A Level Results Today!

[saddad]

I teach Humanities subjects... he has gone over to the "dark side"...
:-\

[saddad]

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'd agree with Caroline; A-levels were the hardest exams I ever did. In those days though, the only thing you had at university was the exam; no coursework or anything like that. They have to work harder these days.

[markfield rover]

Bristol ,Archaeology
And she is having 'words' with the Telegraph.

[caroline7758]

Ooh, sounds exciting, mr. By the way, was it just her school that had the results online, or could I have saved myself the stress by findinf Becky's before she got them?

[grawrc]

I would say that in Scotland the exams have got easier in one sense but haven't in another. The prose (translation from English) doesn't exist any more and the translation from foreign language to English is very short.  The prose was always the hardest part of the paper. On the other hand today's learners are asked to write under considerable pressure of time in the foreign language. They are also expected to give a talk and engage in a discussion which is all recorded. Speaking was hardly assessed at all in my day, yet it is probably the most useful skill for most learners to have. There is also continuous assessment which means they are under pressure all the time and you have to multiply the assessments by by or 6 for all the subjects they do. (Scottish pupils tend to do 5 Highers for university entrance).

I think what I am saying is that we are not testing the same things but hopefully are developing more useful and appropriate skills for today.

Oh and yes! Well done to all the young people who have worked so hard to achieve excellent results.

[manicscousers]

sorry, folks, that was the o level results, need a doolally little man
they all got 2 to 3 a levels  ;D

[markfield rover]

Caroline, I do not know if it was only her school ,but I wouldn't have thougt so.
She will be self-catering , so it's how to cook curries today.They have all done very well. As young
Mr Grace would say.

[Sparkly]

I teach Biology at a 6th form college. The exam's are easier in the sense that some of the content has been removed. It is now standard for students to take 4 AS levels. Since students are studying more subjects then some of the content has to go in order for the syllabus to fit into a teaching year. It is not neccessarily the hard stuff that has been removed though. Results are 'fixed' in the sense that with the modular system, students can 'decline' a grade and save the good modular results for a period in the future, should they choose to resit. This means that many of the true 'fails' just fall out of the system. They do not resit but the system just doesn't list them, rather than list a fail. This increases the pass grade! In addition students can 'down-grade' to an AS level if they pass the earlier units, but do no achieve on the A2 units. So many students achieve an AS grade E, rather than a fail in the A level exam. If you look at individual unit grades or the AS grades over the whole country that is a far better review of the actual achievement. I do believe the pass rate in AS Biology is about 65-70%. The number of A grades has improved, but this is as the students get the chance to resit individual modules. It's all media hype. I can tell you that A level Biology is not easy!

[saddad]

Very well explained Sparkly... I teach as well... but your rational explanation doesn't make good tabloid headlines!
;D

[Si D]

Whether the exams are getting easier or not, the students can only answer the questions put in front of them so it's not really fair to criticise them on the grounds that they might have easier exams.

But, IMHO, it is fair to criticise a system that seems more intent on teaching them how to pass exams than actually teaching them about the subjects that they are doing.  My better half teaches infants/juniors and she is becoming disheartened by the amount of time she has to put toward exam prep rather than real teaching.

At the other end of the educational spectrum, I'm meant to be teaching a first year uni module next year.  This was previously a module that introduced debate, reseach and critical thinking techniques, and I was looking forward to it.  But now it has had to change to a module that attempts to teach the new students how to write essays  ::)