Planned changes to secondary-school exams (EBacc etc): teachers say there should be more consultation; what do you think?

[LittleTownofBethleHelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We've been contacted by The National Union of Teachers (NUT), who'd be really interested to hear your views on the planned changes to secondary-school exams.

The NUT, the National Association of Head Teachers and the Musicians' Union have joined forces to say that, although they're not opposed to reform of the exam system, they think the Government's recent consultation on the new EBacc was too limited and that any decision to move ahead is being made in haste.

They say: "We believe on an issue of such importance to young people's future the conversation cannot be over. Accordingly we are asking for a further consultation with a wider remit and brief, involving parents and students, as well as the profession and employers."

They've also set up a microsite to petition Michael Gove to re-open and extend his review of secondary-school exams.

Please do feel free to post your thoughts here.

[noblegiraffe]

LV when people bang on about how teachers don't want this because it's Gove, because it's the Tories, because they're resistant to change its really annoying. The recent review of maths education was commissioned by the Tories, led by Carol Vorderman (you can imagine that was popular) and signed off by Gove. Yet it was welcomed by the maths community as a pretty solid report with some good recommendations about what should be done to improve maths education. And it appears to have all just been binned.

[noblegiraffe]

Chloe, you appear to be getting confused with tiers of entry to a single qualification (which is fine but Gove doesn't want) and a return to two tier education like O-levels and CSEs which would be pretty broadly condemned.

[chloe74]

noble - its like dancing on the head of a pin. Whether you call it a different tier or not it would still be a different exam paper aimed at different levels of ability. And how do you know Carol's review has been binned, the information in it will be informing the new reforms, and the details of them are still to be disclosed. I do know you can't always implement every single word of every expert that utters it, their are always competing priorities that have to be balanced.

[noblegiraffe]

Chloe, what Gove is proposing is radically different to what was contained in the report (which, by the way, was called 'A World Class Mathematics Education For All Our Young People' not 'Screw the Bottom 20% Out of Any Maths Qualifications')

Different tiers of entry are also a completely different kettle of fish to a two tier education system. It really isn't simply semantics. A C grade GCSE gained on the Foundation paper counts exactly the same on your CV as one gained on the Higher paper. No one can tell the difference. However much people tried to claim that a top grade CSE was equivalent to an O-level, no one actually bought it. You had CSEs, people knew that you weren't considered O-level material and could discriminate.

Incidentally, do you know why Gove wants to scrap Foundation and Higher papers and have everyone in the 80% sit the same exam? Because he thinks it's a cap on aspirations. If you are entered for Foundation, you can't get a B, and this is limiting. What the bloody hell he thinks an exam that one in five won't even be able to sit so they won't sit anything does for people's aspirations is beyond me.

[chloe74]

No one is suggesting a return to the O-Level system.

[noblegiraffe]

Do you not remember the headlines when this was first leaked? Gove to bring back O-levels? Gove-levels?
You do know when you bang on about Labour and Lib Dems blocking a move to a two tier system this was exactly what they were talking about?
So if you don't want a return to the old system of different qualifications, then presumably you agree with the Lib Dems and Labour?

[chloe74]

I fully remember the headlines but its was the media and opponents that labeled it a return to O-Level / CSE's. A modern rigorous exam / curriculum, and a different type of system for those less able does not mean a return to the 1950's. We have all moved on, but that does not mean any ideas that were used at that time are somehow banned from use or indeed useful.

[LaVolcan]

Mind you noble, Gove is not the only one to call for reports and then bin them. Tomlinson's report on 14-19 education had some good ideas which were well received, but the report was ignored by a previous Labour administration.

[noblegiraffe]

No, I know, LV but the changes to maths GCSE were (are) being piloted and everything. They looked like they really might happen! Due for roll out in .... 2015.

[noblegiraffe]

How would a modern rigorous exam for the most able and a different qualification for the less able differ significantly from O-levels and CSEs, Chloe?

[chloe74]

I could only speculate noble. However it must be possible to use any good parts, whilst leaving the bad behind. I don't believe for a second anyone was seriously suggesting we just use a 60 year old exam or curriculum.

[noblegiraffe]

The bad part was that a two tier exam system was divisive, the lower qualification seen as second best and being selected into a lower qualification at a young age (even at 13-14) tends to run along social lines, perpetuating social inequality, as possession of the lesser qualifications will close doors. Not sure how any two tier system of qualifications could leave those problems behind.

No one is suggesting bringing back an ancient curriculum. However, Gove isn't even proposing to bring back two different qualifications (which is what you seem to want), he is attempting to bring back what happened before CSEs were made available to the lower ability students. A bit of paper basically saying they went to school.

[chloe74]

I believe it would be possible to make a 'vocational' qualification valuable, but I imagine you are now getting into perceptions.

[seeker]

Tricky. I don't have much experience to contribute, although I know a bit about GCSE and BTec Performing Arts, and in my opinion, the BTec is more challenging, but th GCSE is more highly regarded. I don't know how you would go about changing people's perceptions, and the problem is that while you are trying to change them, kids are having to apply for jobs and college places with the less well regarded qualifications. A very difficult one.

[marriedandwreathedinholly]

Well funnily enough noble my grandparents didn't have a qualification between them; neither did DH's. They could all write beautifully and I mean in the context of both handwriting and as wordsmiths; they all knew their times tables and were able to whizz their way through mental arithmetic. They knew about the land, the world, music, history, art, etc.. They were very well educated - they were not well qualified however. My mother and MIL both matriculated and are similar. FIL and father were scientist/engineer types so had degrees but somewhere society has lost the plot and has become intent on producing well qualified people who are incredibly badly educated. It is the greatest tragedy of our time I think.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

married

How old are your Grandparents?

I suspect that they were educated in the time of the cane, "special" schools and when being a teacher was a "profession" before the system was undermined by successive governments.

[LaVolcan]

Some vocational qualifications, as may have already been said on the thread, actually go back a long way. Scratch the surface of the BTec in Business Studies and you find the old OND lurking underneath. Many moons ago I did A level economics at an FE college alongside the OND economics students. It was no less rigourous obviously, because we were in the same class, but they had to pass the whole lot - another 4 or 5 subjects before they got a qualification. Local employers did seem to understand the qualification's worth and rate it highly.

Apprenticeships too used to last 5 years and be well thought of. Locally where I am now, in Oxfordshire, someone who had been a Harwell apprentice was thought of as being someone well qualified and treated with respect.

My impression is that over the last 20 years or so though we seem to have lost our way with vocational qualifications and apprenticeships. Who knows what might happen in the future though? With universities charging fees of £9K per annum, perhaps the demand will reawaken? Especially in practical subjects like engineering?

[seeker]

You only have to be on mumsnet for a while to see how middle class people regard BTecs!

[ravenAK]

The thing with this, Chloe74: 'Whether you call it a different tier or not it would still be a different exam paper aimed at different levels of ability.' is that this works rather well.

I have, for example, a student who is on course for a solid grade C - her target grade - in Eng Lit. Looking at her Mock paper, I'm tempted to enter her for Higher Tier, which covers grades A*-D, rather than Foundation (grades C-G), because I think she's got a good chance of a B.

Gove's initial proposal of moving to O-Levels, plus something he hadn't bothered to think about for weaker students, takes that possibility away.

Within one qualification/two tiers you can have the whole cohort studying the same material & same skills, & make a judgment towards the end of Y11 re: which tier they are entered for, depending on the progress they've made since the start of Y10.

It is a continuous grading of attainment from G (limited, but certainly measurable & useful) to A* (pretty damn impressive).

The reason Gove had to quietly wipe the egg off his face & bin his Gove levels was that the Lib Dems justified their existence for once & kicked up an almighty stink at the thought of classifying students into sheep & goats at 13.

He seems to be attempting to resolve this problem by essentially pretending that the least academic 20% simply don't exist. That's an awful lot of kids being written off.

[marriedandwreathedinholly]

Boneyback. I guess that's right - they would all be over 100 now. Don't ever remember them talking about disruption in lessons or pupils hitting teachers either - they talked about teachers in awe. DH's grandad was very very clever and the teacher came to the house before he was 14 to beg his parents to let him stay at school. He couldn't; he was the eldest of 11 and he had to go down the mine. On his 18th birthday he became a soldier.

[noblegiraffe]

The problem with 'vocational' qualifications, is that people think that it is another term for 'qualifications for the less able'. You have to be pretty on the ball to make a success of some of these courses. I seem to remember hearing that people offering technical apprenticeships were getting annoyed with being sent nothing but the kids who had failed everything else. I've taught kids who have got Bs at GCSE maths, so in the top 25% rather than the bottom 20% who have been very successful on their part time college courses -hairdressing, nannying, car maintenance and so on.

[noblegiraffe]

Married, I'm not sure whether you're trying to say it's a good thing or a shame that your obviously clever grandparents were allowed to leave school with no qualifications. I would go with shame.

Back in the days of O-levels or nothing, it would have only been the top, what, 20% who got them, so most people didn't have qualifications and it wouldn't have been too much of a hindrance if you could present yourself properly.
If we go with Gove's proposal, leaving school with no qualifications would mark you out as the bottom 20%, competing against a majority who have qualifications. I suspect they would find it difficult to get a break, however nice their handwriting might be.

[seeker]

It's important to remember that the level of functional illiteracy has been going down steadily all through then20th and 21st century. I think we look at the past through rose coloured spectacles. Before compulsory education many wouldn't have gone to school and even after many still wouldn't have. Children with any sort of special need wouldn't have gone to school at all. Neither would many girls. And the treatment of many who did would shock us today.

[marriedandwreathedinholly]

I'm trying to make the distinction between well educated and well qualified and that too often very well qualified people today, are not nearly as well educated as my grandparents were. Yes of course it's a shame they didn't stay at school but it never held them back or prevented them from being successful because they were intrinsically well educated. They would never have made the sort of mistakes some of my childrens' primary school teachers have done: read allowed beautifully, mixing up the x and y axes, etc.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

Part of the issue that I have with the new exams being pushed through is that (as noble says) it puts vocational subjects in the firmly "less able" bracket.

As it stands at the moment I and other teachers of "practical" subjects face a yearly trek down to inclusion/learning support (or whatever the school wishes to call it) with examples of coursework as the pupils are told "its just woodwork/drawing/art" and these people get quite stroppy when they realise that the vocational subjects often require more work consistantly across the board than academic areas.