I received an email from an exam board today which said:
| Ofqual have announced changes to GCSE qualifications which will be of interest to schools registered with WJEC in England and in Wales.
Changes in England Ofqual, regulator for qualifications in England, announced that they will introduce changes to GCSEs for candidates starting two-year courses in September 2012. For awards in summer 2014 onwards, linear assessment will be compulsory for candidates in England. They will sit all their examinations at the end of their GCSE course, rather than having the possibility of taking them at different stages during the course as they do at present. Further details of the changes are available on the Ofqual site here |
Once again politics and Westminster teacher bashing takes precedent over the opinions and advice given by the teaching professionals who actually work with our children. Apparently our exams are too easy and we have to do something to make sure they aren’t. Of course these changes have far-reaching implications for our students, big ones for some.
My children are low attainers as you might expect (they attend a special school). About half do entry level qualifications and the rest work at GCSE level. There are children like mine in every mainstream school across the country – they aren’t that unusual. These are children that have to be reminded what they did last week (sometimes they forget what they did earlier in the day). These students will now have to remember what they learned up to two years ago. Whilst it is possible to build in revision sessions (after all how can students with low literacy levels reasonably revise at home?), it isn’t possible to revise everything in sufficient depth for the students to do themselves justice. I struggled getting enough revision in when we did modular exams.
So what is the answer? Not only are the exams being made harder but at the same time pressure is put on schools to achieve better and better results. The only conceivable way my students can achieve a GCSE-equivalent qualification that reflects their ability is to do a vocational qualification like BTEC where the assessment is portfolio based (although even this is being changed – more about BTEC changes here).
Of course none of these changes are pupil centred or put the student first. Mr Gove hasn’t considered how my students will feel if I enter them for a qualification they are doomed to fail. After the media and political attention drawn to the disaffected youth following the recent riots I thought the Government might have started to change its approach.
For now I’ll be plodding along following BTEC science with my students and trying to convince them as we go that they aren’t failures and that they have a place in society. Let’s hope I am right!
