfunctional. Allowing for poor memory on his part lets say 25 got three A's so how can this be accounted for; FT Secondary School 2011 Percentage A/S you will need to search it as I don't know how to link it directly on here! Apparently 94% of the boys got A/A's although their web site states its only a mere 89%. No one is going to convince me that a levels have not been dumbed down.

If A-level students are so much better educated than they used to be, how come everyone I know who is involved in university admissions or university tutoring disagrees?

A lot of independent schools are selective, so yes, they will on average be cleverer than an average state school student.

Students are not necessarily cleverer at independent although the very selective probably have more clever ones than selective states they just are very well prepared and perhaps feel a very strong duty to their parents to work hard and do well this did not happen in my DH's day; there is definitely more parental involvement now than 30 years ago. In fact my DH says they're often stupider at some independent schools.

Students in highly selective independent schools are likely to be cleverer than most children at non selective state schools, but children at super selective state grammar schools are likely to be cleverer than most children at moderately selective or unselective independents.

Overall it's difficult to say, but it's likely there is at least a slight bias towards independent children being cleverer (though probably not innately) due to their parents being considerably richer on average which has been shown to confer advantage. I think statistics do tend to indicate that they achieve more highly, but this isn't necessarily a result of increased cleverness.

stoprainingplease lots of possible reasons for this. It may be that tutors have always complained about the lack of intelligence of their intake; maybe they don't like to admit their students may be cleverer than they are; maybe it's just fashionable to moan about the current educational regime or maybe they're mistaken; perhaps their selection processes aren't managing to attract the same calibre of students that they used to due to increased competition (ie the brighter children are now going elsewhere for whatever reason).

University tutors are looking at a cross section of 50% of the populace rather than 3%. It is not surprising that they are finding that their time is tarnished with only just above average students.

Gelatinous, good point about competition from abroad. A very bright student might be enticed by a Harvard scholarship, and by other prestigious institutions beyond these shores.

This will become more prevalent as the £9000 fee kicks in. I think the numbers will always be fairly small, given that the value of endowments for these universities has plummeted.

A bright student has more choices these days, and inevitably, some will not enrol in British universities, meaning that the average intellect of these places will be lowered.

I think this is a fascinating topic, but the headline figures, and personal anecdotes, do not explain why grades are increasing. The devil is in the detail and in actual hypotheses.

Plenty of bright students from abroad want to study in England!

When I did an Erasmus exchange with a German university they were bemoaning how few English students there were in comparison with German students desperate to get a place.

But they won't have done A-levels so are off the radar screen of this debate.

That was in response to the suggestion that a bright British student choosing to study abroad will result in a lowering of the intellect of the home institution. Their place could well be filled by a bright foreign student rather than a lowering of entry requirements to the home crowd.

Oh, for sure.

But that won't stop the lecturers complaining about the home-grown talent.

Whether A levels standards are lower than they were 20 years ago isn't really that relevant Imo ( fwiw I think they are). The elephant in the room is whether What our schools are now teaching is on par with other leading countries. As I look around my department, 40% of employees are not British and this is in the public sector. My dh works in finance and he is the only British employee in his team of 8. 20 years ago when I graduated we didn't have this competition but with changes in employment, EU laws and The crisis in global economy the jobs market in the UK attracts a lot of highly qualified and hard working non British applicants.

giraffe That sadly is a function of language, especially in the sciences. Very few academic texts or journals are published (exclusively) in German, so most German students, especially scientists, speak fluent or near fluent English. An Erasmus year in England is a walk in the park for them; doesn't work the other way.

I think foreign students still love to come to UK to study in droves, but whether that's to get more fluent in English or because our education system is perceived to be top notch or both I'm not sure.

Here are the world university rankings.

UK has 5 in the top 20, which given our relatively small size is pretty good going.

If A-level students are so much better educated than they used to be, how come everyone I know who is involved in university admissions or university tutoring disagrees?

How come everyone involved in University admissions/tutoring bemoans the level of intake yet awards far more First and 2i than they ever used to? Or do they claim the improvement over the period of the degree is down to their tutoring ... just like teachers say the improvement in A Level grades is due to their better educational skills?
Somebody somewhere is fooling us themselves.

I would refine gelatinous' first paragraph a few posts back by saying that highly selective independents such as St. Pauls (whose stats triggered this thread) are significantly more selective than 'super selective' state grammars. There are a small number of schools, all in or around London, with the same sort of A* score as St. Pauls, whose success can be attributed overwhelmingly to their selectivity at the point of entry. Then, given the fiercely competitive nature of their parent body, coupled with their resources fron fees allowing them small Sixth Form sizes which is central to maximising grades, they consolidate this.

Allow some of the super selective grammars the same financial resources and their results would probably outstrip the St. Pauls type schools, even given their less selective intake.

purits I don't think everyone involved in university admissions does say that. I thought that at the most competitive universities the tutors allowed that student quality has remained the same.

Richard Dawkins says it's all gone downhill since the early 60s. but that's evolution for you eh Dicky?

Sebastian Faulks says that all education started heading to hell in a handcart in 1975.

Completely coincidentally, they had both completed their education at the point where they noticed that students had got a lot thicker.

Just saying.

purits I have never come across a teacher who thinks that improved results year on year are down to improved teaching. Please don't put words into our mouths. I for one believe it is becoming easier to get a C grade, but a C grade is worth correspondingly less. What was an excellent grade in years gone by is now considered pretty average (hence the expectation that all schools should achieve 40% 5 A-C with English and Maths at GCSE).

OOH people used to only do 3 subjects and there was an exam after 2 years' of studying. There were no modules or coursework. People used to fail their A levels.

My dd's are in upper and lower 6th. They both work really hard doing 4 subjects but I think it is all different.

The universities expect higher grades and there is more competition. Also they do alot more stuff like work experience, community work etc to go the UCAS form.

Didn't do A-levels (Scottish Highers instead) but I definitely remember the percentages required for certain grades being altered up or down if too many or too few reached the guideline figures.

Interestingly the A,B and C grades were banded and the teachers told you whether you had achieved an A band 1 (over 90% usually) or A band 2, for example. however the bands did not appear on your exam certificate.

I have started looking at prospectuses as research for my DS's and you seem to need higher grades for university up here too now.

I have no idea whether they removed the variable banding here but i suspect they have, to level the playing field with A-levels.

Ds is a real chip off the old block - I'd say he is almost an exact copy of me - good at the same things, bad at the same things. Actually if I'm honest he's probably a bit brighter than I was (hurrrmmpph) so I think he makes a reasonable case study when comparing now and then (1980s).

Let's take French, for example. His French is awful . And he's in the top set, I get postcards home saying how well he's done, blah de blah. I bought a few textbooks to attempt some damage limitation and was astonished to see what was expected at GCSE - i.e. not much. I also investigated the A Level syllabus and was even more taken aback to find that literature is no longer studied.