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What do you think to ending January exams?

Poll

What do you think to ending January exams ?

Don't Scrap January A-Level Exams 14,169 total signatures so far ...


The pressure on students studying A-levels is already huge; the government’s proposal will prevent many capable students from achieving their full potential.


The role of education is to enable students to achieve their best, if you can appreciate the harm that this change will inflict, then please support young people across the UK by signing below.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41702

Edit : ^ The poll above is regarding and is in relation to the " Don't Scrap January A-level Exams " statement ~ Not " What do you think to ending January exams"

Edit 2 = To all the haters who are giving me a negative rep ; don't hate - just appreciate lol :gangster:
(edited 10 years ago)

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Reply 1
January Exams, the one golden hope all students, the oppurtunity to see just how screwed they are for their A-Levels. Something needed by all students to get a grasp of how they are progressing within their respective subject and for them to understand whether certain subjects are suitable for them.

Ofqual has stated that '...A level students approach examinations with the expectation that they will always get a second chance.' This is true for the new Year 12 students entering A-Levels like its a walk in a park. Then they get their results from the January exams and realise just how serious these exams really are. I can more or less garuntee though that from this point onwards, any student how wants to achieve academic success will work hard the first time. Why? A module from any subject requires substantial work, re-taking this module would apply more pressure on a pupil that is unnecessary. An academically geared student recognises this once they receive their January results and ergo, praise thee January exams, lifesavers and time givers.

I would like to address one of the key findings as stated by Ofqual 'increasing synoptic assessment in A levels, allowing students to integrate and apply their skills, knowledge and understanding with breadth and depth' which basically means that they want to assess a students knowledge of subject in such a way that it tests everything they know and understand about a subject, which is great, that's the point of A-Levels, making the links between key points and understanding these links. These 'synoptic assessments' appear to be suggesting the dreaded final, all-in-one super exam. This type of exam logically makes sense to implement as it tackles all subject understanding at once, but, this requires a student to wholly grasp a subject and be able to apply the entire subjec tknowledge at once, no matter how broad the subject is, or how much it varies. You may argue that the specification can be modified to allow the exam to contain mainly relevant or similar topics; this, however, is impossible for the current Year 12 students who must stick with the current syllabus as changes cannot be made half-way through a qualification.

We should keep the January exams as they are an opportunity for a student to further their learning or a chance to improve their academic success. This petition https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41702 is to bring back the January exams. If you need further convincing ask ANY A-Level student and they will tell you just how important these exams really are.
Reply 2
bump
Reply 3
I completely agree with you, January exams are what we, THE STUDENTS, not, and this is a direct quote from Ofqual, 'FEWER THAN 1000 respondents who took part in the 3 month programme.
Reply 4
:bump:
Reply 5
The thing that annoys me most is that for students who realise the work required from A-levels from the beginning are suffering if they get a shock result in August that means ideally they would like to resit a module to bring up an otherwise ideal grade.

I'm in my first year and hopeful of getting 4 As, however one of my exams I am concerned about because I felt I could have done better but have worked hard all year and this was just a lapse under exam conditions.

Essentially, what removing January resits does is places unnecessary pressure on students in the summer exam season. Considering how much pressure is placed on students at the current time you would hope that the government would at least allow us this! There is no respite, work us to the bone, raise tuition fees, remove January resits....
Reply 6
Original post by m-s-96
I completely agree with you, January exams are what we, THE STUDENTS, not, and this is a direct quote from Ofqual, 'FEWER THAN 1000 respondents who took part in the 3 month programme.


The sample size is very small ; so the results are statistically insignificant and have produced inconclusive results.

3 month programme + <1000 respondents = Not Reliable :colone:
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 7
Original post by Tha Realest
Don't Scrap January A-Level Exams

The pressure on students studying A-levels is already huge; the government’s proposal will prevent many capable students from achieving their full potential.



The role of education is to enable students to achieve their best, if you can appreciate the harm that this change will inflict, then please support young people across the UK by signing below.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41702


I agreee! We should try and get 100,000 signatures :3
Reply 8
The jump from GCSE to a-level is very significant - even right now when the January exams are in place.
It will become ridiculously hard if we don't get an opportunity to sit the January exams then learn from our experiences and mistakes for the June ones.
A nice solution/alternative to this would be limited amount of resits a student can have, putting a cap on resits.
Surely students, teachers and school governors should have some sort of input on this change rather than the change being dictated by our unsung hero Michael Gove.
Reply 9
Original post by Wizkidani
I agreee! We should try and get 100,000 signatures :3


Yeah > I hope so :biggrin:
Reply 10
Original post by cleveradam
The jump from GCSE to a-level is very significant - even right now when the January exams are in place.
It will become ridiculously hard if we don't get an opportunity to sit the January exams then learn from our experiences and mistakes for the June ones.
A nice solution/alternative to this would be limited amount of resits a student can have, putting a cap on resits.
Surely students, teachers and school governors should have some sort of input on this change rather than the change being dictated by our unsung hero Michael Gove.


Michael Gove is a "miserable pipsqueak of a man" ~ lol :biggrin:
I think we should have January exams, with a cap of 1 resit per module.
Reply 12
Resits allowed if you were ill or family bereavement or something, but you must not attempt to sit it. Else you just have a look and walk out if the questions aren't to your liking.
Why is the question "What do you think to ending January exams?" and the answers are some form of Yes or No. That doesn't make sense :redface:
Reply 14
I understand why they are ending the exams, as for me I do live on a resit culture. So I do get it, even if I don't like it. It's harder for me I think, as I'm just doing my AS exams, and so for the first time where I won't have any January exams it will be my last and most difficult year in school, so it's a bit unfair there.
Reply 15
Getting rid of January exams also deters students, who want to, from choosing to do 4 or even 5 A2 subjects in year 13 for fear of having a potential 10+ A2 exams in the space of a few weeks. Although this isn't much of a problem in the UK because we give out offers usually based on 3A2 subects, students applying internationally will have a lot of problems because these students usually apply for scholarships and you have to stand out from the crowd a lot to gain them.

I also think the grade boundaries of the exams next June will be lower than usual because the workload may mean that less hours of revision are given to each exam than before because there's more of them. This'll mean that a lot more people won't have the 'deep' knowledge of their subjects that Gove is looking for, but more of the artificial knowledge simply needed to get the grade needed. But that's just my guess.

Edit: I sent that petition to my head of 6th a couple of days ago and she forwarded it onto 1400 students and all staff. :tongue: Anyone who has an approachable head of 6th may want to try that? :redface:
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 16
Original post by MJTravers
Getting rid of January exams also deters students, who want to, from choosing to do 4 or even 5 A2 subjects in year 13 for fear of having a potential 10+ A2 exams in the space of a few weeks. Although this isn't much of a problem in the UK because we give out offers usually based on 3A2 subects, students applying internationally will have a lot of problems because these students usually apply for scholarships and you have to stand out from the crowd a lot to gain them.

I also think the grade boundaries of the exams next June will be lower than usual because the workload may mean that less hours of revision are given to each exam than before because there's more of them. This'll mean that a lot more people won't have the 'deep' knowledge of their subjects that Gove is looking for, but more of the artificial knowledge simply needed to get the grade needed. But that's just my guess.

Edit: I sent that petition to my head of 6th a couple of days ago and she forwarded it onto 1400 students and all staff. :tongue: Anyone who has an approachable head of 6th may want to try that? :redface:


1400? That's awesome! We should all try that ^-^
I think the ideal situation would be one in which January exams are still available, and one is permitted to resit an exam as many times as they wish - but that whenever they declare their grades to a university or employer etc. they have to mention the number of attempts they had, and the results of their previous attempts if they're asked (or perhaps this information should be available on the certificate).

This would mean that candidates who got good grades first time are distinguishable from those who took several attempts (and the university or employer can place whatever emphasis they deem appropriate upon the number of attempts). The more information the university/employer has, the easier it will be to decide whether you really are a suitable candidate for their offer. Also, it makes it fairer for the people who were able to succeed in one go, and it discourages people from sitting exams when they're not ready for them.
But it also means that candidates aren't stuck with the first grade they get. Normally in a scientific experiment, if you want to test something, you repeat the experiment over and over again to get reliable results. If you want to test the height of Chinese people for example, you don't just measure the first one you see, you do it over and over again with lots of different people. Similarly, a test of someone's academic ability should allow for them to resit an exam, so they're not just assumed to be academically incapable just because of one unfortunate, anomalous result.
(edited 10 years ago)
yeah I want January exams too but the thing is, I know deep down really I should be doing well enough first time round to not need a resit. I did love having January exams this year though, it meant I could actually afford to make a mistake and resit some exams in June and now the most important year is coming up (A2) and that opportunity has gone when I need it the most!
Firstly: how many threads do we need on this petition?

Secondly: you do realise this petition is an abuse of the English language, don't you? I wouldn't want to send something to parliament with my name on it that shows that I don't know the difference between "exasperate" and "exacerbate" - it just goes to show that we need more rigour in our education system.

Thirdly: that petition is really just an emotional appeal for signatures. If it reaches its goal it will be debated by parliament. MPs will read it and say "Students want exams to be easier". Get a new petition that makes some logical, debatable points.

Finally, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect students to apply all their knowledge in a final exam. One of the main criticisms I've seen of this is that it will lead to cramming rather than learning, but actually if questions require integration of knowledge from several topics then these all must be understood rather than just remembered, leading to better all-round learning of the subject. I'm fairly neutral towards January exams - they're not hugely a problem, although resits should definitely be capped. I probably wouldn't sign this petition even if it made sense. There are also much more pressing and important issues that the government is creating, such as the split of A and AS levels into separate qualifications. This will only hinder state schooled pupils or those who, like me, came into their full academic potential aged 16-17 rather than 14-15.

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