|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: School closures
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
That's the point. These are exams that are designed to separate the students into different classes. If you struggled with maths (or any other subject) you are meant to fail it.
Its not about teaching. They don't want to help you learn more than you otherwise might have. That's not what the Tories think secondary schools are for. Or at least, not what exams are for.
I do believe that the GCSE exams that are proposed will have different tiers (just as those that exist now do) and I'm not sure about the AS&A2-level ones yet, but since there should be some form fo entry standard to A levels I don't see the point in having tiered papers - especially since dyslexics etc. are entitled to additional time/help etc.
Whilst there is an argument for a return to a single, end of year test, it would be preferable to have an end of unit test as now, but not to allow retakes.
End of unit testing is something of a misleading means to measure students achievement and ability, but it is the only way to standardise the measurement of achievement of an entire country full of kids.
As I see I have cross posted with Marvin the MArtian, I will echo his sentiments but say it slightly differently - there are calls, what seems constantly, to have all students reaching the average mark: has nobody seen the insanity of this position and it's impossibility unless everyone scores exactly the same mark...
Some people are just sh*t at some subjects, people need to learn to live with that fact, people will fail some subjects for whatever reason...
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Some people are just sh*t at some subjects, people need to learn to live with that fact, people will fail some subjects for whatever reason...
And some people are only shit at things when they don't have the level of support they need to achieve their best. Maths was my worst subject at secondary school. Nevertheless, I was getting 'A's in fourth form under the teacher I had. She went on maternity leave for fifth form, I got a new teacher with a completely different method, and while I passed my CSE maths, completely failed my GCE. I literally could not understand his teaching method, but I thoroughly understood his predecessor's.
However, you're quite right to say that there are some things some students are more likely to fail at than others. It's also right to say that most schools don't have the resources to offer the kind of support each student needs to achieve their best.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Some people are just sh*t at some subjects, people need to learn to live with that fact, people will fail some subjects for whatever reason...
And some people are only shit at things when they don't have the level of support they need to achieve their best. Maths was my worst subject at secondary school. Nevertheless, I was getting 'A's in fourth form under the teacher I had. She went on maternity leave for fifth form, I got a new teacher with a completely different method, and while I passed my CSE maths, completely failed my GCE. I literally could not understand his teaching method, but I thoroughly understood his predecessor's.
However, you're quite right to say that there are some things some students are more likely to fail at than others. It's also right to say that most schools don't have the resources to offer the kind of support each student needs to achieve their best.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Assuming school finishes at 4.00pm (probably on the late side) and allowing 30 minutes for your seven mile drive home, is it really impossible to arrange your work so that on one occasion you leave work immediately after the end of the school day...
If we're talking about primary schools, especially small ones, that might be true. You need to wait until the kids have gone home. Sometimes they don't go. Sometimes no-one comes to pick them up. You can kick a 12-year-old out onto the street to walk home a few miles on their own, but not a 6-year-old. (I have no idea what the legal position on that is, but from the point of view of ordinary decency, you can't) Its not, strictly speaking, a teacher's job to wait with them until they do go, or to phone their parents and find out what's happening, but most will, because that's what teachers do. And someone has to. A larger school might have some staff members doing it on a rota, or some kind of after-school club, but in a typical small primary school teachers will wait with kids who are expecting to be collected.
quote:
... Assuming you can't find an electrician, etc. who works evenings, which you should be able to.
![[Eek!]](eek.gif) Where do you live? I have trouble finding people who can come at all, or predict their time within any frame less than a day. Like they say they'll be there in the morning, and don't turn up till 6pm. And there was one time someone was meant to come from the phone company and they missed three successive appointments altogether - I took three days off work to see them in different weeks, and they never came at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
3. Well, schools did want the market economy
![[Confused]](confused.gif) ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif) Which schools? Or rather, by schools maybe you mean power-crazed head teachers (there are a few) or Tory governors. There are many instances of schools being forced into academy status despite the overwhelming opposition of staff and parents... and even, now Gove has his evil way, overriding heads and governors.
What he said. Schools did not want this crap. When they did it to our school there was almost unanimous opposition from teachers, other staff, and parents. We even got onto the national news at one point as some protestors occupied the school roof for a few weeks.
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
How old are you Exclamation Mark? It must be a long time since ordinary workers didn't have the whole of Saturday off, or at least the afternoons. And the Holiday Pay Act came in in 1938.
I know people who don't get those things. Not many of them, and not all entirely legal (though some are) but they exist. Mostly working in trades relating to building. (But also I think some people working in sales or similar almost entirely on commission). Strictly speaking they are not forced to work anti-social hours, but sometimes you need the money
There's a lot of casual work or short contracts in building and decorating and landscaping and so on. Actual building contractors tend not to talk to these people - they have a some sort of ganger or agent who subcontracts to supply labour, and they call up their mates and various people they know the night before or at the begining of the week and they are the blokes you see standing around on street corners at 6am waiting for a white van to come and pick them up. And if you miss too many days then you won't be the first person the contractor or the gang boss or agent calls next time he needs someone, and when work is short you don't want that to happen to you.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
That's the point. These are exams that are designed to separate the students into different classes. If you struggled with maths (or any other subject) you are meant to fail it.
Isn't that the whole point of grading work in the first place? If you think everybody should pass regardless of whether they're actually any good at the subject then why bother even marking it?
It is the difference between mastery and evaluation. And the government keeps confusing the two. We want all students to achieve literacy, i.e. that is a mastery goal, we happy for you to have extra resources, time and teaching to achieve that - because once you have it, it makes life much easier for both you and everyone else (in the same way we want people to be able to cross the road or dress themselves).
Evaluation exams are designed to try and separate people according to what they are likely to be able to learn and do in the future - with the least assistance.
It would help if the government did not confuse these two goals. In the same way it seems to want 'satisfactory' to mean 'not good enough' and 90% to be above average and excellent. Ditto the exam results.
If you want exams to be evaluative, then average needs to be good enough for most things. So 5 Cs at GCSE should equip you for most non-graduate posts. If they don't, then it would appear that average is in fact not good enough 0 and you have a problem with the design of your system.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
Related point with dyslexia. Dyslexia just means trouble with reading, it doesn't tell you why. Someone who never develops sufficient intellectual function to develop speech is never going to learn to read - is essentially dyslexic. But it is a pointless distinction and gets subsumed under the category of profound learning disability.
When people are trying to identify dyslexia in educational settings, and provide support to 'make up for it' on evaluative exams, it is because they are treating it like blindness. In other words in these cases, the inability to read (or trouble with reading) is *not* a proxy for lack of comprehension and intellectual ability - as it might usually be.
In taking this approach, we essentially assert, that what we are trying to evaluate is comprehension and intellectual ability. As a society we are happy to give people assistance in overcoming disabilities that impair the expression of such abilities.
The problem is that no exam or course work is a direct assessment of comprehension and intellectual ability. They all involve various other factors - and then we all scrap over how much we care about those other factors.
In everyday life course work is a better match to how most people are obliged to work and live their lives. These skills will involve research, long term time planning etc. They may also privilege good analytical skills, consistency and reliability in one's approach to the production of work, and the ability to synthesise large amounts of disparate information.
Exams privilege a good recall memory, fast and concise writing style, and ability to manage one's anxiety.
I think politicians like exams because they are a good match to some of a politican's high profile tasks that they are required to do regularly. I.e. others do the research, they remember a series of key points and arguments that they can produce under pressure in a very short space of time.
My working life is not like that.
[ 29. January 2013, 16:17: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
That's the point. These are exams that are designed to separate the students into different classes. If you struggled with maths (or any other subject) you are meant to fail it.
Isn't that the whole point of grading work in the first place?
What's with this Americanism of 'grading'.
We 'level' here.
I may sound pedantic bu this American mind-set where seemingly the wheat is separated from the chaff and the chaff is thrown away is not what most UK teachers want.
We want the 'chaff' to get extra help.
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
I do believe that the GCSE exams that are proposed will have different tiers (just as those that exist now do)
I doubt that. I took part in Gove's risible and insulting consultation that asked closed questions - one of which was 'Do you agree that tiering should be abolished?' or some such.
[ 29. January 2013, 19:15: Message edited by: leo ]
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Marvin: quote:
The key metric in that ranking appears to be how many school leavers go on to university - and given that recent governments have been happy to declare any old shack that accepts school leavers with two "F" grades at A-Level onto its food preparation course a university it's hardly surprising that we're ranking highly on it.
Thank you for demonstrating how difficult it is to get a Tory to say something positive about the education system. Might I remind you that the first wave of 'old shacks' were magically transformed into 'new universities' in 1992, when the last lot of Tories were in power?
The new universities certainly are underfunded compared to Oxbridge and the Russell Group, but Further Education colleges (which do teach subjects such as food preparation) don't count as universities and would not be included in statistics measuring the number of school leavers who attend university.
And the fact that a course does not appear on Mr Gove's approved list of 'academically rigorous' subjects doesn't mean it is worthless or not intellectually demanding. Reading University, for example, offers BScs in Food Science (for those who want to get a job in the ever-expanding ready meals industry). The minimum entry requirements are 3 A levels at BBB or BBC, at least two core science subjects, one of which must be grade B. If you don't believe me you can check their website - www.reading.ac.uk.
Of course, Reading is a member of the Russell Group so perhaps it's a bad example. I'd be interested to hear which university you were thinking of when you made that comment. If it exists.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Marvin: quote:
The key metric in that ranking appears to be how many school leavers go on to university - and given that recent governments have been happy to declare any old shack that accepts school leavers with two "F" grades at A-Level onto its food preparation course a university it's hardly surprising that we're ranking highly on it.
Thank you for demonstrating how difficult it is to get a Tory to say something positive about the education system. Might I remind you that the first wave of 'old shacks' were magically transformed into 'new universities' in 1992, when the last lot of Tories were in power?
The new universities certainly are underfunded compared to Oxbridge and the Russell Group, but Further Education colleges (which do teach subjects such as food preparation) don't count as universities and would not be included in statistics measuring the number of school leavers who attend university.
And the fact that a course does not appear on Mr Gove's approved list of 'academically rigorous' subjects doesn't mean it is worthless or not intellectually demanding. Reading University, for example, offers BScs in Food Science (for those who want to get a job in the ever-expanding ready meals industry). The minimum entry requirements are 3 A levels at BBB or BBC, at least two core science subjects, one of which must be grade B. If you don't believe me you can check their website - www.reading.ac.uk.
Of course, Reading is a member of the Russell Group so perhaps it's a bad example. I'd be interested to hear which university you were thinking of when you made that comment. If it exists.
Also, Further Education is woefully underfunded and never considered as important as Higher Education - and it is a nightmare to re-enter if you've been out of education because of the funding system. All FE fees must be paid upfront, unlike university. The scrapping of EMA also hurt the many in Further Education who are on a low income and/or support themselves.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
Re my struggling with maths, what Anselmina said is right. I actually got a B in my maths GCSE and BB in my double award science GCSE. I found science much easier once it was modular (and it no doubt helped with the disruption when my teacher got cancer) and it wasn't until my GCSE year that I actually got a maths teacher whose method of teaching I understood and who helped me (and I had friends in the 6th form who volunteered to tutor me through the coursework). I actually struggle with coursework and prefer exams, but modular exams every so often.
I don't understand the opposition to modules - it's what students will see at university anyway.
[ 30. January 2013, 07:13: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Emma Louise
Storm in a teapot
# 3571
|
Posted
We didn't at my uni (I did 8 "finals" in 4 days on which my whole degree was based) but I think that's unusual. Although quite possibly what some of the politicians remember.
My second degree was modular and I scored far higher! It certainly suited me.
As a teacher I do like As levels but I don't like the January sitting. I would prefer end of year exams for each year so they do get to have some time just thinking and not doing exam prep.
When I return to teaching it will have all changed...
Posts: 12719 | From: Enid Blyton territory. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
My son has just qualified as an A320 pilot. His course was very modular. At least half of it was practical = flying real planes, starting with the smallest. This fact won't make him a less good pilot.
Why does cramming all the knowledge and expertise into one exam make it somehow more valuable at A level (in Gove's eyes)?
(He also went to Falinge High school, which is the local comp for the most deprived ward in the country - a school which puts a lie to Gove's view of comprehensive schools, it is a fabulous school - incredibly diverse and inclusive)
[ 30. January 2013, 07:42: Message edited by: Boogie ]
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
This thread is very strange. This group of 'Christian unrest' has largely been devoted to teacher-bashing. In the outside world, when asked to rank professions in terms of trustworthiness, teachers come out high up.
Journalists, however, come out very low down.
Teachers went into our careers for the love of our subject and 'for the kids.'
I suppose that journalists went into theirs for the love of truth.
It only appears to be teacher bashing if you elevate this particular group of workers into constantly put-upon saints, who only have children's best interests at heart, working longer hours than anyone else and always doing so efficiently, brilliantly and selflessly.
Now some teachers fit the bill. Others don't. In the same way some journalists are bad others good. Journalists eventually expose malpractice and shoddiness in their own profession. I think the same process might happen sometimes in teaching.
Criticism and complaining is generally a good thing.
My bright year 7 son received a report in December after only one term in his secondary school in which he was told in most of his subjects that he was unlikely to meet his targets. At the same time his attitude to learning and his home work was rated highly.
I complained that this was an entirely unhelpful and dispiriting way to tell a 12-year-old how an impersonal, computerised assessment system operated. The head teacher seemed to agree with me and all year 7s were then reissued their school reports to be told that they needed to make rapid progress to achieve their targets. This was better but even better would have been a few lines from each teacher telling me in personal terms how my son was settling into his new school and new subjects.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Spawn, you say that criticism and complaining is usually a good thing, but the anecdote you relate is actually a counterexample; your son was discouraged by his first term's report.
Constructive criticism is certainly helpful in improving performance. Most teachers use it daily to help their pupils learn. Constant negative criticism and dismissal of real achievements with 'not good enough' or 'could do better' is demoralising and demotivating. Teachers are rightly criticised when they do it to children - it's a pity the same standard is not applied to people who criticise them.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Spawn, you say that criticism and complaining is usually a good thing, but the anecdote you relate is actually a counterexample; your son was discouraged by his first term's report.
I thought it was a good example of the school and its staff being held accountable - the school dropped the ball, it was rightfully complained about and they responded to that complain by coming up with an alternative that was a bit better.
--------------------
If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Thank you for demonstrating how difficult it is to get a Tory to say something positive about the education system. Might I remind you that the first wave of 'old shacks' were magically transformed into 'new universities' in 1992, when the last lot of Tories were in power?
It doesn't matter who did it, it's still a terrible idea.
quote:
The new universities certainly are underfunded compared to Oxbridge and the Russell Group, but Further Education colleges (which do teach subjects such as food preparation) don't count as universities and would not be included in statistics measuring the number of school leavers who attend university.
Yes, and it's those FE colleges that are slowly being turned into universities in their own right. We've got five frigging "universities" in Birmingham now, and frankly only two of them are worthy of the name in my opinion.
quote:
I'd be interested to hear which university you were thinking of when you made that comment. If it exists.
This one'll do for a start.
There's nothing wrong with FE courses in Tourism or Salon Management, but are they really worthy of being given equivalent status to a BA/BSc in a proper academic subject? Is someone who scrapes a couple of A Level passes then gets a 'degree' in Food Preparation really equivalent to someone with four "A"s at A Level and a degree in Physics? This is just a ridiculous watering down of the whole concept of what a degree is - it's supposed to be an achievement that singles the bearer out as part of the intellectual elite, not just another routine stepping stone on the path of life. It's supposed to mean something.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
|
Posted
Hence Private Eye's long-running gag about the 'University of North-West London (formerly Neasden World of Leather)'. If you print too much of a currency, you devalue it.
--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
|
Posted
I agree.
There's something to be said for keeping a good system of trade certificates/diplomas operating alongside bachelor degrees. One says you've demonstrated you can think, the other says you've demonstrated you can do.
--------------------
If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Is someone who scrapes a couple of A Level passes then gets a 'degree' in Food Preparation really equivalent to someone with four "A"s at A Level and a degree in Physics?
Of course they are - and of just as much (if not more) value if they go on to prepare our restaurant meals!
This constant devaluing of everything except the academic in this country has done us no end of harm.
This doesn't happen in Germany, and their manufacturing base is still healthy and thriving.
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Thank you for demonstrating how difficult it is to get a Tory to say something positive about the education system. Might I remind you that the first wave of 'old shacks' were magically transformed into 'new universities' in 1992, when the last lot of Tories were in power?
It doesn't matter who did it, it's still a terrible idea.
quote:
The new universities certainly are underfunded compared to Oxbridge and the Russell Group, but Further Education colleges (which do teach subjects such as food preparation) don't count as universities and would not be included in statistics measuring the number of school leavers who attend university.
Yes, and it's those FE colleges that are slowly being turned into universities in their own right. We've got five frigging "universities" in Birmingham now, and frankly only two of them are worthy of the name in my opinion.
quote:
I'd be interested to hear which university you were thinking of when you made that comment. If it exists.
This one'll do for a start.
There's nothing wrong with FE courses in Tourism or Salon Management, but are they really worthy of being given equivalent status to a BA/BSc in a proper academic subject? Is someone who scrapes a couple of A Level passes then gets a 'degree' in Food Preparation really equivalent to someone with four "A"s at A Level and a degree in Physics? This is just a ridiculous watering down of the whole concept of what a degree is - it's supposed to be an achievement that singles the bearer out as part of the intellectual elite, not just another routine stepping stone on the path of life. It's supposed to mean something.
While I agree with you, personally I think the problem lies with devaluing Further Education. The problem comes when the 'intellectual elite' are considered to be the elite of humanity in general - I know you don't think that, but over-valuing Higher Education and under-valuing Further Education is what went wrong imo. This isn't to dismiss Higher Education, but the idea that 'smart = Higher Ed' is not automatically correct. You can be part of the 'intellectual elite' and still not want to go to uni or have uni not be right for you.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
While I agree with you, personally I think the problem lies with devaluing Further Education. The problem comes when the 'intellectual elite' are considered to be the elite of humanity in general - I know you don't think that, but over-valuing Higher Education and under-valuing Further Education is what went wrong imo. This isn't to dismiss Higher Education, but the idea that 'smart = Higher Ed' is not automatically correct. You can be part of the 'intellectual elite' and still not want to go to uni or have uni not be right for you.
Yep - and you can be incredibly intelligent yet not at all academic. Gove makes the mistake of thinking his path is the only path (God forbid!)
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
This constant devaluing of everything except the academic in this country has done us no end of harm.
That devaluing has happened in no small part because successive governments have tried to make everything academic. And in the process they've not only devalued NVQs and suchlike, they've devalued academia as well.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
This constant devaluing of everything except the academic in this country has done us no end of harm.
That devaluing has happened in no small part because successive governments have tried to make everything academic. And in the process they've not only devalued NVQs and suchlike, they've devalued academia as well.
Agreed.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
|
Posted
Academia has in consequence become the equivalent of everyone having to win prized on Sports Day.
--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jane R:
[qb]Thank you for demonstrating how difficult it is to get a Tory to say something positive about the education system. Might I remind you that the first wave of 'old shacks' were magically transformed into 'new universities' in 1992, when the last lot of Tories were in power?
It doesn't matter who did it, it's still a terrible idea.
I have a bias here, but Robert Gordon University is one of the 1992 new Universities, and the Guardian is currently ranking it 35th in the UK. 97.1% of its graduates are in employment within 6 months of graduating.
It was shortlisted for the Sunday Times University of the Year last year.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Jade: quote:
The problem comes when the 'intellectual elite' are considered to be the elite of humanity in general - I know you don't think that, but over-valuing Higher Education and under-valuing Further Education is what went wrong imo. This isn't to dismiss Higher Education, but the idea that 'smart = Higher Ed' is not automatically correct.
This is true. But I also don't think you can pigeonhole people neatly into 'academic' -> HE and 'vocational' -> FE. One of our neighbours works as a builder, but he is also a member of the local astronomical society. I don't know whether he knows as much as someone with a BSc in astrophysics, but he certainly knows more than I do. Yet I'm an 'academic' type.
And like Mr Gove, I was good at exams (being slightly lazy, I prefer cramming at the last minute and then doing a bunch of exams to having to work steadily throughout the course) and good at academic subjects (I'd have got the EBacc with two additional languages). Unlike him, though, I recognise that the same learning style doesn't suit everyone.
I'm beginning to think Gove is a power-crazed megalomaniac - he's supposed to consult the Welsh and Northern Irish education secretaries before announcing changes that will affect them, and he seems to have done a really good job of putting their backs up. The Welsh have just decided to keep GCSEs.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Marvin: quote:
There's nothing wrong with FE courses in Tourism or Salon Management, but are they really worthy of being given equivalent status to a BA/BSc in a proper academic subject?
OK, so what would you consider a 'proper' academic subject? Would you agree that subjects offered by traditional universities (eg Oxbridge or the Russell Group) count? Because if so, I'd like to point out that they all offer Management Studies and/or Business Studies; why is it OK to study management at university but not Salon Management at an FE college? The University of York (recently ranked the best university under 50 years old in the UK, and 8th best in the world; usually ranked in the top 5 of all UK universities) has a BA in Heritage Studies. You might want to have a look at the course information page before dismissing that, because it's really archaeology for students wanting to work for museums and you won't get a place without some fairly good A level grades.
Drawing the line between academic and vocational is not as easy as you might think. Personally I don't think management studies should be a 'real' academic subject, but the University of Cambridge disagrees with me. And they've been in higher education since about 1209, so presumably they know what they're doing by now.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Jade: quote:
The problem comes when the 'intellectual elite' are considered to be the elite of humanity in general - I know you don't think that, but over-valuing Higher Education and under-valuing Further Education is what went wrong imo. This isn't to dismiss Higher Education, but the idea that 'smart = Higher Ed' is not automatically correct.
This is true. But I also don't think you can pigeonhole people neatly into 'academic' -> HE and 'vocational' -> FE. One of our neighbours works as a builder, but he is also a member of the local astronomical society. I don't know whether he knows as much as someone with a BSc in astrophysics, but he certainly knows more than I do. Yet I'm an 'academic' type.
[Snip]
The Welsh have just decided to keep GCSEs.
Yo uare quite right that other people have other knowledge, but the example fo the builder you give is different than the decision about academic and vocational. The builder has chosen a vocational career and has a hobby which is academic. He is free, at his leasure to persue his hobby and take an academic degree in it if he so wishes. So yes you are right that you can't just pidgeon hole people, but people make choices which pidgeon-hole them...
As for the Welsh and education, I wouldn't ask L. Andrews to read a book to a group of kids let alone trust him on actually ensuring education is up to scratch. Why C. Jones keeps him in this role I will never understand as educational standards in Wales continue to fall behind, and there is no way to blame anyone but the Welsh Assembly for it now since it has been a devolved matter for so long.
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:This doesn't happen in Germany, and their manufacturing base is still healthy and thriving.
But the education system in Germany is very different, they do not have a regimented 'comprehensive' system and to an extent stream students along the lines of the old grammar-secondary modern style, and their different school paths are weighted towards different skills and abilities, with specialist special schools for those with learning and emotional disabilities. We have a problem in this country that has led to the devaluation of all qualifications because we do not respect and appreciate the inherent value and worth of the individual, rather we judge vocational and academic against each other in a push to ensure 'everyone succeeds the same' rather than appreciate that vocational and academic are different and can't really be compared as like-for-like.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
We have a problem in this country that has led to the devaluation of all qualifications because we do not respect and appreciate the inherent value and worth of the individual, rather we judge vocational and academic against each other in a push to ensure 'everyone succeeds the same' rather than appreciate that vocational and academic are different and can't really be compared as like-for-like.
Yes, very true.
What's to be done?
--------------------
Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
We have a problem in this country that has led to the devaluation of all qualifications because we do not respect and appreciate the inherent value and worth of the individual, rather we judge vocational and academic against each other in a push to ensure 'everyone succeeds the same' rather than appreciate that vocational and academic are different and can't really be compared as like-for-like.
Yes, very true.
What's to be done?
Allow for different students to have different timetables (to avoid the argument of seperate schools, which whilst logical to me seesm to go like a lead balloon in UK education circles in the main) that are weighted to different subjects. Even in year 7 it is possible to see where a student's natural aptitude lies - whether academic/creative/etc. - and whilst it is not clear cut it is possible to orientate a student's timetable so that a hands on D&T student who is crap at music would do more D&T and less music, the student who has a natural aptitude for humanities but really does stink at D&T would do less D&T and more humanities.
Having been involved in timetabling I can imagine it would create a really big headache initially and would require extra money for an increased teaching staff - but this investment (to this small government, low tax and spend peep) would be a wise and appropriately placed investment for the future returns that it would reap (both for the individual student and for the country as a whole.)
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Jade: quote:
The problem comes when the 'intellectual elite' are considered to be the elite of humanity in general - I know you don't think that, but over-valuing Higher Education and under-valuing Further Education is what went wrong imo. This isn't to dismiss Higher Education, but the idea that 'smart = Higher Ed' is not automatically correct.
This is true. But I also don't think you can pigeonhole people neatly into 'academic' -> HE and 'vocational' -> FE. One of our neighbours works as a builder, but he is also a member of the local astronomical society. I don't know whether he knows as much as someone with a BSc in astrophysics, but he certainly knows more than I do. Yet I'm an 'academic' type.
And like Mr Gove, I was good at exams (being slightly lazy, I prefer cramming at the last minute and then doing a bunch of exams to having to work steadily throughout the course) and good at academic subjects (I'd have got the EBacc with two additional languages). Unlike him, though, I recognise that the same learning style doesn't suit everyone.
I'm beginning to think Gove is a power-crazed megalomaniac - he's supposed to consult the Welsh and Northern Irish education secretaries before announcing changes that will affect them, and he seems to have done a really good job of putting their backs up. The Welsh have just decided to keep GCSEs.
I don't think 'academic' is the same as 'intelligent'.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
all year 7s were then reissued their school reports to be told that they needed to make rapid progress to achieve their targets. This was better but even better would have been a few lines from each teacher telling me in personal terms how my son was settling into his new school and new subjects.
Absolutely. When I taught in a comprehensive school back in the dark ages, we wrote at least a paragraph of personal report on each pupil in each subject. This highlighted their strengths and pin-pointed targets for improvement. Since the box-ticking 'results'-oriented regimes of the last few governments ("the price of everything and the value of nothing" was a phrase attached to Thatcher but as relevant to Blair's government) this has been reduced to a computer printout in standard gobbledegook, if my wife's more recent experience is any guide.
--------------------
Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Allow for different students to have different timetables (to avoid the argument of seperate schools, which whilst logical to me seesm to go like a lead balloon in UK education circles in the main) that are weighted to different subjects. Even in year 7 it is possible to see where a student's natural aptitude lies - whether academic/creative/etc. - and whilst it is not clear cut it is possible to orientate a student's timetable so that a hands on D&T student who is crap at music would do more D&T and less music, the student who has a natural aptitude for humanities but really does stink at D&T would do less D&T and more humanities.
Having been involved in timetabling I can imagine it would create a really big headache initially and would require extra money for an increased teaching staff - but this investment (to this small government, low tax and spend peep) would be a wise and appropriately placed investment for the future returns that it would reap (both for the individual student and for the country as a whole.)
One way of achieving this might be to take the Labour Party's idea of a technical baccalaureate alongside the EBacc. In my view the EBacc is a thoroughly good thing for academic children but not for all. We need skilled workers, non academic engineers and manufacturers as much as we need academic whizz kids.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Jade: quote:
I don't think 'academic' is the same as 'intelligent'.
What did I say that led you to believe that I thought it was? I have been arguing against narrowing the curriculum and for modular courses.
I take your point about people putting themselves into pigeonholes. I just think that Year 7 is too early to make them choose a career path. My youngest sister would have chosen vocational then. She's got a BSc and an MBA now - both gained after leaving school at the age of 16.
Perhaps we need to make it easier for people to hop between pigeonholes, as well as making the vocational pigeonhole look more attractive...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
97.1% of its graduates are in employment within 6 months of graduating.
Whoever said that getting a job was the primary purpose of a degree?
Employability should be the key metric for vocational courses, not degrees.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
Even in year 7 it is possible to see where a student's natural aptitude lies - whether academic/creative/etc. - and whilst it is not clear cut it is possible to orientate a student's timetable so that a hands on D&T student who is crap at music would do more D&T and less music
That would be far better than the current system, which would give that pupil even more music teaching so that they can become average at it, even if that means they never get beyond average in D&T. Better to be average at everything than brilliant in one area and crap in another - that is the mantra of modern educational orthodoxy.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
One way of achieving this might be to take the Labour Party's idea of a technical baccalaureate alongside the EBacc. In my view the EBacc is a thoroughly good thing for academic children but not for all. We need skilled workers, non academic engineers and manufacturers as much as we need academic whizz kids.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Would this be a suggestion from 'just three words: education, education, education' Labour, who fecked about with the education system last time round to make a complete hash of most of it with it's admin. and overlapping 'initatives' which came out ten a penny... Hmm... look to Labour in Wales and wonder...
However, there is some merit in a TechBacc. but unfortunately it is just a little too late to call for them when there are already the university technical colleges coming out, of course lots of people don't like them because they are not within the 'mainstream' comprehensive system... but I likes them, and a techbacc could be part of that system...
Just as a quick tangent, there is a little bit of criticism about the Ebacc around (and most of it seems to focus on the compulsory 5 subjects detracting from other subjects) I just had to pip in how having to do compulsory English, maths, 1 science, 1 foreign language and either history or geography would not have altered my GCSE subject options greatly, nor stopped me doing any other subjects I might like, in any event it was requirement in my school to conform to what is now being classed the Ebacc anyhow (except for those in the lower streams) so I don't see the fuss - if people could enlighten me to what he actual problems (beyond a lack of coursework) with the Ebacc are I would be grateful.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
And like Mr Gove, I was good at exams (being slightly lazy, I prefer cramming at the last minute and then doing a bunch of exams to having to work steadily throughout the course) and good at academic subjects (I'd have got the EBacc with two additional languages).
Different methods of assessment tend to favour different people. Whichever we use some will be relatively advantaged by it, and others disadvantaged. So the peope who design exams can choose what kind of people they want to pass and what kind they want to fail, and choose accordingly.
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Marvin: quote:
There's nothing wrong with FE courses in Tourism or Salon Management, but are they really worthy of being given equivalent status to a BA/BSc in a proper academic subject?
OK, so what would you consider a 'proper' academic subject? Would you agree that subjects offered by traditional universities (eg Oxbridge or the Russell Group) count? Because if so, I'd like to point out that they all offer Management Studies and/or Business Studies; why is it OK to study management at university but not Salon Management at an FE college?
Dunno about Marvin, but personally I don't think Business Studies and similar vocational degrees are "real academic subjects" for most of the students who take them, however bespired their university is. They can be for some of the academics who teach it, but then you can research pretty much anything. But so what? Academic education doesn't have any particular particular moral superioroty over training in useful skills, but they are different things.
The difference between them is research and scholarship. Which is what universities are fundamentally about. Peopel do research, they find out things or invent things no-one has ever known before, then they teach other people about them. Some of those other people go on to do more research themselves (most don't) but in order to study the subject they have to understand what it is and how it is done and why its important. (and if they don;t they ought not to get good marks) Golf Course Management doesn't have any of that. Business Studies doesn't have much. Economics or Computer Science have quite a lot. Your traditional academic subjects such as anthropology or archaeology or astronomy or biology or chemistry or classics or history or linguistics or literature or philosopy or physics or psychology (the scientific sort anyway) or theology or whatever are almost nothing but scholarship and research, or the immediate products of scholarship and research.
Research-intensive universities teach posh vocational subjects like Management and Finance and Law because they make a hell of a lot of money and we need the cash. Partly to finance other things that don't make so much money. I guess I'd prefer it if we didn't have to do that, but we do. And it also gives a good excuse to employ some interesting reseaarchers who might not otherwise get jobs.
But to be honest I think I'd rather it if we'd let universities be universities, and concetrate on research and scholarship, and perhaps had rather fewer of them, and if there was another group of higher education institutions, sort of sitting between the FE colleges and the traditional universities, perhaps concentrating less on theoretical research, and more on technical subjects and engineering and other useful but less obviously scholarly things such as business studies or teacher-training or art and design. Hey, maybe we could call them "Polytechnics"! Now wouldn't that be a radical idea?
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
My son has just qualified as an A320 pilot. His course was very modular. At least half of it was practical = flying real planes, starting with the smallest. This fact won't make him a less good pilot.
Why does cramming all the knowledge and expertise into one exam make it somehow more valuable at A level (in Gove's eyes)?
Because the courses are meant to achieve different things.
The pilot education is meant to teach people how to be pilots. The more of them get through, the better-designed the course is. If everybody passed then the course would have succeeded perfectly. Ideally there will be no failures.
On the other hand, public exams at state schools are not primarily meant to teach people to do anything. They are meant to divide the students into different classes. The course design has to produce a sufficient number of failures. If everybody passed then the course would not have succeeded in its purpose. Its not supposed to pass everyone. The exams are meant to produce failures, that's what they are for. If everyone got four As at A-level how would we know who can go to university and who can't?
This was explicit in the old A-levels which passed the same proportion of students however high or low their marks were. But since they changed the method of assessment that no longer works. Nowadays results have to be dependent on marks actually achieved in exams, not on ranking among the candidates. (Otherwise you get sued) Also, with two-stage or modular exams students can game the system by dropping courses they are doing badly on and sticking to ones they are good at so too many of them pass. So the government is changing it back to a system which can guarantee the desired number of failures.
Its about sorting people into winners and losers, not personal development. At the top a limited number of students get to go to posh universities and in effect get a chance to join the upper middle class (who don't go to state schools themselves). In the middle a much larger group who go to the inferior sort of universities or to FE colleges or to some sort of technical education and get to do most of the work. At the bottom the losers who can compete for the few remaining unskilled jobs, and if they fail to get them can join the Great Unemployed and stand as an Awful Warning to the rest of us to frighten us into working hard and obeying our bosses because look where you end up if you rock the boat.
This is England. Our primary schools teach kids the basic stuff you need to know. The top end of our university system does a pretty good job of research and scholarship. The stuff in the middle is about preserving and reproducing the social relations of capitalism. It keeps kids off the streets until they are old enough to be put to work, teaches them their place in society, and recruits a few bright ones into the upper middle class. Any education that goes on is an added bonus.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
One way of achieving this might be to take the Labour Party's idea of a technical baccalaureate alongside the EBacc. In my view the EBacc is a thoroughly good thing for academic children but not for all. We need skilled workers, non academic engineers and manufacturers as much as we need academic whizz kids.
Would this be a suggestion from 'just three words: education, education, education' Labour, who fecked about with the education system last time round to make a complete hash of most of it with it's admin. and overlapping 'initatives' which came out ten a penny... Hmm... look to Labour in Wales and wonder...
However, there is some merit in a TechBacc. but unfortunately it is just a little too late to call for them when there are already the university technical colleges coming out, of course lots of people don't like them because they are not within the 'mainstream' comprehensive system... but I likes them, and a techbacc could be part of that system...
Just as a quick tangent, there is a little bit of criticism about the Ebacc around (and most of it seems to focus on the compulsory 5 subjects detracting from other subjects) I just had to pip in how having to do compulsory English, maths, 1 science, 1 foreign language and either history or geography would not have altered my GCSE subject options greatly, nor stopped me doing any other subjects I might like, in any event it was requirement in my school to conform to what is now being classed the Ebacc anyhow (except for those in the lower streams) so I don't see the fuss - if people could enlighten me to what he actual problems (beyond a lack of coursework) with the Ebacc are I would be grateful.
I object to the dropping of RE - which I'm assuming you had to do at GCSE, surely? Also a language is no longer compulsory at GCSE (although it was dropped in 2007(?) or thereabouts, so definitely a Labour misstep). I did my GCSEs in 2005 and had to do maths, English language, English literature, RE, a science and a language. I also did geography, history and another language (school was a language specialist school).
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Ken: quote:
But to be honest I think I'd rather it if we'd let universities be universities, and concetrate on research and scholarship, and perhaps had rather fewer of them, and if there was another group of higher education institutions, sort of sitting between the FE colleges and the traditional universities, perhaps concentrating less on theoretical research, and more on technical subjects and engineering and other useful but less obviously scholarly things such as business studies or teacher-training or art and design. Hey, maybe we could call them "Polytechnics"! Now wouldn't that be a radical idea?
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) This.
I always thought it was a pity that all the polys chose to become universities. Even Oxford Brookes, which IIRC initially toyed with the idea of remaining a polytechnic...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
|
Posted
I'm not so sure. My daughter studied English at an ex-poly; I could see subjects like that hived off to the 'old' universities and the innovative and creative approaches to the subject that her university pioneered quietly (or not-so-quietly perhaps) being dropped. She had previously done a year at the neighbouring 'trad' uni and was very glad to have moved.
--------------------
Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
|
Posted
Marvin: quote:
Whoever said that getting a job was the primary purpose of a degree?
The government did, back in 2011. But 'employability' and 'enterprise skills' were being bandied about as buzzwords long before that.
Given that most students end university with thousands of pounds of debt hanging round their neck like the Ancient Mariner's albatross, finding a job as soon as possible afterwards would seem like a good idea. Though personally I agree with you; the purpose of a degree is to teach you to think for yourself, not to get you a well-paid job afterwards (though both would be nice).
[ 30. January 2013, 21:38: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I object to the dropping of RE - which I'm assuming you had to do at GCSE, surely? Also a language is no longer compulsory at GCSE (although it was dropped in 2007(?) or thereabouts, so definitely a Labour misstep). I did my GCSEs in 2005 and had to do maths, English language, English literature, RE, a science and a language. I also did geography, history and another language (school was a language specialist school).
Please, go back and re-read the proposals for the EBacc... your two point reply had two errors!
1. RE has not been 'dropped', the legal requirement from the previous legislation that RS be taught in some fashion is still in force, everyone must still do some 'RS' until the end of compulsory school-leaving age (whether schools approach it as a discreet subject, part of citizenship/general studies/humanities etc. has always been a possibility) in no way has RS been 'dropped'.
2. A foreign language is compulsory (again under these proposals) in the Ebacc... what foreign language is up to the school (and hopefully more will begin teaching mandarin and spanish).
The Ebacc is a small nucleus of subjects, (with three of them already being compulsory,) that are considered basic, in terms of skills and content, in this day and age for all jobs (English, Maths, Science, foreign language and history/geography) it in no way impeeds students option to choose other subjects (as the jack, whose wages I pay, on Breakfast this morning tried to claim), unless the school has a really slimmed down options choice and already timetables excessively for these core subjects (which raises questions about the schools ability to educate its students competantly) nor will it impede people's options at university as most universities run of the post-16 results as opposed to GCSE. The Ebacc will remain a part of ensuring that the basic necessary skills are taught and as a means of ensuring that schools are adequately equipping kids for the world...
[ 31. January 2013, 10:20: Message edited by: Sergius-Melli ]
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
|
Posted
I didn't take RE at O-Level (the predecessor of the GCSE)
--------------------
"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
|
Posted
Certainly, at my school, O level RE was an option - so most people dropped it at age 13. It was daily assembly which was supposed to be compulsory (although most schools found a way around it).
It is therefore a fairly recent development that RE should be taught right up to GCSE (the GCSE short course was particularly popular) - anyone now in their 20s would have had to do this and would therefore assume it has always been so.
--------------------
Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Certainly, at my school, O level RE was an option - so most people dropped it at age 13. It was daily assembly which was supposed to be compulsory (although most schools found a way around it).
It is therefore a fairly recent development that RE should be taught right up to GCSE (the GCSE short course was particularly popular) - anyone now in their 20s would have had to do this and would therefore assume it has always been so.
this link provides a rather basic overview of the situation. Whilst a full course RS GCSE is optional any school which does not provide RS in some form (as listed above in response to Jade) is breaking the 1944 law (so not really a recent development) and OfSTED would be required to intervene and ensure the law was being followed. Many schools do seem to get away with breaking the law somehow (but having seen the lying and deception that goes on at inspection time I'm not surprised that it is not picked up).
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
|
Posted
Sorry, I should have said this before, I realised that I, and others, in using Ebacc have been discussing the wrong thing.
The Ebacc has existed since 2011 as a measure of performance with no attached qualification ( this link from the DoE will provide the tables showing it, it being a measure of success in English, Maths, at least two Sciences, a Foreign Language and Geography or History) whilst what we are actually discussing is the EBC (English BAccalaureate Certificate) which is due to come in in 2017.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
leo
Shipmate
# 1458
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Certainly, at my school, O level RE was an option - so most people dropped it at age 13. It was daily assembly which was supposed to be compulsory (although most schools found a way around it).
It is therefore a fairly recent development that RE should be taught right up to GCSE (the GCSE short course was particularly popular) - anyone now in their 20s would have had to do this and would therefore assume it has always been so.
No - daily collective worship and Religious education have been compulsory for all pupils on role, including 6th formers, since 1944 and this was reiterated in the 1988 Education Reform Act and in Circular 1/94.
GCSE, however, was new-ish - to stop kids mucking around in non-exam RE we put them through GCSE short or long course. Until Michael Gove, who listens to nobody, killed it with his EBacc nonsence.
[ 31. January 2013, 15:25: Message edited by: leo ]
--------------------
My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
