Moving on up.
It comes round every year, as predictable, regular and tedious as Big Brother. It features the same fresh-faced young things, joyful and excited at first, only to later sink into the black pit of misery of realising that your care-free days are almost over. It could only be the perennial argument about whether A-Levels, GCSEs, SATs, etc are getting easier.It's also something of a schizophrenic argument. While we worry that A-Levels are getting too easy, we also find ourselves questioning whether our 14-year-olds are thick; with a third still failing to reach level 5 in English, Maths and Science. They can't both be right, can they?
Well, no. Neither exam is getting easier, and the reasons for the fast increasing number of A grades collected by 18-year-olds and the failure of 14-year-olds to get to the right key stage level are in fact highly similar.
Firstly, the reason for the increasing amount of awarded top grades at A-Level is mainly down to phenomenon of teaching to the test. Out the window has gone any real attempt at look at the background to the subject in question, or anything else that doesn't actually feature in the exam, and in has came the constant repetition of the "key facts", and the writings of essays around topics and subjects which have previously come up. This is all very well for getting the certificate stating how brilliant you are, but it takes all the joy out of learning, and makes for quick forgetting of everything you thought had been drilled into your brain. The private and grammar schools have got especially good at doing this, hence their hegemony over the A grades their pupils have.
Secondly, by the time most teenagers reach the sixth form, those who have lost interest in learning or who are doing more vocational rather than academic subjects have moved on, leaving behind the more aspirational who actually do want to achieve something. This is why the plans by Alan Johnson to extend the compulsory leaving age to 18 are so wrongheaded: while it may have good intentions, it's unlikely to improve results and may even have an effect on bringing them down. This is also partly the reason why the SATs results still look comparatively poor: the teaching to the test has yet to have been perfected for them yet, and there are far more of those who are disruptive and or simply disinterested to care. This is not to blame them, or suggest they're a lost cause, rather that the system of testing and targets has comprehensively failed.
This is where Tomlinson's report into the reform of the 14-19 system should have came in. It would have brought together the opportunity to take both the vocational and academic route, rather than having to done one or the other as is more or less the case now. It would have also have vastly cut down the numbers of exams, helping to reduce stress while if anything increasing the knowledge that universities and employers would have had about those requesting places or jobs. Labour, naturally, rejected it.
Teenagers then aren't getting dafter or smarter, they're both taking and losing an respective advantage at the same time.
Labels: a-levels, education, exams, teaching to the test
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