Worthless qualifications at state schools

[Judy1234]

Wise words.
Pick solid GCSEs in proper subjects - take a language, take English lit and lang, take maths, geography, history and 2 or 3 proper sciences and get just 8 or 9 in traditional subjects with good grades.

"The headmaster of Harrow has accused many state schools of deceiving children by entering them for ?worthless? qualifications. Barnaby Lenon said that grade inflation and a shift to vocational qualifications was masking a failure to teach enough pupils to a good standard.

?Let us not deceive our children, and especially children from poorer homes, with worthless qualifications so that they become like the citizens of Weimar Germany or Robert Mugabe?s Zimbabwe, carrying their certificates around in a wheelbarrow,? he told a conference.

?[Let?s not] produce people like those girls in the first round of The X Factor who tell us they want to be the next Britney Spears but can?t sing a note.?

He cited media studies as an example of a soft subject, for which many schools were keen to enter students because it was easier for them to get a good grade. The real route to a good job in one of the professions, he said, was good grades in traditional academic subjects such as maths, sciences and languages."

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/school_league_tables/article6998943.ece

[janeite]

FallenMadonna - I agree with nearly everything you are saying but it is indeed true, that in some schools, BTECs are replacing traditional GCSEs, even for the brighter pupils. This is what things like National Challenge are doing to state education. Bright pupils are being side-lined in the push to get as many other pupils as possible up to the 5 GCSEs benchmark.

[Judy1234]

And of course if these state schoolers being badly advised are bright they can do what I did about the internet when I was 14 and 15 and look up the criteria for what they want to do and if they don't more fool them you could say.

That's the interesting thing about the internet- you come across people where if someone achieves a job as a cleaner or window cleaner that's success. The average IQ is 100.

The only point of this thread is my concern that some state schools don't tell children what they ought to know. My friend whose daughter is at a state school who went off to some ex poly because her friends are going not realising that for the career she's chosen that will make things harder, it being an institution no private school would send its brightest children as indeed she was in her state school.

I haven't sent my children to state grammars or exam factories because education is about the wider person, developing your hobbies, having a full phalanx of skills, people skills, the right accent, ability to get on with others, lots of hobbies to ensure personal happiness and life long interests, opportunities to travel, make good friends for life from useful backgrounds and where we are to mix with different cultures which you don't get in the segregated state schools really but do in the private schools. The good exam results are good too but I as much buy the chance to lie in the sun listening to Handel or indeed singing it looking over lakes with similar parents who might have an IQ of more than 100 at school events than to have the chidlren in a school where of course 100% go to russel Group universities. Children tend mostly to be weak and follow the herd whether on to the dole or the local supermarket or something better. Put them in the right herd and they follow that as teenagers.

[TheFallenMadonna]

We are a National Challenge school. Where students aren't going to get a C at GCSE, there's a push to alternative qualifications certainly. But those aren't the students we're talking about here. I agree that schools should offer a range of courses. IME, most do.

[TheFallenMadonna]

But yes - the pressures of being in the National Challenge are ridiculous, and I can see how some Heads might make bad decisions as a result. And it's also a pretty good way of driving good staff out of the schools that need them most. I am relatively lowly and I am almost at breaking point with the demands placed on me.

[claig]

Xenia, I agree with your point
"The only point of this thread is my concern that some state schools don't tell children what they ought to know"
similar to what loungelizard is saying. The schools ought to make these things more explicit, maybe it is this league table business that makes the schools reluctant to come clean

[stressheaderic]

I teach in a National Challenge school.
Currently seeing my subject, MFL, being sidelined, shunted, squeezed until I do actually fear it will disappear from the curriculum altogether.

We've gone from 150 minutes a week of Languages, to 100 minutes a week on a rotation with History and Geography.

MFL put in same option block as Hist and Geog, so pupils are unable to choose a fully academic route.

The thing is, it's popular, and kids enjoy it...but since when did that count for anything.

[kalo12]

i think the problem is in britain we rate academic and university and thats it.

in france, for example, butchery , carpentry, and other craft trades are highly regarded, but we don't rate those in britain. even a waiter is a proper career in france, not something students do for a bit of extra cash.

chefs are extremely badly paid in britain and they work harder and longer than anybody.

it shouldn't be all about qualifications, there should be more kudos put on skills and apprenticships to take pride in a practical artistry

[claig]

stressheaderic, I can't understand why they are doing this to languages. Do you know what their logic is?
When doing business with foreign companies it is a real handicap not to be able to speak their language. They all speak English, but that is not the point. If you speak their language and have a love for their culture, they treat you like an insider. British business will be harmed if we can't speak foreign languages.Madness.

[claig]

kalo12, exactly right. Germany is like that as well, well respected apprenticeships that are rigorous and can take years to complete.

[Judy1234]

You just wouldn't get that in many private schools. The parents would insist just about every child could do history, geography and French and probably German, Spanish or Latin too. I did French, German, History, Geography etc GCSEs or O levels as they were and when my mother did hers in the 1940s you had to do 8 ior 10 core subjects to get your school certificate and that was 10 proper subjects or 8, can't remember english lit, lang, maths, a science or two, etc etc. If you didn't pass one you did the whole year again. If you didn't pass then you didn't have the school cert. Schools like Bedales are doing fewer GCSEs though now and are probably good with less academic children who may be good at crafts.

[butadream]

The danger of schools like Bedales reducing GCSEs is that they will become more like finishing schools, surely, crafts make me think of cooking and flower-arranging...

The question is when is a vocational qualification worth anything at all? Is it only post-degree vocational courses that count? And doesn't that waste a lot of money and time for fee-paying students who know exactly what they want to do when they are 16?

[Judy1234]

I think they don't tend to get the brighter children at Bedales but probably do quite well for them if you look at the destination of leavers on their site www.bedales.org.uk/static/documents/Bedales_annualinfo%20lores.pdf#page=7

My best friend left our school at 16 to go to a comp to do typing, accounts, sewing and then set up her business at 18. I got a book from the library when I was 15 and used my life savings to buy a typewriter on which I typed a 50,000 word autobiography which no one would publish. I did write 30 books since then. However that Easter holiday distracting myself from my O level revision was a very useful practical skill but I don't think I really needed a course ni it. It was a free library book and today I type faster than anyone I've ever met, secretary or otherwise and it's been one of the best uses of my time I made. Some of these practical things you can learn easily when you're quite young. My 11 year olds cook pretty well because they've got full time working parents for example. They don't ened courses in it.

[loungelizard]

The state grammar school my DCs attend/attended isn't an 'exam factory', they send many pupils to Oxbridge and every one to a Russell group university every year, but that is beside the point..

I think there is a need for many children to take non academic GCSEs. I think a university education should be elitist to a certain extent, ie only the top percentage of intelligence should be attending, BUT everyone should be given the same opportunity to apply.

Media studies is hard work, I am sure, and shouldn't be ridiculed but it is not in the same league as Physics for instance as an academically rigorous subject. If universities aren't going to accept it,and others such as Law, Business Studies, Dance, Tourism or whatever, then it should be common knowledge not just for those in the know. Once it is known, then fair enough if you choose to take those subjects, there is nothing to lose.

I note there has not been a great stampede of state school heads coming to the defence.

[loungelizard]

See the other thread on this site about BTec or something being worth 4 GCSEs. There is someone on there whose son now wants to study medicine. Would be interesting to see if any university would accept a Btec as an 'equivalent' to 4 GCSES.I would think he has already ruled himself out, through no fault of his own!!! I am ready to stand corrected, but imagine no medical course will accept it over someone with 3 A*s in separate sciences.

There won't be anyone from a private or grammar school taking that qualification and then applying for medicine. It is so unfair.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Just because somebody wants to study medicine, just because they want to do A levels in Science, doesn't mean that is going to happen. As I said, in my school, nobody who is a potential A level science candidate would be doing BTEC instead of GCSEs. Of course, I don;t know the situation in the other poster's school, but I gotr the impression that GCSEs were offered there.

Do they really send every student to a Russell group university. That seems rather odd. And limiting.

[TheFallenMadonna]

I do agree with you on the nonsense of equivalence though, as I said in my first post. All that does is encourage bad practice in Heads who are under pressure to imporive their numbers, and add to confusion and misunderstanding about vocational courses. However, just because it is not equivlalent to 4 good GCSEs, doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile course in its own right.

[loungelizard]

Yes they do (send every student to a Russell group university)!!! Actually, having said that, a few go to do foundation courses at Art college.....but other than that, they do all go on to RG universities. It is a very academically selective school to start with, so not particularly surprising, but I am not concerned with the children at my DCs school.

I totally agree that just because someone wants to study medicine they can't necessarily do it, but, for example, my DS1 was spectacularly lazy and got C/D in mock exams etc, and if at a comprehensive I am sure would have been put in the BTec or whatever group. However, he pulled himself together and managed to get As in Biology and Chemistry GCSEs. Obviously he didn't apply to do Medicine because he wasn't good enough (and didnt want to and couldnt possibly have done them for A level, again another illustration of the dumbing down....) but it does just illustrate a point.

[loungelizard]

I also agree that the Btec in itself isn't wrong as such, it's just that it should be made plain it is really equivalent to 3 A*s in separate sciences.....because it isn't!!!!!

[TheFallenMadonna]

I think even in comprehensives we can tell the difference between bright and lazy and hard working but not bright enough for A level.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Is the Russell Group thing a policy? Because there are good courses at universities which aren't RG, which AFAIK has nothing to do with undergraduate teaching.

[oldenglishspangles]

My old university Aston ranks above 16 of the 20 russell group universities when it comes to graduate employment. Going to a russell group university may get you an interview but it will not get you the job.

[loungelizard]

Where the students go to university from my DCs' school isn't of concern. I only brought that up to illustrate that their school isn't an 'exam factory' or whatever. It isn't a policy, no, it is just where they choose to apply. No one is stopping them from applying anywhere else, should they want to. They can apply to anywhere they like, it isn't a problem.

What is being discussed is 'worthless' GCSEs in the context of applying for an academic course at many universities.

[TheFallenMadonna]

No idea how that shows it isn't an exam factory.

But you brought it up and I was interested. That's all.

[Merrylegs]

"I think even in comprehensives we can tell the difference between bright and lazy and hard working but not bright enough for A level."

[loungelizard]

(The 'exam factory' remark was in reply to Xenia's posting that she didn't choose to send her DCsto an exam factory grammar school.

I was merely pointing out that state grammar schools equal private schools in their successful applications to certain unviersities. But, as I have said, that is beside the point completely......).