Unintended consequences.

[woolymonkey]

Another episode in the tragicomedy of Mr. Gove...

Squirrel has brought home a letter from Monkey Federation Academies TM.  That Maths GCSE he was going to take next month so he could get it over with and concentrate on Additional Maths?  Cancelled. Thanks to Gove's campaign to raise standards, 60 kids at MFA will now be learning less Maths rather than more.

Mr. Gove has ruled that only the first sitting of any subject GCSE can be counted towards a school's league table place.  So the school has decided not to risk early exams at all.  Better to wait until June, when they'll have had more Maths lessons, and bugger the Additional Maths since it's not a GCSE and doesn't get counted towards anything (apart from being massively helpful for Maths A Level next year).
Thing is, kids can sit GCSE as many times as they like and still keep the best result - it's just the school that has to stick with the first grade awarded. The conflict of interests is as obvious as it is unhelpful.  The school has made it clear they are pissed off but all they have to suggest is 'Write to your MP'.  Maths geek kids are talking about protests and lesson boycotts.  Maths geek parents have yet to react.  Personally, I'm planning to sigh a lot and have a hot bath.

Dear Mr. Gove,
Did you ever think that maybe the reason schools want multiple shots at the 'same' exam is because the marking and grading have become so erratic?  Might it help to make the system more predictable rather than less?  Maybe?  Or that it might be helpful to consult on new ideas for a minimum of 5 minutes before implementing them?  No, of course not.  Why would you?
Yours
PissedOffMonkeyMum

Comments

[smtfhw.livejournal.com]

The idea that Gove thinks at all seems pretty unlikely to me... It's beyond me how someone so apparently stupid can be allowed anywhere near education!

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

Please don't get me started on Gove. :(

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Quite. See fig. 1:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BV_XrqLIEAAH3Jw.jpg:large

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

You've probably seen this but...

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

How true.
Gove doesn't think kids need teaching anyway - it's all down to genetics. Head-desk.

Ironically I'm not that keen on early GCSEs. Schools have often pushed them as a way of getting multiple gos to help their league tables, rather than because it's good for the kids (who are already ridiculously over-examined). I worry that taking exams early encourages students drop a subject just because they've got a high grade - even though they haven't yet matured enough to reached their full potential and knowledge in the subject.

Agree about unpredictable exam marking though - we have examples that would make your hair stand on end. And now that scripts are assigned randomly to online examiners (rather than one marker doing an entire cohort), it's much more difficult to trace the problem and appeal it.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

I'm not that keen on early GCSEs

Generally I agree. But in this case, the kids had been told about the early entry, were all geared up and already started on final revision, and they had plenty of useful work to go on to after the exam in the shape of the Additional Maths course, which I'm told is a much better foundation for A Level than the GCSE is. I presume the school has also paid for the entries it now has to cancel. Finding it hard to see anything good here :(

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

I agree it's different if you're going onto pursue the same subject in more depth (ie the Additional Maths course). My objection is more to the practice of encouraging students to get some subjects 'out of the way' through early exams, so they can do double prep on the remaining ones and push up the league table. It's all part of the current fashion for treating education as a commodity to grab off the shelf rather than a long maturing process. (So schools are 'educational providers', teachers are 'enablers', students are 'customers' etc etc.) When students are taught to view study as some kind of nasty medicine to be gulped down as rapidly as possible, rather than a long journey of discovery, it takes all the joy out of it. (I guess I'm just deeply old-fashioned! I loved the actual studying when I finally got the opportunity. But maybe that's expecting quite a lot from GCSE.

PS, have you seen the Gove voodoo doll?

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the Gove voodoo doll. Should I?

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Nobody should miss out on THIS.

I particularly love the interfering tentacles... :0

I sooooo want one! But how fast can one woman knit?

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Love it! But do not want one. I work from home and I'm not letting Gove in the house, knitted or otherwise.