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Home Posts tagged "GCSEs"

No more A* to G: New 1-15 GCSE marks aim to stamp out ‘grade inflation’

Published on May 16, 2013,

Teenagers will find it harder to get top grades in redesigned GCSEs to be introduced in two years’ time in a move to stamp out “grade inflation”. Michael Gove told MPs that the most likely grading system for the new qualifications would be based on numbers, ditching the current awards of grades between A* and G. This is from the Times…

The numbering system would allow greater distinction, so the current A* grade would be split between grades 1 and 2, the current A grade would be split between 3 and 4, he said. (more…)

 

Gove: ‘Pragmatic’ approach needed on GCSE tiering

Published on May 16, 2013,

Appearing before the Commons cross-party Education Committee on Wednesday, Mr Gove was asked for his view on the tiering of GCSE examinations, where pupils are entered for papers targeted to their ability rather than a single paper serving all candidates. The secretary of state said he wanted to move away from this system, but accepted it may be necessary in subjects like maths and science. This is from the BBC…

This follows advice from the exams regulator, Ofqual, and the international exams group Cambridge Assessment. (more…)

 

GCSE and A-Level grading this summer could be as chaotic as last year because quality of marking is still poor, leading school heads warn

Published on May 16, 2013,

A crisis over marking standards threatens this summer’s GCSE and A-level exams, says a leading independent school headmaster. This is from the Independent…

Dr Tim Hands, who becomes chairman of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference in September – which represents 250 of the country’s top private schools including Eton and Harrow, told a conference in London: “There is an unresolved crisis of instability at the heart of our currency exchange (exam) system.” (more…)

 

David Laws to Kevin Brennan: AS levels only tell universities what they already know from GCSEs

Published on May 15, 2013,

Schools minister David Laws has written to Labour MP and shadow minister Kevin Brennan following concerns the changes to AS levels with cause problems for university admissions. Laws refers to a DfE analysis which purports to show that knowing AS level results adds little predictive insight above and beyond that already obtained from GCSE results. This is an extract from the letter…

In order to undertake this analysis, analysts matched records from the National Pupil Database (GCSE, AS grades) with records from the Higher Educational Statistics Agency (degree results, and institution) to build a logistic regression model. This model covers all undergraduate outcomes in 2011 for which we have matched KS4 and KS5 data. lt covers 88,000 students across 151 Higher Education Institutions (HEis), and can be considered the most comprehensive analysis of this issue. I enclose full details of the analysis. (more…)

 

Fiona Millar: While selection in admissions persists, school rankings will never be fair

Published on May 14, 2013,

Writing in the Guardian, Fiona Millar considers the proposals for KS4 (14-16) performance data which attempt to address the incentives for schools to “game” by manipulating the curriculum or focusing excessively on certain groups of pupils, and the fact that exam results inevitably reflect intake. After suggesting some positives (but also some difficulties) with the new proposals and their likely impact on league tables, she concludes the real problem is that they all still come down to exam results, suggests an alternative approach but laments the fact that selection in admissions will always skew outcomes…

A different approach might be to acknowledge that in this delicate business there are two audiences to satisfy. The first is made up of governing bodies, local authorities, academy sponsors, Ofsted and the Department for Education. The second audience is the parents. (more…)

 

Gove: ‘Pupil premium should be protected from cuts’

Published on May 13, 2013,

School funding that helps England’s most disadvantaged pupils should be protected from cuts, the education secretary has said. This is from the BBC…

Michael Gove said the pupil premium needed to be insulated from any cuts during the latest Spending Review, which takes place on 26 June. (more…)

 

Michael Gove: history dumbed down as pupils taught about Hitler using Mr Men characters

Published on May 10, 2013,

Secondary school pupils are being encouraged to learn about Nazi Germany using Mr Men characters as part of “infantilised” history lessons in schools, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has warned. This is from the Telegraph…

Proper history teaching is being “crushed” by a rise in the number of education resources that attempt to dumb down the subject using figures from popular culture, Mr Gove said. (more…)

 

Summer-born pupils ‘should have exam scores boosted’

Published on May 10, 2013,

Summer-born children should have their exam marks boosted to compensate for being almost a year younger when they sit tests, a report argues. This is from the BBC…

In England, pupils born in August are less likely to get good GCSEs or go to university than those born in September, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says. (more…)

 

Harder GCSEs ‘will not guarantee higher standards’

Published on May 9, 2013,

Tougher exams planned for England will not automatically boost standards, an Oxford University report argues. This is from the BBC…

Some 41% of pupils already fail to gain five “good” GCSEs under the current system, says the study from the Centre for Educational Assessment. (more…)

 

Replace GCSE grades with scores, says exam board

Published on May 9, 2013,

Teenagers should be awarded GCSE scores rather than grades, the international exams group Cambridge Assessment says. This is from the BBC…

CA, which runs three exam boards, including GCSE provider OCR, says the eight-point scale of A*-G produces “arbitrary categories”. (more…)

 

Queen’s Speech: Changes to exams, curriculum and teachers’ pay highlighted

Published on May 9, 2013,

Wide-ranging changes to the exam system, the national curriculum and teachers’ pay in England have been confirmed in the Queen’s Speech. This is from the BBC…

Some exam changes, such as the end of modular GCSEs, have already been brought in and more are planned. (more…)

 

Malpractice cases found by probe into top school

Published on May 9, 2013,

A probe into claims of cheating at a school praised by David Cameron has uncovered three cases of exam malpractice, according to the Evening Standard…

Whistleblowers claimed that pupils at Kingsdale School in Dulwich were given too much help with their GCSEs and BTec qualifications. (more…)

 

Michael Rosen’s latest letter to Michael Gove on testing to fail

Published on May 7, 2013,

In his latest ‘Letter from a curious parent’, Michael Rosen takes aim at Michael Gove’s new tests for children which, he believes, do nothing to help children, but everything to fail them. This is an extract from the Guardian…

Starting with the Spag test: very few people seem to know about the extraordinary conjuring trick that produced this exam, though I guess you can’t believe your luck at how easy it was to impose such a piece of hocus-pocus. I’ll run through it: you set up a committee under the auspices of Lord Bew to look into assessment and accountability. In April 2011, the committee produced an interim report, which was well researched and well referenced, drawing particularly on the work of Prof Dylan Wiliam. In June 2011, the committee produced its final report with most of the interim report intact, but there was now appended a brand new section, which proposed that at key stage 2 there should be tests in spelling, punctuation and grammar. The justification given was that questions in these areas have “right and wrong answers”. This new section contained no references, no evidence, no accounts of research. It was just a bald assertion. (more…)

 

Ofqual: teachers ‘losing confidence’ in GCSE exams

Published on May 4, 2013,

Rising numbers of schools have “lost confidence” in GCSEs following last summer’s exam grading fiasco, the qualifications watchdog has admitted. This is from the Telegraph…

Research published by Ofqual found that just over half of heads and teachers now fully trust the outcome of exams sat by more than 600,000 schoolchildren at the age of 16. (more…)

 

Look beyond exam grades when judging school performance, says exam body

Published on April 29, 2013,

Too much importance is placed on exam results when judging how well schools are serving their pupils, according to AQA, Britain’s biggest exam body, which says that some elements of a good education go beyond strong academic achievement and cannot be assessed by tests. This is from the Times…

AQA is urging the Government to change the way that it judges school performance, saying that placing too much emphasis on exams can have “distorting effects” and let down low-achieving children. (more…)

 

English GCSE shakeup to place emphasis on written exams

Published on April 26, 2013,

English GCSE exams are to be made substantially tougher under controversial changes that will no longer test teenagers’ speaking and listening skills. This is how the Guardian reports the story…

Ofqual, the government’s exams watchdog, wants to place greater emphasis on written exams, with students submitting fewer pieces of coursework and speaking and listening tasks no longer counting towards their final grade. (more…)

 

Coursework cut in overhaul of ‘flawed’ English GCSEs

Published on April 26, 2013,

Pupils will sit fewer coursework-style tasks at school under new plans to overhaul “seriously flawed” GCSE English qualifications. This is the Telegraph’s view of the news…

Ofqual, the exams watchdog, said qualifications in the subject would contain less “controlled assessment” following concerns that the system was open to abuse by teachers. (more…)

 
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