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!
Could not agree more! I’m also a special needs Science teacher who over the years has made GCSE entry rather than ELC the norm, (I teach AQA modular Science). Aspirations of students were raised resulting in those going onto Further Ed. increasing dramatically over recent years. Did Mr. Gove even consider the effect of changes on these students? It would appear not. No doubt in future I will be questioned by OFSTED as to why results are declining. Simply this is because students are being forced into an unsuitable assessment model created with little or no thought as to the requirements of SEN students.
I am Head of science in a medical PRU, we have children of all abilities, most of which have mental health issues, 80% of them suffer severe anxiety. You can just imagine what it is like in our place, come May, when exams loom. Children start dropping out. Science was sometimes the only GCSE they got, Edexcel had lots of small m/c tests and we we used to do all the centre devised activities – GCSE Physics 30% external exams, 70% internal assessment. So by the time May arrived most had completed their science. I had on more than 1 occasion pulled pieces of work off the student area and put enough bits of coursework together to mark and submit, the student may not have achieved a high grade but at least they got 1 GCSE. It worked a treat for our students, they could show their talents. I also introduced BTEC again the students thrived, science became for most their faviourite lesson, we had the whole range from level 1 BTEC to level 2 distinction.
We are now back to final exams and the panic that induces in our students and they are even putting exams into BTEC.
We have just been put on a notice to improve by Ofsted, nothing wrong with the teaching, but at an average 70% attendance we aren’t matching schools, no acknowledgement tha we have mentally ill children who some days can’t even move out of their bedrooms on a bad day, children who 0% attendance at school are now attending 70% of the time. when will the powers above realise that one model doesn’t fit all children.
It’s nice to read a bit commonsense education sometimes.