What are peoples thoughts on the English Baccalaureate ??

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

I know what I think, but i'm wondering if i'm alone in my thoughts.

So, any opinions ?

[lurcherlover]

chloe, I'm not sure why you think there are two different sets of exams in this world - the fantasy GCSEs I and others are talking about, and the real ones that you KNOW exist in "the real world", which I assume are the ones where apparently students only write about an extract and know in advance what it'll be anyway. Once again, I urge you to read an actual, real, higher tier GCSE paper for yourself. Have you done it yet?

[prettybird]

One of the other ways that they increased the numbers of people going to university was to convert many colleges of further education into universities - that, at a stroke, increasing the number of places available.

[squeezedatbothends]

Chloe, I still think you're mad. It's not an insult, just an observation.

[EduCrazy]

Noblegiraffe
lurcherlover
EvilTwins

Her is the evidence you required that children from Ethnic Minorty Groups had their scores downgraded when marked by teachers internally while receiving higher marks for the same paper when marked externally. And Whilte children had their scores inflated.

www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2009/wp221.pdf

[EduCrazy]

Excuse the typo's, pressed the wrong button and was posted prematurely:)

[EduCrazy]

As much as I'm against the scrapping of the GCSE's, with information like this, I can see no other choice.

Part of the conclusion of the report is as follows:

1. Conclusions
   

We have shown that there are enduring and significant differences in teachers?
assessments of pupils from different ethnic groups. On average, Black Caribbean and
Black African pupils are under-assessed relative to white pupils, and Indian, Chinese
and mixed white-Asian pupils are over-assessed.

[TalkinPeace2]

And how will what Gove proposes deal with that?

[EduCrazy]

One externally marked exam paper, similar to O'levels, as opposed to teacher assessed course work.

[TalkinPeace2]

Educrazy
But the changes already in place in the GCSEs that DD will sit have dealt with that issue
there is no need to have more change till what has been started runs through to a set of exams

[EduCrazy]

TalkinPeace2

The reason I posted the link is becuase Noblegiraffe, lurcherlover and EvilTwins a few pages prior said it was poppycock and wanted further evidence, so I'm providing it.

Is your DD in year 7 and will therefore be impacted by the change? Is that what you're referring to? I may have missed something as I've not been on for a couple of days. I really just wanted to provide the link which provided the evidence they were after.

[ravenAK]

I actually agree that teacher assessed coursework is problematic for all sorts of reasons.

I'm not aware that I have any racial, class or gender bias when marking, but then obviously I wouldn't know if I had an unconscious bias. Maybe I do. .

But clearly, when my individual Performance Management depends largely on my residual, an incentive is created for me to over-mark my own students - yes, there are moderation procedures, but if I'm squarely in band 4 for a piece of creative writing, but hesitating as to whether to award 7 or 8 marks, obviously I'm going to go with 8. Daft not to.

& when we internally moderate, the colleague looking at this point of work may well be thinking 'That's a bit rich - I'd give that 7 - but well, I suppose raven could justify an 8 - if I change it we'll be here another 20 minutes discussing it...' & if shifting it that one mark down costs that student their C, that's half a per cent off the school's 5 A* -C score...

I'd like to see CAs externally marked, & identified by candidate numbers only to avoid any subconscious bias created by names that are suggestive of ethnicity, demographic or gender.

It'd be an expensive logistical nightmare, but probably the fairest way of assessing attainment at GCSE rigorously.

[TalkinPeace2]

Educrazy
It IS Poppycock.
That paper is dated 2009
so related to the 2008 exams
pre coalition
pre Gove

The changes that have been implemented since then are SO SUBSTANTIAL as to make that paper history rather than research.

DD is in Year 10. She has started her GCSE courses
All but one of which will be measured by exams at the end.
No coursework, no internal marking.
All of the issues in that ancient paper have been addressed within the GCSE
The single exam that she will have coursework for is a design based course with a three month project.

PLEASE
before you slag off the GCSE, find out where it is now.

Gove has brought in so many changes
without allowing time for any of them to bed down.
The retrospective Ebacc was one of the most spectacularly crass things done to any cohort ever

and now he's so belief driven, that he's not even willing to see the evidence of his current changes before inventing more.

Thankfully DS is in year 8 - the final year of GCSEs - if Gove is not stopped - so we can take reasoned views of his career chances rather than pissing in the wind like Year 7 parents will have to do.

[EvilTwins]

Educrazy - thanks for PMing the "research", but as Talkin says, it's out of date.

[chloe74]

Make changes slowly and you will have teaching Unions moaning forever. Make the changes all in one go and you will only have to deal with them moaning once. Seems Gove is clever enough to do the latter. The first exams wont start until 2017 I think, with the phasing in of other subjects after that. How long do you want to wait, until 2027?

My son will be in the second year doing the new exams and I think it will enhance his career chances. What would really harm his education was if he was stuck with the devalued GCSE, which employers ignore.

I will happily bet any new government wont stop the new exams because the public want these improvements.

[TalkinPeace2]

Chloe74 - or shall we call you Mrs Gove - bog off - you are talking utter carp
Gove did not do it all in one go
he has done it piecemeal without letting the dust settle in between

ANY sensible government will carry on the GCSEs with the changes already in place - even Cameroon's one
rather than taking a potentially disastrous punt on Gove's beliefs

And find (by name) the employer that ignores GCSE results

So, your son is in year 6 - yup, that tallies with the Wikipedia page .....

[TeddyBare]

Of all the disasters Gove is setting up for education this has to be one of the worst.
I'm concerned about the consequences of his maths curriculum - how is more rote learning, more mental maths and a universal knowledge of roman numerals going to help future engineers, designers or scientists?! I struggle to see the value of an exam for 16 year olds which doesn't allow them to use a calculator as calculators are not going to be un-invented and pretty much everyone has a phone with a calculator. I would prefer maths lessons to be focussed on teaching dc to extract maths questions from the real world, formulate them into maths questions, use a calculator for the calculating and then translate the calculation back into the real world. That's how maths works in professions which use it, it's more interesting and it's more conceptual therefore easier to remember the important bits.
His chief ofsted inspector also scares me. What kind of person would consider it to be good for education if teachers' morale is at an all time low? Teachers need to be valued more not less. I dislike the anti-teacher rhetoric and I wonder if that has led to higher teacher turnover in schools.
I'm a university lecturer and the last 10 years of "improvements" have made a good effort at decimating education in this country and that scares me. If I was a school teacher I think I'd be looking at Scotland and hoping it does go independent. I'm grateful I'm able to home school my dc.

[NaturallyGullible]

I like the EB.

When I did my options back in 1980, we were pretty much forced into what is now the EB.

The option blocks meant we had to choose a humanity, modern foreign language and another subject. I remember being told the rational for this which was all very reasonable.

My older kids, without any coercion from Mr Gove, have managed an EB profile of exams. They have done is because they are sensible and pragmatic choices, which will open doors for them in the future.

[ravenAK]

I'd certainly steer my dc towards a similar option set - they're reasonably academic. If they weren't it might not necessarily be appropriate.

However, I think we're no longer talking Ebacc as in 'sensible option blocks for academically inclined & able children' but as in 'a new exam set which is a bit like O Levels, as far as anyone knows who hasn't seen the back of the envelope on which the idiot Gove scribbled it.'

You'd think he could come up with two separate buzzy names for two completely separate half-arsed ideas, what with his being a journo by trade.

[chloe74]

I hope you don't teach children that when you don't have a proper retort to an argument just use insults. I mean is that the best you have, calling me Mrs Gove (a compliment by all accounts).. by that logic you are Ms Balls.

You can't avoid making improvements just because some teachers say their morale will be affected. The logic that follows would be that teachers could stop any improvements to the education system just by claiming it will distress them. Amongst most professions teachers have the least to stress them.

Teddy - I completely agree the education system has been decimated over the past decade. Exactly why we need radical reforms. But as for replacing learning with mobile phones, I cant think of anything worse. Last week I could get a girl in a shop to subtract two simple numbers to arrive at the correct discount I was due. All she could say was, essentially, computer says no. I had to get a manager and even then it took them 5 minutes to mentally subtract the two numbers and accept I was right and not the computer. And lets not get started on how mobile phones have started to entrench this text speak language to the extent that they can't even communicate in normal words.

Learning the basics of Maths, Science and English without the need to consult a phone or the internet is crucial.

[ReallyTired]

"Learning the basics of Maths, Science and English without the need to consult a phone or the internet is crucial. "

Could not agree more. I think that the EBac will help social mobility. It will make it possible for the brightest comprehensive children to apply to the best universities.

The present proposals are far from perfect, but they are a step in the right direction. I would like Gove to be more radical.

[lurcherlover]

The problem is that by making everything about English, Maths and Science, other subjects become devalued. Schools at the moment are measured and judged by the percentage of students who gain 5 A-C grades including English and Maths - just 5 A-Cs isn't enough. I agree in principle that this is the right thing to do, but the problem is that schools' budgets are massively stretched and when other subjects don't "count", they are marginalised and often ignored or even dropped altogether. In an ideal world, schools would be all about the "whole pupil" and regard all subjects equally - and in private schools they can afford to do so - but in the real world, they prioritise the subjects that will get them a good Ofsted report and a high rating in the league tables. Subjects such as Art, Drama and Music get short shrift in many schools as a result of the massive emphasis on English and Maths - less time on the curriculum, fewer staff to teach them (and more non-specialists doing so), less money in their dept budgets for resources...of course, most schools do their best to keep these subjects going and to resource them, but if money is tight, their budget will be cut way before the English or Maths budgets will.

The other issue is that Gove really has not though through the alternatives to GCSEs (or O levels, or whatever system he wants to bring in place) for the weaker students. He doesn't like vocational qualifications, but what is his alternative?

And for those who still thinks his policies are coherent, consider these little Govian nuggets - some of my favourites:

1. He criticised schools for failing pupils, because not all get the aforementioned 5 A*-Cs inc English and Maths. He said he failed to see why a school should not be able to get 100% of pupils to achieve this. Then shortly after he announces that he wants GCSEs to be much harder to pass. Great joined-up thinking if I've ever seen some
   
2. He wants a more rigorous secondary national curriculum, and wants to dictate the content much more precisely. Yet he also wants the best schools to become academies - which are free to choose their own curriculum and don't have to follow the NC at all. So he's proposing a wonderful new NC, but the "best" schools don't have to follow it? Sounds like he's got a lot of faith in it....
   

You're right, by the way, chloe. Teachers have no stress in their lives at all, really. I teach about 80 pupils who will all be sitting external exams this year, and I will be held responsible for their results (not the pupils, of course - just me) and my pay progression depends on it. Pay progression depending entirely on the performance of other people - teenagers, no less, some dealing with very complex issues in their home lives - isn't stressful at all. Those long holidays are wasted on me really... [hmmm]

By the way, if teaching is such a walk in the park and you know so much about it, why aren't you doing it?

[noblegiraffe]

Make the changes all in one go

If only he bloody would. He has tinkered with and continues to tinker with GCSEs so that pretty much every year up until they're scrapped the kids will be sitting something slightly different and likely to affect their grades to the previous year. Every sodding time he's on telly it's to announce something new to happen immediately.

And I suspect he plans the same for A-level. The tinkering has begun and I'm sure it won't be long before I wake up to him announcing on BBC Breakfast that he has decided to replace them with something as yet indefinable.

BTW, I'm not sure why you think that kids don't learn how to add up without calculators. There's a whole non-calculator paper at GCSE. And at A-level.

[crazymum53]

"Make the changes all in one go and you will only have to deal with them moaning once. Seems Gove is clever enough to do the latter."

Am afraid that Gove's method of doing all the changes in one go is not clever at all. The basis of Scientific method (which is what I teach to my students) is that when carrying out an experiment you change one variable at a time and keep the other variables constant. Then you can work out how that change affects the system. If you change everything at once you can't possibly tell which variable has affected the results the most.

If my students applied Gove's method to their A level investigations they would fail their courses.

[noblegiraffe]

I actually have no problem with Maths GCSE being scrapped and replaced. Maths teachers have been complaining about it being not fit for purpose for years (and especially since they scrapped the three tiers).

I just don't have any faith in Gove doing a good job of it. He has proven to be a complete tit who is out of touch with modern society, let alone modern education and has an obsession with everyone having exactly the same education that he had at his private school regardless of the fact that it is not suitable for everybody. And his vague burblings about rigorous exams that will nonetheless be sat by 80% of the population without tiering are just appalling and extremely worrying.

[TeddyBare]

Chloe - while I can imagine that that situation was really very frustrating, I don't think the sole aim of the maths curriculum should be to make consumers shopping experience faster. If the girl was really struggling with basic maths then I think teaching her how to competently use a calculator would be more valuable for her and her employer. Teaching her Roman numerals or maths by rote (which gets forgotten much more quickly than actual understanding of concepts) probably wouldn't have made a bit of difference.

It is reasonable to assume that the demand for technological development is going to grow and that is utterly dependant upon skilled computer programmers, scientists and designers. The maths skills they need and are often lacking are the skills to "translate" between the real world and mathematical language. There is no point being able to do complex calculations by hand when what you need to do is work out what to calculate in order to be able to estimate when the avalanche will happen. Schools don't teach that skill and don't examine it so people are having to learn this by intuition and on the job. Computers and calculators are already faster and more accurate at calculating than human are and there is no reason to believe that they're going to get slower. A more efficient use of human-mathematical skill is to focus it on the things which computers are not good at, such as real world questions, and teach people how to use the computers properly. Rote learning might have been valuable in 1912 but it just isn't enough any more.

As for the anti-teacher language - what do you think that achieves? The problems of insufficient budget, poor curriculum, children who are being let down by their parents or the care system and over examination and assessment can't be resolved by bullying teachers. All that achieves is pushing good teachers out of the system into private schools or other careers. The job needs to be appealing to attract and keep the best applicants and at the moment you'd have to be mad to consider teaching.