Teenagers To Find Out A-Level Results

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40952125

What are the chances that we get the usual response, from the usual quarters today, that "A Levels were much harder in my day ", instead of congratulating these kids on their wonderful achievements ?

[pixie374]

Yes, I agree.

[ummmm]

Some people are just crap at taking exams. Giving them a better chance by introducing coursework is a good thing.

[Prudie]

I think in theory coursework is a fairer way to make an assessment but in reality it has many flaws - mainly from the final piece not always being the student's own work (parents, internet, essay sites etc). I'll be the first to admit I wrote my daughter's personal statement when she was applying for Uni entry.

[ummmm]

I'm far inferior to my son intellect wise.

[jim360]

Hard to deny that coursework is more vulnerable to cheating, in one way or another. You have to rely on teachers being able to spot it where it exists, and parents and students being honest. But still, the fact remains that removing coursework and overstressing exams has its own risks. Places too much demand on getting it right over a couple of hours. I've been lucky in that exams play to my strengths, but I'm also aware that on more than one occasion they've made me look better than I actually am.

[EDDIE51]

I'm not questioning the A levels, I do not agree with the current rush to send school leavers to University rather than getting a job and training while working as used to be the normal path. Does anyone do day release & evening courses while working as I did back in the 1970s?

[Islay]

I am doing a degree course whilst working full time and have previously done A levels etc whilst working.
But it is hard to do something like that whilst running a house and home and looking after the 'family' - did you have to do housework and look after your family whilst working and studying Eddie?

[fiction-factory]

That is hard, Islay, but i think eddie is talking primarily about 16-21 year olds who were generallly the people who did day release/night school courses (ONC/HND) rather than people of our/your age

[EDDIE51]

No I started when I left school at 17 & continued until I was 23 by which time I had a degree in Chemistry ,6 years industrial expierience and money in the bank rather than a debt.I got married a few weeks after graduating and went out to Zambia on a 3 year contract, where free housing was provided as part of the job.

[Islay]

Well in that case i can tell you that my step sister at 17 tried to sign up to evening courses last year and could not. Apart from the fact that most of the places were taken up with 'older' people she was expected to fund it herself.
Also, all the places on her preferred courses were taken by non working 'older people' and the only courses she could get where there were places were courses that she did not need. So she took a year out and worked and is going back in September.

[EDDIE51]

^ That is the problem now. When I left school most people did as I did and collages worked in conjunction with employers to provide the training courses.

[New Judge]

Well, top grades at A-Level have gone up for the first time in six years. This year 26% of entrants got A* or A grades. Up to the mid- 1980s this figure was consistent at a little under 10%. Then it rose inexorably and consistently every year, peaking at about 28% in 2006. So, around a three fold increase in top grades awarded 20 years when there had been no appreciable increase in at least the previous 30. Pupils getting brighter? Teaching getting better? Or grades being devalued? To answer that you do not need to look very far. Things like this (from the International Business Times) help considerably:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/level-students-face-unexpected-grades-after-thresholds-lowered-1634810

I’ve snipped a bit out to help you even further:

------
Top A-Level and GCSE results will be easier to achieve this year after thresholds were lowered to avoid a slump in grades. The exam regulator Ofqual lowered grade boundaries to "protect" students from tougher standards brought in under reforms designed to drive up standards.

The softer stance means similar proportions of A-Level pupils opening their results on Thursday (17 August) will have passed and achieved top grades compared to last year with one quarter attaining A or A*.

Critics argue the intervention flies in the face of reforms unveiled by former education secretary Michael Gove but defending her decision, Sally Collier, the head of exam regulator Ofqual, said the new policy meant lower thresholds were necessary.

Sally Collier, chief regulator of Ofqual, told the SundayTimes: "I want the message to be that students have done fantas¬tically well. All our kids are brilliant.”
-----
Ms Collier is mistaken. All our “kids” are not brilliant. Some of them are but most are not. That’s the idea of exams, to sort the wheat from the chaff. Providing all with prizes does the students no good at all and gives them false expectations. They will soon discover this when they enter the real world - one that is not stuffed with academics spouting claptrap and giving a quarter of them top marks.

“There was a program on TV last night about the Norton motorbike factory. They are having to turn down orders because they can't get enough skilled production workers.”

He might get a few more (skilled workers, that is) if companies (including his) operated a proper apprentice scheme as they did up to about 1980 (strangely, about the time top grades at A-Level began their rise). Instead they want a constant supply of people ready-trained (at somebody else’s expense, natch) who can walk in and do the skilled tasks they require. They should see training of staff as part of their overheads and reflect it in their prices (so their customers pay for it). It’s all part of weaning themselves off the idea that they simply ship in migrants from elsewhere to meet their staffing needs.

[ducksie]

Our Leaving Cert results came out yesterday,Maths moreso for students wanting to get into engineering. A chap from Dublin wrote this yesterday, I thought it was lovely Today I am thinking about all the students who got their Leaving Cert results; not the ones who'll be feted on the covers of tomorrow's newspapers with their freakish boquets of 7 A1's. No, this morning, I salute the dreamers, the ones who ploughed their own furrow against the grain, the dancers and chancers, the schemers, the unsung heroes of the magical space between the classes, the bike shed kissers and smokers, the ones whose crooked brnaches could never be bent straight, the raconteurs of the school bus stop, the shy ones who'll be beautiful late bloomers, the bullied ones, the ones who thought their leaking buckets were deficient but it only is along a watered path that the most beautiful flowers grow, the boys and girls who held tight to their own song, whistling their own melody againt the wind that blew hard for the last six years, the odd balls who rolled collecting only the moss they wanted, the gay boys who've waited for years to walk out of those school gates for the last time and walk tall, the ones who were taunted and not taught, the ones whose songs were frozen and stultified by facts; there is no failure today......the thaw begins today....this your Spring....your release...your recovery...your time....take flight...learn to forget...and dazzle your self by being who you truely are...let nobody measure, weigh or assess you....look up into the cosmos of your beautiful self and follow that star that winks at you showing you the way towards the place that school never revealed to you...some where way beyond what you thought was possible.....some where so close...deeply lodged in you x

[ducksie]

Some of the top of my post I cut accidentally, the maths was a big let down for a lot of students that wanted to get into engineering and science

[New Judge]

I take it you did OK in artistic literature then. :-)

[Mamyalynne]

Written by a man with life experience Ducksie - a Poet too maybe.

Nice words, I'd like to meet him.

[ToraToraTora]

Looxury, A levels were much harder in my day!

[gulliver1]

You mean TGT actually went to school , or is this another A/B rumour.

[ToraToraTora]

I went to the school of life sunshine which is why I cannot stand lick spittle popinjays who think the world owes them a living.

[gulliver1]

TGT, 14.35 when you went to the school of life , did they teach you how to get a Life. p/s your new avatar suits you, { Mouth wide open.}