Please explain exam boards to me: why so many? Why doesn't the DofE do it?

[ParentOfOne]

This is going to sound a very banal question, but can someone please explain the concept of exam boards?

In many other countries, it's the Department of Education that sets the national curriculum and prepares the national exams (GCSE, A-levels and equivalents).

• Why do we have various boards in the UK?
• Are they all private entities?
• Who pays for them?
• Has it always been like this, or was there a time when it was all done by the Department of Education?
• How meaningful are the differences between exam boards? Eg how much of a difference is there between Edexcel maths and AQA maths?
• Is each secondary school free to choose which exam board to follow?
• How comparable are the programs and the difficulty? Does this create an unfair advantage, if getting a high score is easier with one board than another?
• If there are no meaningful differences, why do we have multiple exam boards?

I have seen that Wikipedia provides some history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_boards_in_the_United_Kingdom but doesn't address the main questions

Schools going downhill are usually easy to spot- it tends to start with experienced really good staff leaving and then the savvy parents start pulling their kids out. Has always been this way.

The big observation from this thread is that many posters don't see a fairness in education as a value.
Inequalities allow active parents with resources to try and snatch the better option for their children.

„The big observation from this thread is that many posters don't see a fairness in education as a value.
Inequalities allow active parents with resources to try and snatch the better option for their children.“

No, that isn’t the case. Educationally motivated parents just look for good schools and a good fit for their own kids and then they support the kids and the school. They don’t do this to exclude other kids deliberately. It is like saying that working hard to get a good job or a promotion is depriving others.

I would tend to agree more with @FourIsNewSix

Many families oppose admission by random allocation (which, sure, wouldn't work in the sticks, and wouldn't work for primaries, but would absolutely work for secondaries in cities like London) because the current system allows them to "buy" a place by buying or renting next to the school desired, and they don't want to lose that.

Many families opposed humanists' campaign against admission discrimination in faith schools, not because they thought that seeing a cross in a classroom is truly educational and important, but because faking belief by attending service gives them an edge over the families which won't do that, and gives them more choice than non-religious families

Many families could not give less of a flying f* if the 11+ system stresses children out, ignores that children develop at different paces, risks labelling 10-year olds as failures, because they think it benefits them, so sod everyone else.

It is like saying that working hard to get a good job or a promotion is depriving others.

No. The example you mention would (hopefully) be linked to merit. Admission by distance or by faith (faked or real) have nothing to do with merit, and a lot against it, actually.

Yeah, I suppose we can find some analogies - it's similar to working hard as an unpaid intern which shows your dedication and gives you the experience and contacts. Parents who can afford to support their children through half a year of unpaid prestige internships don't do it to deliberately exclude those other young people. It just somehow happens that the good jobs afterwards come to the offsprings of career motivated parents.

Admissions by faith are done to attract a parent group supportive of the faith. So they then welcome twice termly visits to the local church (and volunteer to accompany the children getting there safely), plenty of curriculum time taken up with RE, plenty of praying and for Roman Catholics, preparation classes for first communion and later on, confirmation. It’s discrimination to impose your world view on schools like this just because you dont like the idea or agree with lots of faith teaching. That is why there are plenty of other non faith schools. If you open up admissions to all, you change the nature and ethos of those schools.

Strange how you have picked on every type of school now except Single Sex schiols. Do you have a problem with those too?

Admissions by faith are done to attract a parent group supportive of the faith.

Or parents who don't care about the faith but simply want their kids to go there, so stop attending church the moment their little Reginald gets in. There's also that, don't pretend otherwise. Remember the Sutton Trust report about faith schools being more socially exclusive.

It’s discrimination to impose your world view on schools like this just because you dont like the idea or agree with lots of faith teaching.

Your poor text comprehension skills are shocking.

I don't want to impose anything on anyone.
It's people like you who are imposing to all taxpayers that they fund schools which will discriminate based on religion.

In a free country, everyone should be free to believe or not believe in whatever deity or deities they wish (there are thousands to choose from...). But with their own money. They shouldn't get other people to fund their religion and especially not a crucial state-funded service that discriminates based on religion.
Again, we wouldn't accept it for hospitals.

If British Christians are truly so Christian, then maybe we should do like Germany, impose a Church tax (there it's about 9% of your income tax), and use that to fund faith schools. That would be fair. But I have a feeling many "Christian" parents would suddenly realise they aren't so Christian after all.

Strange how you have picked on every type of school now except Single Sex schiols. Do you have a problem with those too?

Again, shockingly poor text comprehension skills.

Complaining about the lack of accountability of academies and how that has enabled cases of emotional abuse is "picking"?

Thinking that crucial state-funded services like schools and hospitals, paid for with everyone's tax money, shouldn't discriminate based on religion is "picking"?

In a free country, everyone should be free to believe or not believe in whatever deity or deities they wish (there are thousands to choose from...). But with their own money. They shouldn't get other people to fund their religion and especially not a crucial state-funded service that discriminates based on religion.
Again, we wouldn't accept it for hospitals.

Faith is not just about belief in a deity, it is also about a disbelief in one. But you are not saying everyone is free to believe; religion is not something that is only done for a couple of hours on a Sunday. It is a day to day thing that includes how children are bought up. You are saying only atheists and secularists should be afforded that privilege on the state.

@Wherehasthecatgone You are saying only atheists and secularists should be afforded that privilege on the state.

???? What a load of nonsense. Absolutely not. You talk as if I wanted state schools to peddle some kind of atheist ideology. I do not. I want state schools to be neutral.

Tell me, how would your religious rights be trampled in a state school which explains to children various worldviews, religious and non, without advocating any in particular?

Oh, and let's not forget that British values, which all schools should teach, include that people of the same sex can marry and cannot suffer discrimination for that. Both the Anglican and the Catholic Church oppose same-sex marriage. So both the Anglican and the Catholic Church oppose British values!!!

Because teaching children various world views and not advocating any in particular is going against their faith which supports one particular world view. It is telling children their faith is not true but merely one of a selection of offerings is the opposite of bringing a child up in a faith. You then go on to say schools should not be neutral but should teach that Anglican, Catholics, and others are wrong. Understanding others have other beliefs and must not be discriminated for those beliefs is very different from being told your own beliefs are wrong as you propose.

@Wherehasthecatgone You are unbelievable!!!!

Because teaching children various world views and not advocating any in particular is going against their faith which supports one particular world view.

So all the religious families who send their children to non-faith schools go against their faith because.... because what exactly? Because it goes against your faith to hear that other worldviews exist? Because you need a school to tell you that your worldview is correct and the other ones are wrong???

It is telling children their faith is not true but merely one of a selection of offerings is the opposite of bringing a child up in a faith

It should not be the job of schools funded by everyone's taxes to peddle any single worldview!!! You are welcome to tell your children whatever you want about your worldview, and the state should not interfere with that (as long as your ideology is not illegal, eg you cannot teach that religious killings are justified).

How should a diverse society function? Would you expect Catholic schools, Anglican schools, atheist schools, agnostic schools, Corbynista schools, Blairite schools, Tory schools, etc? Surely you realise that it isn't just theoretically flawed, it would also be practically impossible??

You then go on to say schools should not be neutral but should teach that Anglican, Catholics, and others are wrong.

I didn't say that. Don't put words in my mouth!!

I merely pointed out a clear contradiction:

• allowing same-sex marriages is part of British values
• All schools, including faith ones, should teach British values
• However, both the Anglican and Catholic churches oppose same-sex marriage
• How do you reconcile this? Does this mean that those Churches oppose British values?

Understanding others have other beliefs and must not be discriminated for those beliefs is very different from being told your own beliefs are wrong as you propose.

See above. If anything, schools should encourage a discussion on why religious people feel the need to forbid other people from doing what they disagree with. Religious people don't think people of the same sex should marry? No one is forcing them! They think it's sinful and it angers their deity? They have every right to say so! But why prevent ME from doing something which YOU disagree with but which no one is forcing YOU to do? That's not religious freedom, that's religious oppression. But that's a separate point.

Oh, and of course this ignores that talking about Catholic or Muslim children makes as much sense as talking about a right-wing or a left-wing child - those are things kids should decide for themselves when they are mature enough to do so. But I don't expect someone like you to understand that.

I tell my kids that I have my views, and that they will make up their own mind when they are mature enough to do so. Do you tell your kids they will burn in hell if they dare develop a different worldview from yours?

Make up your mind. Are you for teaching all world views or what you call ‘British values’?

@ParentOfOne posts illustrate the inherent intolerance of the “right think” brigade.

@Araminta1003 Please, please, pretty please, tell me where I would have been intolerant.

Saying that state-funded schools should expose children to various worldviews without advocating a specific one is intolerant?

Saying that I would never want a state school to peddle my own worldview is intolerant?

Saying that the State should not interfere with your right to teach your children your worldview is intolerant? Saying that doesn't mean you are allowed to teach illegal stuff like advocating religious killings is intolerant?

Daring point out that the Catholic and Anglican churches oppose same-sex marriages, and daring ask how to reconcile that with the British value of "mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs" is intolerant?

Daring ask why religious people feel the need to prevent other people from doing what they disagree with (which no one is forcing them to do) is intolerant?

You and I truly do not speak the same language. Words truly have a different meaning in yours.

@Wherehasthecatgone It helps to know what one is talking about. You clearly do not. Teaching British values means teaching "the mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs"
https://www.nga.org.uk/knowledge-centre/promoting-british-values-in-schools/

I also love how you answered inconvenient questions with... a deafening silence!

You said that " teaching children various world views and not advocating any in particular is going against their faith which supports one particular world view"

I then asked if religious families who send their children to non-faith schools are going against their religion. Your answer? Silence

Citizens have a right to choose their own faith or lack of, irrespective of the faith of their parents. It's a part of education to learn about this right and the other faiths.

If the faith presents a world view which is not compatible with the law, it doesn't make sense to allow anyone to use tax payers money to present that specific faith as the truth.

@FourIsNewSix Exactly! We also de facto have a religious justification for hate speech.

If atheists said what some religious people say about gay people and gay marriages, they could be arrested for hate speech (people have been arrested for less). But if it has a religious reason, then no, it suddenly becomes OK.

Note that religious people are free to think whatever they want. If they think that same-sex unions angers their deity, they have every right to think that. if a religious gay person doesn't want to act on their feelings because they think it would be sinful, they have every right to think and do or not do that. No one is forcing gay people to have sex or get married!

We live in a truly dystopian world if people think that preventing other people from getting married is tolerance, while saying that the religious shouldn't impose their religion on other people is... intolerance. Utter madness.

Our RC state primary teaches both other faiths (all of them!) and British values (it has to), as well as promoting the RC faith. They are not AT ALL mutually exclusive!

@ParentOfOne - church schools have to teach about same sex relationships just like any other state school!!!

I know! I have never said nor implied the opposite!

My question was, and remains: how do you reconcile the fact that same-sex marriages are a British value, while both the Catholic and Anglican churches oppose them? Does this mean that those churches oppose a British value?

Same sex marriages in law are a British values. Same sex couples can get legally married anyway and then attend churches/mass etc and send their kids to church schools. That is up to them.
The blessing vs marriage in a church is a very nuanced the debate and I fail to see how children attending church schools and state church schools teaching the full British curriculum should somehow be drawn into such a nuanced debate and bashed around the head because of it. They have nothing to do with that!

still waiting to hear where I would have been intolerant and why...

The blessing vs marriage in a church is a very nuanced the debate

There is nothing nuanced about that. Catholics and Anglicans have actively tried to stop same-sex marriages. Unelected Anglican bishops in the house of lords voted against (why do unelected priests get to vote????). Those are the facts.

and I fail to see how children attending church schools and state church schools teaching the full British curriculum should somehow be drawn into such a nuanced debate and bashed around the head because of it. They have nothing to do with that!

I am not saying I want children sucked into this debate. Mine was more of a reply to those who were saying that Christian values are always a good thing to teach. No, they are not.
And that's because Christian churches have actively tried to prevent same-sex marriages.

Your posts really shows a complete lack of understanding of Christian faith.

@ParentOfOne - you have been intolerant towards faith schools and their existence. The reality is that they save the taxpayer money overall, not the opposite.

So now you want a debate about the House of Lords? No thanks, we are unlikely to agree on that one either.

@Wherehasthecatgone What would I have misunderstood?
I made no theological debate. I simply stated the undeniable fact that both the Catholic and Anglican Churches opposed same-sex marriages and that, specifically, Anglican bishops in the house of Lord votes against it, but luckily lost.

These are facts. Documented evidence. Are you maybe denying it?

Read the speech by the Archibishop of Canterbury at the time: https://churchinparliament.org/2013/06/03/marriage-same-sex-couples-bill-archbishop-of-canterburys-speech-in-the-lords/

An atheist saying the same now would probably get arrested for hate speech.

@Araminta1003 Oh, I see... I have been "intolerant" towards faith schools because you think it is "intolerant" to expect that schools and hospitals, funded by everyone's taxes, should not discriminate based on religion.

Thank you for confirming we speak a different language in which words have different meanings.

Stonewall was against same sex marriage too.

But the same sex marriage debate shows the changing nature of ‘British Values’ - for a long time British Values excluded same sex marriage. Lots of things are allowed under law that go against Christian teaching - adultery, sex before marriage, other faiths, not keeping the sabbath day holy, lying to your friends about why you don’t want to go out…