Posts Tagged GCSE
Is the success of academies a sham?
Posted by James Gubb in Education on 14/12/2009
A new survey released today by Civitas has uncovered alarming evidence that deprived young people are being short-changed by Academies, with strong evidence students are being pushed into less challenging subjects and qualifications to drive up headline results.
“And in the twilight zone, trees are purple (not blue, as Gove claims!)”
Posted by Claire Daley in Education on 27/08/2008
Dr Ruth Lupton of the Institute of Education has taken the Conservative’s recent education report, A Failed Generation, to task for using dodgy statistics to claim that the education gap between rich and poor has widened on New Labour’s watch. Her criticisms are powerful but not exactly an overwhelming indictment of the report. One of its claims was based on a statistic on SATS mistakenly provided by the DCSF suggesting, helpfully, that results of repeated information requests from government departments are not especially accurate.
PISA – Show’s over: international study exposes government standards charade
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 05/12/2007
Final straw for government’s education record: world’s most comprehensive assessment of pupil knowledge and skills crushes UK government claims of rising school standards.
- 523 – 495 (28 point decline) from 2000 in reading amongst UK 15 yr olds: a decline from 23 points above the OECD average, to 3 points above average. This is a drop from 7th to 17th place in PISA’s international rankings
- 529 – 495 (34 point decline) from 2000 in maths amongst UK 15 yr olds: a decline from 29 points above average, to 3 points below average. This is a drop from 8th to 24th place in PISA’s international rankings
Combien d’étudiants qui ont appris le français jusqu’à GCSE savent écrire cette phrase?
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 23/08/2007
In the wake of the annual controversy sparked by inflated A-level results, real evidence has emerged that GCSEs are similarly suffering a crisis of quality – writes Thomas Woods. Writing in today’s Telegraph newspaper, a languages examiner has revealed the existence of a co-ordinated system of ‘teaching to the test’. In the French Oral section pupils are at liberty to memorise a string of answers which they are assured will be required in the exam. The writing section (which is now 100 per cent coursework) involves students reeling off identical essays using ‘writing frames’ already set out for them by the teachers. Token attempts at variation are provided with the individuals’ choice of holiday and weekend activity.