Honest Exam Results - At Last!

[llamatron]

I read that they did it year upon year and thought that was strange enough, but not that they changed it from paper to paper meaning Jan was far easier than June? I still think it bizarre that they don't tell you the pass margin before the exam, but after. I don't think it fair that no one knows that the pass mark is and it also opens the whole thing up to manipulation, as the exam board entirely determines the result. I just know that if I was taking the exam I would want to know what percentage I needed to pass and not to have it fiddled afterwards - I don't think that is too much to ask.

 

 

 

etc, etc - Blaming teachers solely for falling standards in education is akin to blaming doctors for the rise in obesity or the police force for the crime rate. Pretty senseless and ridiculously generalised to say the least like most of your other comments.

 

presumably this is so that they can use something similar to a normal distribution. This is the only sensible way of grading, its not fiddling its just using an assumption e.g. 50 % of students will be average or C grade. It means if the paper is exceptionally easy or difficult the results will still make the average student a C grade.

[regatta]

Hey. Good edit.

 

I've left your original response above:D

 

Now... about that pesky PGCE question that has made you look a trifle silly. Care to answer?

 

I thought you was going to ask a question about that pesky wabbitt.

[Lockjaw]

I find you rather sad but oddly enough will provide you with the two words that you seem to be missing: tempted as I am to think of chump and eejit I'll have to settle for Cert. [allow the abv.] and Ed. [another abv.]

 

Please do not ask for further explanation. But you've also prompted the exposure of the useless B.Ed., another fast tracking of sub-standard students into education. It stands for 'bed' where students spend far too long. Clear?

 

I look forward to your next question. As attractive and stimulating as one of your lessons I expect, where prizes are given for those who remain awake longest. It must have some novel appeal having to ask questions and not answer them! Not a teacher. Yes, of course. You've got that pedantic swagger in your words and self belief that you're interesting. I expect you dress like a teacher!

 

Now if the rest of of us can at all be allowed to continue with our debate of just why you teachers have let our children down so badly.

 

Hiya OTN.

 

Could you let us know which parts of the content of the PGCE and B. Ed you consider to be useless and what should be done to improve them?

[Benedictine]

presumably this is so that they can use something similar to a normal distribution. This is the only sensible way of grading, its not fiddling its just using an assumption e.g. 50 % of students will be average or C grade. It means if the paper is exceptionally easy or difficult the results will still make the average student a C grade.

 

Yes I suppose, but this is not done with other exam boards, the WJEC didn't do that for example, you knew that, say, 50 marks out of 80 was a C or whatever it might be. The exam board should ensure that papers are not exceptionally easy or difficult, but should try to be consistent. It still means that AQA have the power to decide if 'standards' go up or down, by fractional movements either way.

 

The debate remains unblemished; teachers - lowered standards.

 

And have police increased the crime rate and have doctors raised levels of obesity too? And when exactly did teachers magically lower standards all by themselves? What year, what month?

[gnvqsos]

I find you rather sad but oddly enough will provide you with the two words that you seem to be missing: tempted as I am to think of chump and eejit I'll have to settle for Cert. [allow the abv.] and Ed. [another abv.]

 

Please do not ask for further explanation. But you've also prompted the exposure of the useless B.Ed., another fast tracking of sub-standard students into education. It stands for 'bed' where students spend far too long. Clear?

 

I look forward to your next question. As attractive and stimulating as one of your lessons I expect, where prizes are given for those who remain awake longest. It must have some novel appeal having to ask questions and not answer them! Not a teacher. Yes, of course. You've got that pedantic swagger in your words and self belief that you're interesting. I expect you dress like a teacher!

 

Now if the rest of of us can at all be allowed to continue with our debate of just why you teachers have let our children down so badly.

 

What is a pedantic swagger?Am I likely to find one in the wild or are they captive bred?Do teachers now have a uniformas you imply they dress in a similar fashion.Given the mix of genders there must be a great deal of cross-dressing.Perhaps this accounts for the volatile exam results?

[Benedictine]

I can't work out how the 'one entity' of all teachers in the country have managed to plot and coordinate the downfall of education. Silly me thinking that teachers follow rules from above like everyone else.

 

There were some long queues in the Asda yesterday - god damn all those checkout people throughout the country letting shoppers down so badly. They all need 'locking up.'

[Benedictine]

Here’s me also thinking that groups of people like ‘nurses’ or ‘doctors’ or ‘soldiers’ or ‘teachers’ were entirely made up a complete range of different people – the good, the bad, the ugly, tall, short, ginger haired and so on... I didn’t realise, until I was educated by this thread, that all teachers throughout the country were one and the same body and mind, who together, psychically plotted and worked together on lowering the standards of education for our children. Either that or I think someone has not stepped inside a school in the last 20 years and doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about.

[boyfriday]

The simple truth is education lost its way a long time ago when degrees were replaced with PGCE and pay scales being lowered meant quality graduates, the ones with higher degrees in quality subjects other than Media Studies and History of Art, chose the City over a career balancing a packed lunch on you knee marking books.

 

The idiocy of this statement's already been highlighted by other posters, the other fact you miss is that teaching only relatively recently became a graduate entry occupation in the first place, so whilst many of the teachers (from long ago) you champion will have been graduates, many of them will not have been.

[Mecky]

Resurrected as this was the first thread I saw from a search of A level grades.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23695270

 

So top level grades have fell for a second year in a row. Is that a good thing? The way I see it is that exams are still not pushing people to try harder but the marking of exams has become more pedantic which is not helping pupils improve their research skills. Mind you, you could argue that regurgitating rubbish does not promote thinking too. Knowing how to research data/information is far more important than learning facts you are force-fed in my opinion. Discuss

[Happ Hazzard]

A-levels were far harder in the 80s than they were when I took them in the 90s. We looked at the old papers back then. And it's a similar situation today. They've been getting easier for decades.