Multiple exam boards ridiculous?

I'd say edexcel is a bit more challenging than perhaps OCR and AQA (in some cases) but the difference is however, is that for edexcel there are soo much resources to help, which definitely makes it much easier

In terms of Science AQA does seem very easy to other boards such as OCR and Edexcel.

Edit out that massive gap please..

During the time of Maggie there were 4 exam boards, one for each representative area of the country, with then one in Scotland and one in Wales. Not the 8 we have today.

Yes Uni's accept International students and usually they are very capable once through the language barrier, and often better educated than those who have come through the English system.

And I don't blame everything on New Labour, Churchill was essentially the worst Chancellor we have ever had, although I would have said that was Keynes if he ever had the position (he was only financial adviser to Attlee).

And that is quite possibly the worst idea I have ever heard - that would make the country even worse than it is by throwing away bright kids and giving money to those who are indefinitely more susceptible to doss and not work hard. Here's an idea that will go with what you just said, how about we make the poor poorer, but make the rich poorer by a bigger margin. I have no time for bull**** socialist ideas so please leave.




A school can pull you from any exam they want!

And Grammar schools essentially cherry picked the best students and put them in a school with those of similar capabilities, this drove up standards as parents wanted their kids to be in these good schools. Labour scrapped them because poor kids couldn't get in and brought in the Comprehensive system and shock horror that England is now free falling down most education charts.

I don't understand why it is acceptable to have sets based on talent in schools, but not schools based on talent? It's a complete joke. For example, I am awful at hockey, I would not turn up to a great hockey team and then get angry when they did not use all of their coaches to try and make me better - as it is not in my potential.. Yet if they ignored me and focused on the best players then I would expect that.

Yeah we do need more apprenticeships and the like, maybe if the government rose the minimum wage for them from £2.65 we might get somewhere.. And on that note, it is absolutely ridiculous that there is a minimum wage differing for what age you are - I'm surprised the Socialist Leftists that ruin pretty much everything in this Nation haven't jumped onto that. I don't understand why someone ages 18-21 is worth nearly £2 an hour less than someone ages 21 or over? Under 18 I can understand - but after that it is ridiculous.

The implicit assumption behind sporting metaphors is that the objective of education policy should be to focus on cherrypicking and developing a minority of high performers... This isn't obviously right at all, we've got a large number of people coming out of school with poor literacy and numeracy. This is also bad for the country.
We don't pick a team to educate we get given a mixed cohort and we've got to try do something with all of them. We aren't going to shoot up the international education chart by bringing back a system which dreadfully under resourced the schools attended by the majority.

Edit out that massive gap please..

I was tired and stressed last night, I had 3 exams today so I was stressing and wasn't really feeling having a fair debate, sorry - my bad

I agree that the levels leaving school with bad literacy and numeracy is a key problem - but that isn't a problem with senior school that goes down to parenting and primary school - studies have found that 39% of students behind at 7 years old never catch up.

Surely this supports the argument that people that underachieve throughout school tend to not get better, and could in a sense hold back those that get straight level 5s in their y6 SATS.

Another worrying figure is that only 58.6% achieve 5 a*-c grades when Maths and English are included... Something obviously needs to be done about that, bear in mind this includes the ridiculous foundation exams which have been described as that of a level 2 years below the higher GCSE papers..

On top of this, there is the fact that subjects have been moving away from the classic, respected subjects (Maths, English, the Sciences, Languages, History, Geography) and pushing an emphasis onto easier subjects as I have stated such as MFLs in people's mother tongue, or travel and tourism. Sure some more vocational GCSEs are great like PE and HE are great, but the absolute mickey mouse courses like Horse Care or Fish Husbandry are ridiculous.

I believe (may be wrong) that there are now somewhere around 50 subjects still accepted on GCSE league tables, which is far too high an amount. Especially when people compete for the best 6th forms, who simply require say 6 bs. One person gets 5 as including maths and english, but then he gets cs. Then another person gets maths, geography and then 4 vocationals at a level b - who is the better student? And who would get the place.. Sadly, from experience (friends), the latter.

I guess I just believe that the education system we have needs a serious serious reform, and I'm yet to really go further than that as I have ideas but have no real overall view!



Erm, please could you now edit the massive gap out of your quote? Thaaanks

There are 32 MFLs,5 Classical forign languages, English Language, English Lit, History, Geography, Double Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics,Maths,PE,RE, HE, DT,Music, Art.

As a Scot, the notion of having more than one exam board just seems a bit strange. In Scotland we have the Scottish Qualifications Authority(SQA) that make up every exam for every subject and every level that is taught in Scottish high schools. I admit that I don't know much about it, but I just can't see the benefits of having multiple exam boards competing against each other?

Sorry I'm slow to reply I was on football manager 8)

Oo this is interesting I don't really actually have much of an idea about the Scottish education system other then from friends at Fettes and Gordonstoun, but of course they are public anyway! Do the boards offer different levels within courses, for example a lower or higher maths paper for people of differing abilities in the same year?

I'm playing Football Manager right now!

I'd imagine that those schools follow the English curriculum anyway as most independent schools seem to do up here. And yeah they do. The SQA will have exams made for Standard Grades(essentially our GCSEs) at Credit, General and Foundation level. People either sit Credit/General or General/Foundation depending on level of ability. Credit is the hardest whilst Foundation is the easiest. We do 8 of these over two years in S3 & S4(Year 10 and Year 11 in England!)

Then in S5 we generally do Highers or Intermediate 2(some will do Intermediate 1) with Highers being the hardest and the ones required for University entry. Generally in S6 pupils who did Intermediate 2's in S5 will take those subjects at Higher the following year whilst those who did Highers in S5 will usually either take some different subjects at Higher level the following year or take Advanced Highers in the same subject(which are equivalent to A-levels).


I hope that your question was answered somewhere in all of that!

I'd have to agree that here in Scotland, the SQA really works for us at high school level.

The situation that mikec47 described is like the education system I went trough when they were transitioning between Standard Grades and Intermediates. But it's different now.

You do a broad range of classes in S1 and S2 (11-14 different subjects)

In S3, you choose 8 or 9 of these and are placed into either Intermediate 2(A bit like credit), Intermediate 1(general) or Access 3(Foundation) - really stupid people may do Access 1 or Access 2 but these are almost unheard of.

In S4, you continue studying your S3 subjects and take exams at the end of the year.

In S5, you pick 4-6 of your passed subjects and move up one level, you take exams in these subjects at the end of the year. Those who did Int2 will do Highers this year

In S6, you do any of your Int2s at Higher or Highers at Advanced Higher. You may also pick up any of your S4 subjects. You can also, with the school's permission, take a completely random subject that you've never took before("crashing" it).

Instead of S6, you may choose to go to uni if you did well enough in Highers at S5. Advanced Higher students can often go straight into second year at uni.



The most common route is Int1/Int2 in S4 > Int2/Higher in S5 > Higher/AH mix in S6

Learn to understand them before you say anything about them.

You make a very good point - I understand your concept that it ensures teachers know the subject and not just the syllabus - but one would hope that as teachers tend to have done at least fairly relevant degrees, then they would know it in the first place? And as they teach several years then they would have a broad level of knowledge?

I may have been lucky in the sense I went to both a brilliant public school and a state 6th form which is in the top 5 in the country - but from my experience, teachers tend to enjoy what they are teaching and if they don't, they let you know (my politics teachers regularly remind us that they hate teaching us Europe etc); and in fact many had very good degrees from top Uni's (Oxford, Manchester, Camebrigde - several were Drs) and you could ask them on pretty much anything on the subject and they could answer pretty in depth. Though I understand that this will obviously not be the same for all.

To be fair, I can admit that it is not just exam boards that are the problem - the removal of the Grammar school system was an absolute travesty and schools no longer aim to educate, merely to meet targets and look good on tables.

Furthermore I think it is an outrage that children to foreign parents such as the Polish can do a GCSE in Polish, which is not like our English exams - it is like a MFL exam - so schools can get easy a*s, it genuinely infuriates me. I also detest how courses such as Travel & Tourism, Horse Care & Management or Health & Social Care (to name a few) are offered at A-Level and schools tell students that they are acceptable and good subjects to take that will be respected by any half decent University.

There are deep deep flaws in our education system - I find it sad that I have to look to a nutjob like Gove and hope that he will be able to pass his plans...

So you can't really make Polish GCSE much harder than French GCSE for example.

What on Earth is wrong with WJEC? The exams certainly weren't easy.

No but you could make it so people with lineage from such nations can't do exams in them..

That would be against both UK and EU discrimination laws.