Easy
It’s results time again. That time of the year when the GCSE, AS-level and A-level results come out.
Then we get the media assessment and it is as follows:
Lots of people have got A* at GCSE level or A at A-level.
So the exams must have got easier.
Those teenagers who have worked really hard for these exams, and the teachers who have worked very hard to teach them, get nearly five minutes of glory before being told that all their results are worthless because these exams are really easy. Even our gecko could get at least a B.
When I am In Charge I will get every journalist who has written an article along these lines into a very big hall and keep them there until they have done exams in every single GCSE subject. Then we’ll count the A* grades.
I have seen the work that my daughter Emily has done for GCSE and then for AS-levels and they are NOT easy. In fact I think that the maths, in particular, is harder than when I did “O”- level in, er, 1972. In French there seems to me to be plenty of grammar still going on, in spite of people telling me at regular intervals that “they don’t bother with grammar nowadays.” History requires rather more analysis and rather less regurgitation of the notes that the teacher prepared in 1962 (which is how I was taught). I could go on, but I won’t.
There is a huge jump in difficulty from GCSE to AS-level, too, and the newish subject English Language, which Emily has studied, seems to me to be both very difficult and extremely exacting. The English Literature essays that she has written have seemed to me to be very demanding – and that was my degree subject so I think I am a bit qualified to say.
And, of course, when I was in the sixth form we didn’t have external exams in what was then the Lower Sixth. I think three lots of external exams in three years is ridiculous. Shouldn’t young people just entering adulthood have time for some sort of a life outside work?
I can’t give you Emily’s results, because she will kill me, but I’m not saying all this because she did badly – she did brilliantly. And after all the hard work and the stress I think she deserves congratulations, and not to be told - by people who know nothing at all about it - that all the exams were easy.
Then we get the media assessment and it is as follows:
Lots of people have got A* at GCSE level or A at A-level.
So the exams must have got easier.
Those teenagers who have worked really hard for these exams, and the teachers who have worked very hard to teach them, get nearly five minutes of glory before being told that all their results are worthless because these exams are really easy. Even our gecko could get at least a B.
When I am In Charge I will get every journalist who has written an article along these lines into a very big hall and keep them there until they have done exams in every single GCSE subject. Then we’ll count the A* grades.
I have seen the work that my daughter Emily has done for GCSE and then for AS-levels and they are NOT easy. In fact I think that the maths, in particular, is harder than when I did “O”- level in, er, 1972. In French there seems to me to be plenty of grammar still going on, in spite of people telling me at regular intervals that “they don’t bother with grammar nowadays.” History requires rather more analysis and rather less regurgitation of the notes that the teacher prepared in 1962 (which is how I was taught). I could go on, but I won’t.
There is a huge jump in difficulty from GCSE to AS-level, too, and the newish subject English Language, which Emily has studied, seems to me to be both very difficult and extremely exacting. The English Literature essays that she has written have seemed to me to be very demanding – and that was my degree subject so I think I am a bit qualified to say.
And, of course, when I was in the sixth form we didn’t have external exams in what was then the Lower Sixth. I think three lots of external exams in three years is ridiculous. Shouldn’t young people just entering adulthood have time for some sort of a life outside work?
I can’t give you Emily’s results, because she will kill me, but I’m not saying all this because she did badly – she did brilliantly. And after all the hard work and the stress I think she deserves congratulations, and not to be told - by people who know nothing at all about it - that all the exams were easy.
posted by Daphne at 11:59 pm
5 Comments:
And when the country's results aren't so good, students are FAILING and teachers are crap.
(I didn't do brilliantly, I got a B in French, and in my teachers' eyes that's equivalent to a U).
Right, since Emily's mentioned the B in French in her AS-levels I think I now have the right to mention the A in English Language, the A in History, the A in General Studies and the A in English Literature (and in Eng Lit she got 100% in all three papers which is brilliant enough for anyone).
Until 1953 no-one had climbed Everest, though several had tried. Now dozens and dozens climb the mountain every year. Everest hasn't gotten any lower, [it's actually getting higher by a few milimetres each year] or less inhospitable, it's just that we understand more about climbing and are better at it after a lot of hard work.
The same can be said about exams, though most examination regulators frown on you bringing all those Nepalese porters into the hall.
Bloody exams. I'm glad she got results that will let her go on to do whatever it is she wants to do, and I hope her life stops including exams as early as practical for her chosen course (er, meaning path, not curriculum).
It's really the future scope for her is sky high....I wish if I did get that much so that one day I too join my father as a hydrulic engineer in aquabot ....So what yours plans for the future....?I am sure its not to become an actress...
Post a Comment
<< Home