You cannot fail to have noticed that many schools in the country are a bit annoyed at the moment due to "raising of standards" according to Ofqual/Department of Education, or "moving the goalposts without telling anyone" according to everyone else involving GCSE English results.
Michael Gove and anyone else from the DfE have been uncharacteristically quiet during the entire incident, partly due to the fact that they are on holiday and partly because whatever they say, they can't really win because what has happened is so totally appalling that there is no defense. There won't be a single educator in the land that doesn't agree that standards need to be raised as far as exams are concerned because the general public, or employers more specifically, have lost faith in them. Gove actually has a point that we can't expect pass rates to continue going up forever. If that were the case then why not just put all the targets to 100% pass, which would be equally pointless.
I read a great piece written by a teacher saying that exams are designed to discriminate (not a popular word in society nowadays), to show who is good academically and who is not. If everyone passes the exams, then exams are pointless - failure can be a positive thing at times, a fact that has been neglected in recent times. The trouble is that Ofqual or the exam boards (whoever you choose to believe) decided to raise the pass mark without telling anyone, which is even worse when the teacher marks the "work" and therefore knows what grade each child should have got with whatever mark scheme you are using. The plain fact of the matter is that students got different grades for the same quality work depending upon when they were entered for the exam, and that is patently unfair.
Gove maintains that he has never direct contact with Ofqual, but frankly he doesn't need to. His "contact" with Ofqual is via the press. Gove is not shy of the press (apart from at the moment) and has repeatedly stated his desire to raise standards, with the baseline for schools now being 40% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and Maths. If a school drops below that magical 40% (which will go up again soon) then they face being taken over by the DfE and forced in to being an academy - another of Gove's educational wishes.
What I find sinister about the whole episode is that everything that has happened has been purely for political reasons, at the expense of the futures of thousands of youngsters. It has also been designed to force schools into academisation, against their wishes, but in line with current government policy of what conspiracy theorists would call the privatisation of state education. The constant denials from both Gove, the DfE and Ofqual only highlight what people in power think of their subjects; they think were are too stupid to understand.
What Gove needs to do is re-grade (no need for expensive and time-consuming remarking) all the English papers (and I'd be surprised if this was limited to English alone, it's just more obvious in the English exam as the teacher know the marks and boundaries) and then make up a totally new qualification that is more difficult to pass. Don't call it the iGCSE or the O Level, call it something totally new and make every school (state or private) take the same one. Gove is right that currently standards aren't high enough but the way he's forcing this policy through, either directly or indirectly, is underhand at best.
You do get the impression that he's going to get his own way on education policy by hook or by crook, whether it's for the best or not. The trouble is that the teaching profession (even those who were on his side before the exam grade fiasco) are now unconvinced by the man, and that can only be a bad thing for his future political career - I've got my fingers crossed anyway.
Teaching's Pod: thoughts on education from an educator
Showing posts with label GCSE Results. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GCSE Results. Show all posts
Monday, 27 August 2012
Friday, 3 February 2012
Academies Aren't Doing As Well As They Claim - Duh!
A report has just been released by "School Improvement Expert", Dr Terry Wrigley claiming that most academies have appeared to raise their results/achievement by essentially cooking the books and relying on vocational qualifications.
A link to the news story is here: Click here!
This a yet another non-story if you are a teacher and therefore have some clue about the education system in the UK. Academies up to this point have been failing schools forced into a change of status to raise standards. The problem being that the same students wander through the million pound doors, and even with the best teachers in the country, these academies are going to struggle to raise standards at the rate that they claim to have done. The children that have come on "leaps and bounds" have just been placed onto courses that require 100% coursework and therefore can essentially be completed by the staff themselves. The only issue that they have is getting these children a C grade at English and Maths, and credit where credit is due, they do a very good job at that.
Now, if you don't know, many vocational courses have been worth 4 GCSE C grades up until recently, when the government decided to "downgrade" these qualifications. You can almost sense the wave of panic going through much of secondary education, but especially academy headteachers who are paid silly money, sitting in masive offices whilst playing Angry Birds on their complimentary ipad2s. As soon as their "true" results appear in August, they will all be making a beeline for the Job Centre in a blind panic.
There are a few positives though:
A link to the news story is here: Click here!
This a yet another non-story if you are a teacher and therefore have some clue about the education system in the UK. Academies up to this point have been failing schools forced into a change of status to raise standards. The problem being that the same students wander through the million pound doors, and even with the best teachers in the country, these academies are going to struggle to raise standards at the rate that they claim to have done. The children that have come on "leaps and bounds" have just been placed onto courses that require 100% coursework and therefore can essentially be completed by the staff themselves. The only issue that they have is getting these children a C grade at English and Maths, and credit where credit is due, they do a very good job at that.
Now, if you don't know, many vocational courses have been worth 4 GCSE C grades up until recently, when the government decided to "downgrade" these qualifications. You can almost sense the wave of panic going through much of secondary education, but especially academy headteachers who are paid silly money, sitting in masive offices whilst playing Angry Birds on their complimentary ipad2s. As soon as their "true" results appear in August, they will all be making a beeline for the Job Centre in a blind panic.
There are a few positives though:
- Since these qualifications have been "downgraded", employers will be able to make better judgements about who to employ as the playing field has now been levelled. Undeserving children will not feel that they have achieved by putting in zero effort and stillwalking out of school with 10 "GCSE" grades.
- The "fat cat" headteachers deserve pretty much everything they get. The good ones will stay because the results will have genuinely improved; the frauds will be unemployed, as they should be.
- The current government, who have been lauding academy status, will end up with not just egg on their face, but a whole battery farm that will hopefully lead to the sacking of the idiotic Michael Gove. Around 70% of academies will see a massive fall in their results to somewhere near where they should be. One can dream, but I won't be purchasing a "Sorry You're Leaving" card for Michael.
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Sacked Them All!
Michael Gove continues to bait the teaching profession by announcing that headteachers can sack incompetent teachers far faster, in fact within about a term.
See the article here!
In essence I have absolutely no problem with this new policy, but there will be a major problem with it, and it's a problem that many others have pointed out in various chatrooms and forums. That problem is that a number of heads will use the new powers to get rid of people they don't like rather than only those who are poor teachers. Many cases will end up being personality issues rather than teaching issues, and that is simply wrong.
Gove has opened the door for headteachers by suggesting that there are loads of poor teachers out there, and this carrot will be too tempting for many heads. The previous system encouraged heads to write good references for poor teachers to "move them on", and this clearly needed addressing. Genuinely poor teachers need to be removed from the profession.
The only probelm is the judgements upon whether a teacher is capable or not are based on the following:
The second issue affects more teachers than you may think. It won't be a problem for those teachers who bow to every request from their head without question, but a teacher who dares to have an opinion will certainly have suffered from senior staff trying to "get their own back". It may sound petty (and actually, it is petty) but it definitely happens, presumably to remind the teacher who's in charge. I get told after every lesson observation by one particular member of senior staff at my school that essentially my character in general is a major issue. I presume that I will therefore be fairly near the top of the list for this implementation of this new policy at our school, not because I am rubbish, but because I don't teach like the automaton automaton the senior member of staff clearly craves.
What you often find is that the senior manager forgets their own time in the classroom (if they ever spent any), when they had very little power to discipline and they taught 5 lessons per day rather than 5 lessons per year, if as much as that. I had one deputy head say to me during feedback once, "you don't teach like me", to which I replied "you are absolutely right, I never want to teach like you, I don't even like you if that's all you can come up with by way of feedback." I obviously don't help myself, but bullies like this need tackling, not cowering in front of.
It's similar stories like this that have led to Gove's policy being described by teachers and unions as "a bully's charter". Along with the pensions debate plus the news that everyone will have to work until they are 105 (or whatever), teachers are feeling pretty got at currently. On top of this political drive to demoralise teachers, the public will also throw in their tuppence-worth. Popular soaps create new characters who are teachers (they like to have their fingers on the pulse these shows), with these new characters doing something abhorent, giving the public more ammunition to have a go at the profession. It sounds silly, but it's what happens I'm sorry to say because soaps are real life to some sections of the general public.
There is also the problem that having got rid of these apparently poor teachers, they need replacing with (presumably) better teachers. Where are these better teachers going to come from? I have been at schools where perfectly good teachers have been "moved on" only to be replaced by imcompetance. The grass is not always greener. Some subjects (maths, science and ICT spring to mind) struggle for numbers, both good and bad.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these politicians really do have no idea.
See the article here!
In essence I have absolutely no problem with this new policy, but there will be a major problem with it, and it's a problem that many others have pointed out in various chatrooms and forums. That problem is that a number of heads will use the new powers to get rid of people they don't like rather than only those who are poor teachers. Many cases will end up being personality issues rather than teaching issues, and that is simply wrong.
Gove has opened the door for headteachers by suggesting that there are loads of poor teachers out there, and this carrot will be too tempting for many heads. The previous system encouraged heads to write good references for poor teachers to "move them on", and this clearly needed addressing. Genuinely poor teachers need to be removed from the profession.
The only probelm is the judgements upon whether a teacher is capable or not are based on the following:
- Results - these are affected by both the ability of the teacher to get the information across, but also on the willingness of the students in front of them to learn. Target grades that should be hit by the class are often "challenging" in the first place and set in concrete, meaning that if a child suddenly has a change in attitude for the worse, the teacher will get it in the neck through no fault of their own.
- Observations by senior management - these are totally subjective in that unless a lesson is completely awful, which would be obvious to anyone, the judgement could range from "outstanding" to "satisfactory" depending on the perconceived ideas of the observer.
The second issue affects more teachers than you may think. It won't be a problem for those teachers who bow to every request from their head without question, but a teacher who dares to have an opinion will certainly have suffered from senior staff trying to "get their own back". It may sound petty (and actually, it is petty) but it definitely happens, presumably to remind the teacher who's in charge. I get told after every lesson observation by one particular member of senior staff at my school that essentially my character in general is a major issue. I presume that I will therefore be fairly near the top of the list for this implementation of this new policy at our school, not because I am rubbish, but because I don't teach like the automaton automaton the senior member of staff clearly craves.
What you often find is that the senior manager forgets their own time in the classroom (if they ever spent any), when they had very little power to discipline and they taught 5 lessons per day rather than 5 lessons per year, if as much as that. I had one deputy head say to me during feedback once, "you don't teach like me", to which I replied "you are absolutely right, I never want to teach like you, I don't even like you if that's all you can come up with by way of feedback." I obviously don't help myself, but bullies like this need tackling, not cowering in front of.
It's similar stories like this that have led to Gove's policy being described by teachers and unions as "a bully's charter". Along with the pensions debate plus the news that everyone will have to work until they are 105 (or whatever), teachers are feeling pretty got at currently. On top of this political drive to demoralise teachers, the public will also throw in their tuppence-worth. Popular soaps create new characters who are teachers (they like to have their fingers on the pulse these shows), with these new characters doing something abhorent, giving the public more ammunition to have a go at the profession. It sounds silly, but it's what happens I'm sorry to say because soaps are real life to some sections of the general public.
There is also the problem that having got rid of these apparently poor teachers, they need replacing with (presumably) better teachers. Where are these better teachers going to come from? I have been at schools where perfectly good teachers have been "moved on" only to be replaced by imcompetance. The grass is not always greener. Some subjects (maths, science and ICT spring to mind) struggle for numbers, both good and bad.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these politicians really do have no idea.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Mock Exams
It's that time of the year when the students in the exam years take some mock exams. In my department's case that means years 10 and 11. There's the usual mixture of fairly disappointing and extremely disappointing results, with a smattering of decent grades thrown in for good measure. The poor results are mainly due to the fact that very few actually revised for the exams and some didn't even turn up on time or with the correct equipment, namely a calculator.
All those years ago when I first started my career in teaching the poor results used to get me down, and I'd wonder if I was doing something wrong or hadn't covered the syllabus properly. I have since come to realise, and the good results are extremely reassuring, that perhaps it's mainly the children and their inherent idleness that is to blame in the main. There could always be improvements made in the way I deliver certain topics but ultimately if a child makes no effort at all, I'm not entirely sure what else I can do.
Ofsted, and therefore the leaders of a school will immediately blame the teacher but unless that teacher pops round to every child's house and sits with them while they revise, then packs their bag ready for the exam in the morning, sets their alarm clock and knocks on the door in the morning to insure that they arrive on time, I don't really see that the teacher can do much more than deliver the syllabus to the best of their ability. If an entire class gets no marks in a certain topic then by all means blame the person at the board, but more often than not every question is answered correctly by someone in the class, inferring that the whole class had been taught the stuff sufficiently.
It's funny to see the reaction of some to their result. Most are genuinely embarrassed by their poor result (those who did well are genuinely pleased), but it will only make a difference for a lesson or two before they revert to type. I had a class today who had generally done appallingly (no real surprise, I hasten to add) and two nice girls in particular did really badly. They spend much of their time in lessons discussing who the best looking celebrity is, whether that bloke walking down the road is "fit" or daydreaming. Our conversation today went something like this:
Me: Why haven't you done any of this activity? It's the sort of stuff that will be in the exam.
Them: We don't get it.
Me: Have you asked for help? No you haven't, because you've been too busy staring out of the window trying to catch a glimpse of a boy.
Them: But we're teenagers and that's what teenagers do.
Me: You can do that in your own time, but in maths I'd like you to do some maths. Are you surprised that you didn't do very well in the mock?
Them: Yeah, but that was a mock; I'll actually try in the real thing.
I just looked exasperated at this point and went to help someone who was making an effort instead, thus avoiding the temptation to (attempt to) shout some sense into them. The reality is that they will try to cram some revision in to the evening before the exam, none of which will stick, and they'll do just as badly in the real thing. The fact that they have done precious little so far this year will also mean that they are literally starting from square one as they have done little or no class or home work. "Split them up" you may say, but then they just distract others who might want to do some work - a quandary, I'm sure you'd agree.
As time has passed during my teaching career I have come to accept this, but I will still be blamed for leading the horse to water and not forcing it's head under. The students will see no consequences as they will get opportunities to resit the qualification, and even if they mess that up they will get into college because that particular establishment needs their bum on a seat in order to get the necessary funding to remain open.
Once again the educational system in this country has embedded in young people the attitude that they will get what they want by doing as little as possible because the consequence that once was, the lack of an offer of a place from a college or university, is no longer there. They will get in whatever because those places need bodies.
The quick fix culture of modern society is also a major factor with last minute cramming preferred to working solidly throughout a course (X Factor Culture I like to call it, whereas instead of touring the country building up a fanbase and large back catalogue, singers just have to win a TV show). It is now an accepted form of "learning" as I discovered at my last parents evening, when an underachieving child's parents sat down at my table, with the conversation going something like this (we shall call the child "Dave"):
Me: Dave is doing little in class and no homework. The homework is set to practise the skills he will use in his exam, so I suggest he actually does a bit more to reinforce what I have taught him in class.
Parent: Just before the exam I'll make sure he does some homework, and we always cram the night before an exam.
Me: I'm not sure that's the way forward if I'm honest, and Dave's grades in previous units would also suggest this.
Parent: I'll make sure he does some work in the week leading up to the exam then.
Me: Right - great.
Dave's mock exam was one of the "very disappointing" ones, but it was only a mock after all. He'll be fine in the real thing.
He won't - I'll get told off. Can't wait.
All those years ago when I first started my career in teaching the poor results used to get me down, and I'd wonder if I was doing something wrong or hadn't covered the syllabus properly. I have since come to realise, and the good results are extremely reassuring, that perhaps it's mainly the children and their inherent idleness that is to blame in the main. There could always be improvements made in the way I deliver certain topics but ultimately if a child makes no effort at all, I'm not entirely sure what else I can do.
Ofsted, and therefore the leaders of a school will immediately blame the teacher but unless that teacher pops round to every child's house and sits with them while they revise, then packs their bag ready for the exam in the morning, sets their alarm clock and knocks on the door in the morning to insure that they arrive on time, I don't really see that the teacher can do much more than deliver the syllabus to the best of their ability. If an entire class gets no marks in a certain topic then by all means blame the person at the board, but more often than not every question is answered correctly by someone in the class, inferring that the whole class had been taught the stuff sufficiently.
It's funny to see the reaction of some to their result. Most are genuinely embarrassed by their poor result (those who did well are genuinely pleased), but it will only make a difference for a lesson or two before they revert to type. I had a class today who had generally done appallingly (no real surprise, I hasten to add) and two nice girls in particular did really badly. They spend much of their time in lessons discussing who the best looking celebrity is, whether that bloke walking down the road is "fit" or daydreaming. Our conversation today went something like this:
Me: Why haven't you done any of this activity? It's the sort of stuff that will be in the exam.
Them: We don't get it.
Me: Have you asked for help? No you haven't, because you've been too busy staring out of the window trying to catch a glimpse of a boy.
Them: But we're teenagers and that's what teenagers do.
Me: You can do that in your own time, but in maths I'd like you to do some maths. Are you surprised that you didn't do very well in the mock?
Them: Yeah, but that was a mock; I'll actually try in the real thing.
I just looked exasperated at this point and went to help someone who was making an effort instead, thus avoiding the temptation to (attempt to) shout some sense into them. The reality is that they will try to cram some revision in to the evening before the exam, none of which will stick, and they'll do just as badly in the real thing. The fact that they have done precious little so far this year will also mean that they are literally starting from square one as they have done little or no class or home work. "Split them up" you may say, but then they just distract others who might want to do some work - a quandary, I'm sure you'd agree.
As time has passed during my teaching career I have come to accept this, but I will still be blamed for leading the horse to water and not forcing it's head under. The students will see no consequences as they will get opportunities to resit the qualification, and even if they mess that up they will get into college because that particular establishment needs their bum on a seat in order to get the necessary funding to remain open.
Once again the educational system in this country has embedded in young people the attitude that they will get what they want by doing as little as possible because the consequence that once was, the lack of an offer of a place from a college or university, is no longer there. They will get in whatever because those places need bodies.
The quick fix culture of modern society is also a major factor with last minute cramming preferred to working solidly throughout a course (X Factor Culture I like to call it, whereas instead of touring the country building up a fanbase and large back catalogue, singers just have to win a TV show). It is now an accepted form of "learning" as I discovered at my last parents evening, when an underachieving child's parents sat down at my table, with the conversation going something like this (we shall call the child "Dave"):
Me: Dave is doing little in class and no homework. The homework is set to practise the skills he will use in his exam, so I suggest he actually does a bit more to reinforce what I have taught him in class.
Parent: Just before the exam I'll make sure he does some homework, and we always cram the night before an exam.
Me: I'm not sure that's the way forward if I'm honest, and Dave's grades in previous units would also suggest this.
Parent: I'll make sure he does some work in the week leading up to the exam then.
Me: Right - great.
Dave's mock exam was one of the "very disappointing" ones, but it was only a mock after all. He'll be fine in the real thing.
He won't - I'll get told off. Can't wait.
Friday, 18 November 2011
The Lost Generation
There have been a few headlines this week regarding over a million unemployed 18 to 24 year olds for the first time ever in Britain. This is extremely unhealthy for the country's future, but is it a big surpirse and who is to blame?
Personally I believe that the various governments of the past 20 or so years are to blame, including the current effort, despite their promises to get these young people into work as soon as possible.
Essentially the problem, in my mind, boils down to the apparent importance of league tables and the resultant importance upon getting as many students as possible up to a C grade at GCSE in as many subjects as possible. This has led to the following:
Unless children are allowed to fail in school, schools will never prepare children for real life. Unfortunately government pressure upon schools through agencies such as Ofsted mean that generations will continue to be lost until things like league tables and the mis-guided desire to allow everyone in school to succeed, whether they deserve to or not, will mean that young people won't have the desire to do their best (because they won't have learnt it) and achieve what they want to. Can you really blame the students? Why try outside of school when you never had to try in it? And can you blame schools for wanting to maintain their funding so that they can offer a quality education to all its students?
Another colleague of mine, having taught for around 20 years, said that in their time the standard of teaching has got so much better, but that has been counter-balanced by the plummet in the standard of student.
Personally I believe that the various governments of the past 20 or so years are to blame, including the current effort, despite their promises to get these young people into work as soon as possible.
Essentially the problem, in my mind, boils down to the apparent importance of league tables and the resultant importance upon getting as many students as possible up to a C grade at GCSE in as many subjects as possible. This has led to the following:
- In order to make standards appear to rise, the standard for a C grade (and most other grades) has dropped. It is still very difficult to get the top grades at GCSE, but to get a C grade is now far easier than it ever has been, despite what those in Whitehall say.
- Children aren't allowed to fail, because the consequences for a school are huge: reduction in budget and reduction in those wishing to attend that school all amount to a dying establishment. As a collegaue of mine said, it's like asking a an army general to go to war and return with no casualties - it will never happen, but due to education policy over the past 20 years, it actually nearly has happened in teaching. Every child, of any intellect, can gain 5 A* to C grades if they want to, and let's be honest, even if they don't, schools will attempt to do it for them (BTECs, come on down!).
Unless children are allowed to fail in school, schools will never prepare children for real life. Unfortunately government pressure upon schools through agencies such as Ofsted mean that generations will continue to be lost until things like league tables and the mis-guided desire to allow everyone in school to succeed, whether they deserve to or not, will mean that young people won't have the desire to do their best (because they won't have learnt it) and achieve what they want to. Can you really blame the students? Why try outside of school when you never had to try in it? And can you blame schools for wanting to maintain their funding so that they can offer a quality education to all its students?
Another colleague of mine, having taught for around 20 years, said that in their time the standard of teaching has got so much better, but that has been counter-balanced by the plummet in the standard of student.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
League Tables Are Rigged!
Would you Adam and Eve it? The government have just realised that school league tables are rigged by schools "banking" C grades for students and making the less academic students take BTEC courses because they are worth up to 4 C grades each.
Now if you work in a school the fact that students take BTECs to boost a school's C grades will not be news to you, nor will the fact that loads of students take an early GCSE in some subjects to get a C grade and then the main focus of that school is to concentrate on those who get a D grade and push them up to C. But to those in Whitehall it is news, presumably because they are so far removed from day-to-day school life that it's taken them this long to catch up.
So what's the problem? And what are the government going to do about it?
According to the various articles I've read, the league tables aren't a proper representation of how schools are performing. Had the government bothered to ask teachers (this does seem to be a common theme) they would have found this out a while ago. League tables are all about gaining 5 A* to C grades at GCSE, and now must include English and Maths, whereas before it didn't matter what subjects they were. League tables have been sold to the public as the definitive guide to how well students from certain schools do, so the public don't really know any better (unless they know a teacher of course).
The proposal is to make 1 BTEC (that takes a lot of work, and is mainly coursework assessed) equivalent to 1 GCSE (which doesn't take as much work, although is more academic). 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs was too much, but 1 to 1 is too little. And funnily enough all those state schools that were failing (in Ofsted's eyes), were rebranded academies and are now doing really well according to their 5 A* to C count, will suffer hugely. The only thing that makes academies appear to be improving so hugely is the fact that 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs. The government can't really win this one to be honest - damned if they do, damned if they don't.
As far as making students sit early entries to "bank" a C and therefore focus attention on those who didn't make it first time around, do you really blame schools? The pressure to gain as many many C+ grades is huge and can make or break a school, so any potential advantage to be had by entering students early must be taken, with both hands.
As far as essentially ignoring those who achieve a C grade is concerned, well that's clearly not right, but schools are in a results business. If you don't get the results, you lose customers because parents can now choose which school to send their child too to a certain extent - another well-thought-out government policy. A school that isn't full has to endure budget cuts, which then leads to staff redundancies and ultimately to the school being unable to offer a holistic curriculum because it can't be staffed.
The prime minister has also stated that some schools coast and don't move their students on enough. He says that the league tables should reflect the "value added" to the students' knowledge. Well hooray! Finally they may be getting the message, but little will change in actual fact. As I've said in recent posts, some parts of the country have a hugely selective (grammar school) system meaning that they cream off the most academic in that area and therefore will end end at the top of those wonderful league tables.
Ultimately, whatever happens the league table system is flawed. Just get rid of them so the public aren't fooled by the propaganda.
The only way to assess whether a school is any good is to go into the school and see if the children are enjoying learning. If they are, they will probably reach their potential.
You don't need a league table to tell you that.
Now if you work in a school the fact that students take BTECs to boost a school's C grades will not be news to you, nor will the fact that loads of students take an early GCSE in some subjects to get a C grade and then the main focus of that school is to concentrate on those who get a D grade and push them up to C. But to those in Whitehall it is news, presumably because they are so far removed from day-to-day school life that it's taken them this long to catch up.
So what's the problem? And what are the government going to do about it?
According to the various articles I've read, the league tables aren't a proper representation of how schools are performing. Had the government bothered to ask teachers (this does seem to be a common theme) they would have found this out a while ago. League tables are all about gaining 5 A* to C grades at GCSE, and now must include English and Maths, whereas before it didn't matter what subjects they were. League tables have been sold to the public as the definitive guide to how well students from certain schools do, so the public don't really know any better (unless they know a teacher of course).
The proposal is to make 1 BTEC (that takes a lot of work, and is mainly coursework assessed) equivalent to 1 GCSE (which doesn't take as much work, although is more academic). 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs was too much, but 1 to 1 is too little. And funnily enough all those state schools that were failing (in Ofsted's eyes), were rebranded academies and are now doing really well according to their 5 A* to C count, will suffer hugely. The only thing that makes academies appear to be improving so hugely is the fact that 1 BTEC = 4 GCSEs. The government can't really win this one to be honest - damned if they do, damned if they don't.
As far as making students sit early entries to "bank" a C and therefore focus attention on those who didn't make it first time around, do you really blame schools? The pressure to gain as many many C+ grades is huge and can make or break a school, so any potential advantage to be had by entering students early must be taken, with both hands.
As far as essentially ignoring those who achieve a C grade is concerned, well that's clearly not right, but schools are in a results business. If you don't get the results, you lose customers because parents can now choose which school to send their child too to a certain extent - another well-thought-out government policy. A school that isn't full has to endure budget cuts, which then leads to staff redundancies and ultimately to the school being unable to offer a holistic curriculum because it can't be staffed.
The prime minister has also stated that some schools coast and don't move their students on enough. He says that the league tables should reflect the "value added" to the students' knowledge. Well hooray! Finally they may be getting the message, but little will change in actual fact. As I've said in recent posts, some parts of the country have a hugely selective (grammar school) system meaning that they cream off the most academic in that area and therefore will end end at the top of those wonderful league tables.
Ultimately, whatever happens the league table system is flawed. Just get rid of them so the public aren't fooled by the propaganda.
The only way to assess whether a school is any good is to go into the school and see if the children are enjoying learning. If they are, they will probably reach their potential.
You don't need a league table to tell you that.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Results Day
The worst day of the year, the day that you realise that your breath has been totally wasted for two/four years. GCSE results come out tomorrow, and I'm on holiday. In fact I rarely go in on results das, but I do tend to drive past in order to see who is crying on the pavement outside school. This sounds really harsh, I know that, but I am a firm believer in the "reap what you sow" philosophy. In other words, if you spent much of your school life being kicked out of classes for being disruptive then do you really think that your GCSE results will be any good?
Apparently some do, and funnily enough, some come up trumps without doing much work at all, forgetting the fact that their messing around in class is jeopardising the chances of various others' ability to achieve the grade that they are capable of. There will be a lot of disappointed 16 year olds tomorrow, many of whom deserve to be disappointed, but some have been unfortunate enough to be in a class with someone who couldn't care less about anyone else and mess around, but work their socks off outside of class.
There will also be plenty of students who get the grades they deserve - many failures (below a C grade is generally a failure) and almost exclusively these results are totally deserved, not that it will effect their place in college, as the college gets paid for the number of posteriors on seats rather than the calibre of those bottoms. These are the ones who I see crying on the pavement outside school. Their career in medicine or law has been blown out of the water with their grades, and they only have themselves to blame. No homework, little concentration in class and a terrific ability to gossip for 6 hours per day, every day.
The trouble is that their teachers will be told that they are total failures by their headteacher and deputy headteacher(s) because their results don't meet targets. These targets are got to using previous results, failing to take into account the influence of girls/boys, alcohol, cigarettes and possibly drugs. A watertight system you will realise is flawed (or possibly not if you are a member of government or senior leadership).
These results could possibly effect future pay of that teacher, which you may think is a good idea, but how many people on the planet are capable of positively influencing a teenager?
The results from my classes will not be great - I know that already, through various reasons: The kid rarely arrived in my class; the kid talked/disrupted many of the classes they turned up to; the kid apparently didn't need my subject in the job that they want (the fact that jobs are quite hard to come by at the moment seems to have escaped our school leavers attentions); The kid didn't even bother to copy down anything I wrote on the board in the way of notes so therefore had zero to revise from. I could go on.
It's all my fault though, and no doubt I will be named and shamed by our head on day one of season 2011/12 - which is a real incentive to up my game.
Not.
Apparently some do, and funnily enough, some come up trumps without doing much work at all, forgetting the fact that their messing around in class is jeopardising the chances of various others' ability to achieve the grade that they are capable of. There will be a lot of disappointed 16 year olds tomorrow, many of whom deserve to be disappointed, but some have been unfortunate enough to be in a class with someone who couldn't care less about anyone else and mess around, but work their socks off outside of class.
There will also be plenty of students who get the grades they deserve - many failures (below a C grade is generally a failure) and almost exclusively these results are totally deserved, not that it will effect their place in college, as the college gets paid for the number of posteriors on seats rather than the calibre of those bottoms. These are the ones who I see crying on the pavement outside school. Their career in medicine or law has been blown out of the water with their grades, and they only have themselves to blame. No homework, little concentration in class and a terrific ability to gossip for 6 hours per day, every day.
The trouble is that their teachers will be told that they are total failures by their headteacher and deputy headteacher(s) because their results don't meet targets. These targets are got to using previous results, failing to take into account the influence of girls/boys, alcohol, cigarettes and possibly drugs. A watertight system you will realise is flawed (or possibly not if you are a member of government or senior leadership).
These results could possibly effect future pay of that teacher, which you may think is a good idea, but how many people on the planet are capable of positively influencing a teenager?
The results from my classes will not be great - I know that already, through various reasons: The kid rarely arrived in my class; the kid talked/disrupted many of the classes they turned up to; the kid apparently didn't need my subject in the job that they want (the fact that jobs are quite hard to come by at the moment seems to have escaped our school leavers attentions); The kid didn't even bother to copy down anything I wrote on the board in the way of notes so therefore had zero to revise from. I could go on.
It's all my fault though, and no doubt I will be named and shamed by our head on day one of season 2011/12 - which is a real incentive to up my game.
Not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)