Nicola Sturgeon 'sorry' over Scottish exam results (BBC News)

[alphabet_king]

Apart from marking irregular homework and knowing who puts hands up in class, how can a teacher predict the intelligence and potential of one pupil in classes of often over thirty? That is the purpose of exams and they are marked by someone with no prior knowledge of the pupil so is the perfect "acid test".

Otherwise, this applies:
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news...eacher-guessed-his-grades-were-20200811199319

I think you have wildly underestimated the job of a teacher and the involvement they have with each pupil there mate.
Interesting that on one hand we're being told there's irregular homework, and then on the other hand some are arguing there's too much homework.
I believe teachers will have a very good knowledge of their pupils ability over the course of the year.

That said, i remember my Music teacher came up to me immediately after my music GCSE (18 years ago now at Hundred of Hoo) after peering over my shoulder during the exam and expressed surprise at how well i had done. He literally had no idea that I had been a music scholar at my previous school, and grown up in a very musical family. He had never taken the time to find out and i dont think our music lessons followed the gcse curriculum at all. I think we had had a few different teachers over the course of the year also. I remember our music lessons consisting of composing trance music using a computer DJ program and virtually no theory, listening practice or history at all. But he was certainly the exception to the rule.

 

[goddington_gill]

i see they've reverted to the original grades predicted - so apparently pupils DID perform 20-30% better this year than previous years - what tosh!

 

[alphabet_king]

i see they've reverted to the original grades predicted - so apparently pupils DID perform 20-30% better this year than previous years - what tosh!

Well done to our teachers on their performance to get our kids to that unprecedented level of success. And well done to those pupils too.

Maybe next year they should miss the whole year rather than just 4 months. They might do even better than this year.

 

[jogills]

I think the older end that left school long ago overestimate the worth of their own attainments while calling into question that of each new cohort. I include myself in that assessment. The politicians and media are aware of this and mine the seam shamelessly for support for and distraction. Given that those above 18 massively outumber those under 18 this tactic is a reliable winner but it's destructive.

The issue this time is not some imagined loss of standard but the injustice done to pupils. It is unjust to award a grade after two or more years work, gradually and publically undermine your own process and then downgrade a large number of individuals. Well done the scots for righting that wrong and I hope we follow suit.

If I were an employer I would be more persuaded to engage someone well regarded and judged by his or her teachers. I'd at least know something about his or her general job worthiness. I've blagged a few exams in my time, it was something that came easy but I don't think it proved very much at all.

 

[jogills]

On the subject of homework: My son is in year 7. He hardly had any homework to be done throughout his primary school life. I expected that to change as he went into secondary school, but he still just doesn't get much at all maybe a couple of hours a week. He just does not have anything like the amount of homework I expected him to have in senior school, certainly less than I had at his age.

My other son is just going into year 2. He has only 15 minutes of reading to be done each day.

I really don't think the amount of homework given is anywhere near a 'disgrace'. In fact, it's closer to being a disgrace that they don't do more.

On the subject of exams: I see absolutely no issue with putting pressure on kids to do well in exams. Of course, i wouldn't be putting too much pressure on them, but certainly they should be pushed. I am of the opinion that it will prepare them for life, where you are constantly assessed. I certainly am in my job. I have constant deadlines and 'big meetings' where I need to prepare and perform well in. It's our education system's duty to prepare kids for the outside world of life and work, and that includes the above IMO.

Assessing is also simply one of the only way of ascertaining whether schools are doing a good job or not. Ofsted is part of assessing (another contentious issue), but ultimately the best assessment of a school's performance is to test whether the kids have learnt the sylabus or not. No doubt being a teacher yourself you'll inform me that all teachers (and school leadership teams) are perfect/great and don't need their performance monitored at all.

Your comment about the school system not fitting everyone is another matter. If you believe they are testing the wrong skills (i.e. too academic, or not focusing on a rounded curriculum etc.), that's entirely another matter. It's not related to whether assessments are right or wrong IMO.

My mum was a primary teacher too (recently retired) so I have pretty good knowledge of this subject area after years of seeing the pressure she was under to perform either with KS2 examinations or Ofsted. Oddly enough, I also studied a couple of interesting education modules in university discussing the arguments for/against different methods of assessment and the reasoning behind them. So i like to think my opinions are at least a little bit informed.

If you don't assess the kids you simply lose the ability to make sure your schools are doing a good job. And before you suggest it, schools clearly can't be relied upon to mark their own homework, if you excuse my pun. That has virtually been proven by the number of inflated exam predictions in this instance.

I'd agree with some of that but I don't agree that teachers are somehow inflating anything. Assessment will always produce different results to exams. This time we asked teachers to make assessments on what they knew of pupils' abilities. We didn't ask them to guess at the outcome of a sat exam.

Of course we need to make sure that standards are maintained but the debate is often used for other purposes and appeals to prejudice. I can't speak for your kids but many are set far too much homework and I don't think it achieves much anyway. I was talking about the suitability of the curriculum and exam system, which has been designed and developed for a minority, who are suited to academic thought and study. For the rest it is little more than an obstacle course and a slow humiliation. Other countries start learning formally later, do less homework, are not compelled to study academic subjects throughout and produce as good and better results. They also do better in training the future makers and doers.

I'm not and never have been a teacher. My wife taught for many years and I don't buy all their arguments and special pleading. I do think this problem is one made by government albeit I have (a little) sympathy as decisions are having to be made thick and fast.

 

[Gills 58]

For once I'm not being political as Labour and Tory governments are responsible for setting the agenda under which the school system "operates". They have been similar in what they have set up.

Schools are exam factories and, sadly, don't really prepare kids for life.

I am guilty of participating in this factory system for 34 years and, though I say so myself, had a good record of cramming kids for exams. Sadly, this wasn't what they really needed outside school but it is how they are judged by society. Don't blame teachers, we were pressurised into doing this. There are some saints who do fantastic social work and give wonderful advice to kids bit they are rare and get little or no credit.

Kids who are good at cramming do well. Lots of good kids who had excellent interpersonal skills and other attributes that would be of benefit to the workplace lost out as these skills are rarely, if ever, assessed.

If your comments re teachers' ability are aimed at me AK then I'm certainly not claiming that they are all great. There is a desperate shortage of decent teachers and my nice school in leafy Bromley was struggling to recruit decent staff, let alone schools in tougher areas. The good staff that remain are overworked particularly as they have to make up for the weak ones.

I'm relieved to have escaped the whole thing.

Ps, I did try to teach kids about real life. However, they didn't seem to think a string of terrible jokes and listening to me going on about the Gills was much use for some reason.

 

[goddington_gill]

I'd agree with some of that but I don't agree that teachers are somehow inflating anything. Assessment will always produce different results to exams. This time we asked teachers to make assessments on what they knew of pupils' abilities. We didn't ask them to guess at the outcome of a sat exam.

Of course we need to make sure that standards are maintained but the debate is often used for other purposes and appeals to prejudice. I can't speak for your kids but many are set far too much homework and I don't think it achieves much anyway. I was talking about the suitability of the curriculum and exam system, which has been designed and developed for a minority, who are suited to academic thought and study. For the rest it is little more than an obstacle course and a slow humiliation. Other countries start learning formally later, do less homework, are not compelled to study academic subjects throughout and produce as good and better results. They also do better in training the future makers and doers.

I'm not and never have been a teacher. My wife taught for many years and I don't buy all their arguments and special pleading. I do think this problem is one made by government albeit I have (a little) sympathy as decisions are having to be made thick and fast.

and it is also unjust for the pupils who received the 'correct' grade to see large numbers of others getting higher grades than justified

 

[Straightbat]

It's inevitable that teachers' grades will be inflated. This is because a significant number of pupils will be borderline at a grade boundary, and the teachers are bound to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Each year when I taught A level the exam boards collected teachers' estimated grades. By matching these against historical outcomes it should be possible to moderate this year's estimated grades and adjust them by the amount they have been previously overestimated.

You can't really have one year when grades are significantly higher than in the past - it's not fair on people entering a competitive market from other years. However if an exam based appeals process means that more people are upgraded than normal I think that is the only way to be fair to this year's cohort as well.

 

[goddington_gill]

It's no great shock that teachers' grades needed to be reduced. I've never been a great fan of the Daily Mail unless it supported my argument (which is seldom!)

But research by University College London released yesterday showed that up to 74 per cent of predicted grades are an overestimate of exam performance.
The study by UCL's Institute of Education also showed 80 per cent of teacher predictions of A-level outcomes from a previous year were inaccurate.

They've always been crap at predicting grades!

 

[GillsBluenose]

When it all boils down, I feel that educational grades only get your foot in the door so as to increase the likelyhood of a job interview, or get you in to a favoured University. That only takes you so far.

At some point, if you want a job you have to prove yourself on the shop floor, so as to speak. Furthermore, universities only have so many places so if the teachers overestimate grades of nearly ALL the students that may have been found out by examination results, which looks now to be the case, demand will heavily outstrip supply.

I don't think our generation are particularly embittered by the exam results of recent years where it seems so many students obtain "A" grades in so many subjects. Maybe they do work harder than we did. It just seems unrealistic when such a small percentage of my schoolmates (at a well regarded Grammar School) achieved such grades.

Again, there are only so many jobs and university places available and achieving an A grade would not be such a cause of celebration when 90% of your peers get the same.

I really don't envy youngsters the extra pressure that must cause.

 

[PhilK66]

I have several friends who are/were teachers. My sister is a teacher and my Ex was a teacher.

From what they have told me at various times and it seems to coincide with my own experience at school teachers fall into one of three camps. A third or so are genuine "Dead Poets Society", inspirational teachers; another third genuinely hate children and are in the wrong job; and the final camp are just incompetent.

As far as exam grades/degree attainments are concerned I have found over years of employing young people often they count for nothing. A lot of graduates had attitude problems and so called "late developers" with poorish academic records turned out to be go getters when it came to work. It is a great pity IMHO that the polytechnics were abandoned.