Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19620075

Can't see how that will work unless they stick to a foundation and an advanced level..and guess what, not many employees will even consider foundation level passes.

Ah well that will keep the sixth form colleges going and keep the 16-18 year olds off the unemployment stats.

What happens if weaker students don't manage it by 18?
Where are the jobs that the lower third of each examination year during the GCE O-level pre CSE used to take up when they left school with no qualifications?

Gone abroad.Where are the industries that replaced them? Gone abroad.

Re: Nick Clegg hails coalition GCSE exam education changes
 

Spreading out the taking/retaking of 'O' levels is nothing new.

The are still jobs for those with no qualifications, but the exam system has given people delusions of grandeur that they are better than they actually are. Whatever system is used, there will be people at the bottom end of it. If not, that will only be because the exams have no true value.

Re: Nick Clegg hails coalition GCSE exam education changes
 

The problem is it would seem that this change means that yet again the emphasis is on academic achievement.Vocational training will yet again be at the bottom of the to do list..

The one person currently making sense is Lord Kenneth Baker who was actually instrumental in introducing in GCSEs.And no he doesn't want to keep them.He's got more radical ideas about introducing vocational training and wants to stop testing at 16.He wants to test at 14 to see in which direction our children should go in the training they receive between 14 and 18..He also points out that there is more than one way to learn and to achieve one's goals.

Re: Nick Clegg hails coalition GCSE exam education changes
 

Unfortunately that flies in the face of 50 years of educational dogma - we have a one-size-fits-all comprehensive education system and a one-size-fits-all exam system because the establishment wanted to ensure that everyone turns out the same.

It's no accident that GCSEs and A levels have reached the stage where it's impossible to tell the bright students apart by their exam results. That's simply the inevitable consequence of making the work incrementally easier and easier with the aim of ensuring that as few people at the bottom of the ability range can be said to have 'failed' anything.

The whole system has been skewed in pursuit of this crazy ideology that can't bear the simple truth that some kids are bright and some kids are thick. They shut down the Grammar schools, which really were an engine of social mobility, and look where we are now - vast numbers of public school toffs on both sides of the House of Commons, because in most of the country, parents who want to ensure their kids get the very best education now have no option but to pay for it.

The same thing is now happening in the Universities. These institutions, now groaning under the weight of their own witless Meedja Studies courses and the endless ranks of school leavers who populate them, are charging vast fees for a level of education that once upon a time was free of charge to those who actually stood to benefit from it. Thus a policy that on the face of it was socially liberating - higher education for everyone that could possibly do it - is now turning out, just as the assault on the Grammar schools was, to be simply another means of ensuring that the vast majority get stuck with mediocrity while those from moneyed backgrounds continue to pick and choose the best.

Stupid, stupid, shortsighted lefties. Sadly, Gove is unlikely to be allowed to go nearly as far as he needs to, to turn this ship around.

Re: Nick Clegg hails coalition GCSE exam education changes
 

Media studies should never have been allowed onto any syllabus as an examination subject..That we can agree on.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19626663

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

The crux of this whole education "debate" is very simple. It does not matter how you grade the examinations, irrespective of which body is responsible for them. Teach those subjects properly. There is no point in altering the marks awarded if those responsible are also ill educated. I could cite innumerable examples with regard to how teachers are illiterate, innumerate and incompetent. Off my high horse now.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

A qualification that is based entirely on final exam performance should achieve precisely that. There are no opportunities to endlessly reproduce coursework until you get the right result if everything hangs on the final assessment. For the first time in decades, it's just possible that exam results in England might prove that school pupils have actually learned stuff ...

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

So this is the one single exam for leaving school? Brilliant if that is the case....

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I'm feeling a little bit odd now. I'm not a fan of Michael Gove in any way, but I think this could be a good thing.

Might have to go have a shower shortly :D

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I'd like to see pupils about to leave primary schools examined on at least the 3 R's, as in my experience that it's primary schools that are churning out more and more illiterate and innumerate pupils. And once they have failed at primary level, they are never allowed to catch up.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Turns out it's not a single qualification like the normal Baccalaureate is. Confusing....

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

To much time wasted teaching Welsh. Get off hobby horse now:D

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Actually the only single thing that's going to be the most effective is...

That was what really needed.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I really don't like the lack of coursework. Can be a good chance for students who otherwise lack ability to exams to do well. I always did poorly at exams but very good at coursework....

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

The problem with course work is that it offers too many opportunities for the pupil to show how adept they are at copy and paste or for mumsy to do it because the poor little darling is properly thick and mumsy doesn't want anyone to know

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

True but then coursework is far more akin to actual work as well. For those that don't cheat it's a chance to craft a real bit of work, a researched and well-argued essay, a practical computer program, a work of art (they are keeping coursework for art) and so on. My essays for history were far better when I had the ability to type them out, research and use citations. I tend to get a bit messy when writing essays as my brain jumps between several points and a computer allows me to restructure it in a way a two-hour time limit with a written page doesn't.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

"Baccalaureate"

Glad I'm not 16, I can't even pronounce it :dunce:

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I have heard of it before. It's used in France and there is a European one that I think some schools in the UK offer. However although the modules are separate you get passed on it as a whole. So I am not sure if this is like that or they will continue to offer separate qualifications.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Very true. I have taught my children the correct sayings/ spellings for words also the Maths.

---------- Post added at 19:27 ---------- Previous post was at 19:25 ----------

My mate is from Maesteg and he cannot speak Welsh:erm:

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

That's true ,and why it is used in universities and colleges maybe the way forward is to make sure the kids know the 3rs first before doing course work after all Britain didn't do too bad when we where taught parrot fashion with one exam in each subject ,we still turned out world class academics .My school was one of the first to experiment with GCSE'S 1980-81 i did CSE levels which had a equivalent gcse grade attached to them and i remember one of the teachers saying that the government where trying to fix something that wasn't broken

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I really hoped this government might get something right in this regard a shift in emphasis to a more balanced system between academic and vocational but it is not meant to be. What i have noticed locally is that many of the truants and non academic kids have been taken into the vocational sector and are doing very well one who lives down the road from me i don't think attended a day of school for two years. He got a placement through some local scheme at a local garage and is now one of their best mechanics even catching up with is reading and writing and maths as he can now see how it benefits him to have those skills in his job.

We are so stuck in this country on the idea that academic excellence is the benchmark to judge people by and seem completely unable or unwilling to accept it is not for everyone such a shame a better approach to vocational training could have done so much that academic study never will.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

:clap:

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Typical govenment using a word thats not english

http://oxforddictionaries.com/defini.../baccalaureate

THIS COUNTRY IS ENGLISH NOT FLAMING FRENCH:mad::mad:

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

If we ruled out words that started out as French or Latin, think our language would be quite limited

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Plus the fact that Latin rules are applied to English grammar.Also there are the influences from the Vikings and Danes and Norsemen.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

We would all speak Gaelic:)

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Is this a good time to mention that English is a Germanic Language? :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Perhaps not daniel, although you are quite correct. Just teach the children to read, write and spell correctly. A grounding in mathematics would be useful. I despair (anagram = aspired) :D

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

:erm:

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

For future generations I hope Michael Gove knows what he is doing. I hope he has looked at all the evidence and chosen the best solution. Education needs to do two things. It needs to teach and then measure a persons ability.
Is the move from coursework to more lecture based study a better teaching method, I’m not sure?
Is a single exam at the end of a course the best way to measure ability, I’m sure of that either?
It’s possible that multiple approaches are needed.
Employers with tell you that change is needed, and I don’t disagree I just hope there is a strong evidential basis for this change and not just political ideology.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

It also gives those who can cram at the last minute a relatively free ride for 2 years. :dozey:

The obsession with churning out results rather than offering a complete education according to ability, is the continuing problem of government interference.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

:clap:

Teaching is not about churning out ready made workers for industry.A job is not the whole of a person's life.It is merely the means by which we pay to survive and live as an individual.
Education should be about teaching the person for the whole of their life not just the bit they spend working.

Re: [Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Yup. Although it's hard to cram to such a degree. It also rewards the ability to retain facts for the purpose of an exam. Coursework teaches deadlines, research, and presentation.

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21363396

I wonder what he's got planned next?

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Tell me Maggy what are your thoughts on it as were you not a teacher as l know my thoughts are why do we need to tamper with our Education system every time a new government comes in and wants to change the policies of the previous incumbents.

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

My thoughts are that education should be taken from government control and given to a cross party committee so that the constant short termism that emerges at every General Election would become a thing of the past.Then knee jerk reactions could be replaced by long term decisions that benefit
State Education rather than are based on a party getting elected.

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

Yes indeed l think thats what most of us would like to happen but whether that will ever happen is another matter l am afraid.

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I sort of agree but doesn't this might government become more of a Technocracy? It seems like a balance needs to be struck but informed people can advocate to the Government, it's just problematic when politicians dismiss the concerns of these people in favour of popular opinion. Is it good or bad if popular opinion overrules minority, but perhaps more education, opinion?

One thing that's certain if experts decided more then we wouldn't be paying for idiotic homeopathy...

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

I'm not a fan of government via unelected committee. That's how the Soviet Union was run. In fact that's how China is run. Love them or loathe them, our politicians are our elected representatives and frankly I think we get the government we deserve.

Use your vote wisely, folks ...

Re: Update to the[Update] "English Baccalaureate" replaces GCSE in England
 

And I'm sick of education being a political football every 4/5 years.I wasn't suggesting an unelected committee either.I did think that it would be made up of equal numbers of MPs from the present house of Commons as well as a few cross party candidates from the House of Lords.
But of course as I'm supposedly a Labourite my opinions don't count despite I've been on the sharp end of kneejerk reactions from successive governments of both major parties during my working life.

Now we have Gove suggesting that teachers needn't be trained turning back time to the Victorian era..:rolleyes: