GCSE Examiners tip off teachers to increase pass rate

[Dedworth]

It's no wonder UK schools are turning out muppets by the hundreds of thousands

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has ordered an official inquiry into the exam system after an investigation exposed examiners giving teachers secret advice on how to improve their GCSE and A-level results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ents-pass.html

Exam boards could be closed down if they are found to have cheated by giving secret advice to teachers on how to improve GCSE and A-level results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...velations.html

[Arthur Little]

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has ordered an official inquiry into the exam system after an investigation exposed examiners giving teachers secret advice on how to improve their GCSE and A-level results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ents-pass.html

Hmm ... in turn, no doubt, making THEIR [the Examiners] jobs easier.

Exam boards could be closed down if they are found to have cheated by giving secret advice to teachers on how to improve GCSE and A-level results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...velations.html

... and what does the Government intend replacing them (the Examining Boards) with??

[grahamw48]

It's also grossly unfair to pupils who haven't had the benefit of these disgraceful and corrupt practices.

Unfortunately it is also just so typical of our current cut-throat and thoroughly selfish and immoral society.

[Dedworth]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is widespread and has been going on for years, every summer we see hordes of gleeful pupils jumping up and down at how many grade A & B's they've got and smug teaching professionals, Ministers etc crowing at how standards are once again up.

The reality is many of these pupils are as thick as two short planks, passing exams that have been dumbed down over the years and now we know to have been fiddled. They then go on to take stupid degrees in such subjects as Tourism, Media Studies, Leisure Studies, Golf Management etc at low standard so called "Universities".

[grahamw48]

I agree.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I was a pretty smart kid, and at a good Grammar School...top of the class in several subjects too.

I did NOT find any of my 'O' levels easy, and expected (rightly so) to be marked down for poor spelling and slovenly writing.

We were also corrected on our speech.

Yes, 'dumbing down' does spring to mind.

[grahamw48]

Oh, and since this is the Filipino UK forum, I would add that I have also experienced my children being educated both here and in the Philippines.

Certainly up to the age of 15, in my opinion standards were higher at the local private school that my kids attended in a provincial town in the Philippines than they had been back in what were regarded as good schools in York.

[Dedworth]

I agree.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I was a pretty smart kid, and at a good Grammar School...top of the class in several subjects too.

I did NOT find any of my 'O' levels easy, and expected (rightly so) to be marked down for poor spelling and slovenly writing.

We were also corrected on our speech.

Yes, 'dumbing down' does spring to mind.

Same here - Grammar School where we took proper exam based GCE O and A Levels not GCSE's where no-one can be branded a failure. I remember I took and passed English Language a year early at 15. Doesn't it tell you something that a number of clued up Commonwealth countries inc Singapore & Malaysia still use the GCE system ?

[Englishman2010]

Same here - Grammar School where we took proper exam based GCE O and A Levels not GCSE's where no-one can be branded a failure. I remember I took and passed English Language a year early at 15. Doesn't it tell you something that a number of clued up Commonwealth countries inc Singapore & Malaysia still use the GCE system ?

I took GCE O and A Levels too, at a local Comprehensive school not a posh Grammar School, 8 Grade C and above O levels and 3 A Levels including an A in Law - fat lot of good any of that did me in my chosen career, no one's ever asked me what qualifications I got at school. Common sense is far more important than grades on a piece of paper or a degree in underwater tapestry designing or whatever other daft subjects they have degrees in these days

[grahamw48]

I was unable to take most of my 'O' levels in the end, due to changing schools halfway through my courses (totally different syllabuses in different parts of the country then)

I'd been to 9 different Primary schools and 3 Grammar by that time, and had just had enough.

That's mainly why I had to live off my wits for the rest of my life, though I did gain some further qualifications later.

[Englishman2010]

I had to live off my wits for the rest of my life, though I did gain some further qualifications later.

Life experience will take you much further than a few grades on a piece of paper, and by your accounts, you've certainly had plenty of those

[grahamw48]

True.

It's been both an adventure and an education.

[Englishman2010]

True.

It's been both an adventure and an education.

It's how life should be
One of my former travelling companions and adopted "uncle" (now sadly dead) was one of the most interesting people I've ever met. We met in Goa 14 years ago and travelled all over India together over a 5 year period. He was an ex merchant seaman working as a labourer on a building site, a big fat chap in his 50's, covered in tattoo's and love and hate on his knuckles. Looking at him was enough to scare most people off, but I got chatting to him in our hotel at Xmas 97, and it became quite clear that he wasn't the thug that he looked like. He'd backpacked around most of the world and was a really kind hearted bloke with a great sense of humour and an incredible knowledge about the natural world, geography, natural history and world cultures. He took me and my ex under his wing and showed us around the local market town, introduced us to a few of his Goan friends and turned our 2 week package tour into more of an adventure. After that we met upe every Xmas in India for a good few years and went off trecking well away from the beaten tourist track

[Arthur Little]

Well ... like Terpe - albeit in a thread completely unrelated to the present context - I, too, have a confession to make! And that is - UNLIKE you, Graham - I failed what, in post-war Scotland, at least (right through until the late 1960s) had been known as the 'Eleven Plus' [or Qualifying] Examination. Consequently - between the impressionable ages of [almost] 12 and 15, respectively - I had the disadvantage of attending what was then called a 'Junior Secondary' School (equivalent in standard, I believe, to a 'Secondary Modern' south of the Border - and certainly of a rather more lowly standing than the Grammar Schools in England & Wales) where I struggled with a 3-year [non-academic] Technical course ... for which, someone like myself - whose strengths THEN, AS NOW - lay in his LITERARY abilities - was totally unsuited ... one, moreover, that I hated!

"Aww, diddums", some might [unkindly] respond. "Poor you ... stop feeling sorry for yourself!". But I kid you NOT ... those three years turned out to be a living nightmare ... the most miserable, unhappy I'd spent throughout my entire schooldays ... in that, I was constantly branded as a "swot" and bullied while simultaneously bearing the brunt of the technical staff's wrath - not to mention getting "my fingers warmed" - as a result of my ineptitude at woodwork.

So ... it was only after Perth College had opened its new campus - located less than half a mile from my home - during the mid-70s that I finally made my mark academically, attending evening classes and thereby gaining the Scottish Certificate of Education at Higher Grade in the *subjects I'd been proficient in at school fifteen years previously - *principally, English & History.

By then, of course, I was already in my early 30s - and such qualifications counted for very little career-wise; indeed they were regarded as being "ten-a-penny" at a time when the vast majority of younger people remained at school until reaching the age of eighteen as decent jobs became increasingly scarce!

Ho, hum ...

[grahamw48]

Well I say WELL DONE Arthur, for putting in the effort and thereby having proven your true worth to both yourself and others.

None of us are machines producing results by simply being plugged into a system, and we all grow and develop at different rates.

[joebloggs]

It's no wonder UK schools are turning out muppets by the hundreds of thousands

dedworth its nothing new

my german teacher was sacked for cheating when i was at high school many years ago , i remeber being in a woodwork exam, where the teacher was giving hints on some of the answers to the question

[lastlid]

The reality is many of these pupils are as thick as two short planks, passing exams that have been dumbed down over the years and now we know to have been fiddled. They then go on to take stupid degrees in such subjects as Tourism, Media Studies, Leisure Studies, Golf Management etc at low standard so called "Universities".

Yes. Interesting. I teach adults in industry. Graduates with "ologys" that cant turn a percent into a fraction or vice versa. How did they get through their GCSE's?

[lastlid]

Life experience will take you much further than a few grades on a piece of paper, and by your accounts, you've certainly had plenty of those

There are a certain range of professions where education is essential along with the paper trail that goes with it. Life experience just isnt enough. And nowadays of course the new buzzword "Competency" requires an even larger paper trail.

[grahamw48]

Yes. Interesting. I teach adults in industry. Graduates with "ologys" that cant turn a percent into a fraction or vice versa. How did they get through their GCSE's?

They use calculators for everything.

Try asking them to do some simple mental arithmetic.

IMO it's the basics that aren't taught in the right way these days (X tables by rote for instance) at infant school level.
These are the skills upon which everything else is based, and which are absorbed so well at that young age.

In the Philippines they still use that method, and I believe my children were put at an advantage because of that, when later entering the British system.

[lastlid]

Interesting point.

Yes, they aint all like that but some are. Amazing. Lost skills.

[Arthur Little]

Well I say WELL DONE Arthur, for putting in the effort and thereby having proven your true worth to both yourself and others.

Thanks for your kind reassurance, Graham ... it's very much appreciated. Whilst the qualifications I later obtained as a mature student weren't a great deal of help in the job stakes, the fact that I achieved them at all, CONTINUES to give me a sense of satisfaction and self-worth!

They use calculators for everything.

Try asking them to do some simple mental arithmetic.

IMO it's the basics that aren't taught in the right way these days (X tables by rote for instance) at infant school level.
These are the skills upon which everything else is based, and which are absorbed so well at that young age.

In the Philippines they still use that method, and I believe my children were put at an advantage because of that, when later entering the British system.

s ... on ALL counts !!!