Whenever people learn that I invigilate GCSE/A Level exams at a local secondary school, they always respond with: 'Oh, exams were much easier in my day'. Which I translate as: 'the mists of time have blurred my memory of what it was really like.'
OK, some subjects - Modern Foreign Languages and Music for example, are easier, but the peripherals and pressures today are vastly different. Now the cohort of 2015 have to obtain B grades in Maths, Science and English just to get into Sixth Form, which would exclude me for a start as I only got five O Levels, none of them Maths (failed twice) and none of them Science (kicked out for disruptive behaviour).
In 1966, eight subjects was considered the maximum a student could handle. Now, many Year 11s take twelve or more subjects, meaning that they can be sitting as many as four exams in a single day. It's a logistical nightmare. But if you choose to turn your back on education and leave school at 16, there are very few apprenticeships or decent jobs waiting for you.
Even if you decide to stay on to do A Levels, the chances are you will have to pass with top grades to be considered by any decent university. Straight As and A* at GCSE and the same at A Level or you won't get that place you want on the course you have chosen. So no way would I, with my rubbish O Levels be offered an unconditional place to read English & Archaeology at London University, as I was in 1968.
And then after your three years' study, you leave with a debt of £50,000 and no prospect of a well paid job. No wonder every secondary school I know now holds therapy groups for stressed and depressed students. And incidents of self-harming and eating disorders have rocketed.I was not a 'successful' student measured by today's standards. I wasn't gregarious, I was no teacher's favourite. I spent a lot of time not being there. My interest lay in other areas .... I read voraciously, wrote copiously and thought exams and school were a waste of my time.Today's hot-house system would have consigned me to to life's rubbish heap.
My fear is that it's probably doing just this to many talented teenagers who don't fit into the mould and can't handle the current one-size-fits-all educational treadmill. Easier exams? Possibly. But a far more uncertain future.
Excellent post. I wasn't an academic student and this is all the more evident when trying to assist my children with their homework! I loved English - I passed English - that was it! My eldest sat his GCSEs last year and fought hard for his college place. I've got two more about to start their exams eek. The stress that children are put under is ridiculous, even at junior school age! Good luck to them :)
ReplyDeleteagreed..remember the blog I did about Little G getting a report with targets - age 15 months! Ridiculous!
DeleteI agree with much of what you say, with my limited knowledge of the modern school system. However, we have to remember that exams are easier these days - and I don't care what anyone says to the contrary, they've got to be. My step-niece is not academically orientated and her written English is not the best, yet she got 10 GCSEs. GCSEs are partly dependent on course work (I know, for instance, that my step-niece's mother used to do half of hers via the internet), reference books can be taken into exam rooms - in 'my day' we had to LEARN all our English Lit quotes! Students study books for A Level that are 'easier' that those we would have done for O Level. A Levels MUST be easier, generally - when I was at school my sister was the only person in her year (at a good grammar school) to get 3 As at A level. Now, loads of kids get 3 and 4 x A*. The A* grade would have been unheard of in the 1970s.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that your intelligence and the work you did at the time would have gained you the qualifications to get into the 6th form, at least. And I think the previous system probably had flaws too, just different ones.
there will be no coursework after Sept 15th...and books can't be taken into exams - so that will gladden your heart! However, the inability of students to concentrate for long periods of time, read and memorize texts and work in silence, thanks to the rise and rise of social media (can't blame them..) means it will be far harder for them than for the likes of you and I.
DeleteI enrages me when people talk about exams being 'easier' - that means nothing unless the context, as you say, is taken into account. My daughters all graduated before tuition fees, but I look at my grandchildren and try not to despair about the educational impossibilities we are setting up for them.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I retrained as a teacher as D was the first cohort to cop Uni fees and I couldn't bear the thought of her starting working life with a debt. The stakes get higher and higher, and the levels of stress more and more. I work in the education system. Don't tell me it's ''easier'' today. Haven't met a single parent/teacher who'd agree with you.
DeleteThere is far too much pressure on school children these days, and that can only be counter productive to most of them. At the end of every school day, I groan when I see the amount of work being struggled home.
ReplyDeleteI suppose they have a choice...clever and crippled with rheumatism or...