Education Establishment is in denial.
My belief is that the Educational Establishment is in denial of the root cause of education’s demise. It is understandable, would you like to be told that everything you have been doing for the last 25 years is wrong. (Flat Earth Society).
Following is an obvious examples of their intransigence.
The quality of Schools are assessed and compared by their A – C grades:-
- Why is Grade C the pass mark? It’s equivalent to the old “O” Level. Surely the whole point of the new system was to get away from the unfair Pass or Fail. Illogical.
- One School with all A*, A & B grades gets the same A – C pass mark as a School with just B & C’s. Statically Wrong.
- It is in the schools interest to spend a disproportionate time/effort with potential C grade students to stop them dropping a grade and D grade students to improve to a “C”. This is Educationally De-motivating to those A & B and E and below as they are ignored as any time spent will have little effect on the overall pass mark. De–motivational.
- In a small school (400 students), the A to C pass mark will vary greatly with the difference of only one or two pupil’s results. Results dependent on size.
- The results from schools in selective areas (Grammar Schools) cannot be compared with non-selective areas. Statically Wrong.
- Some Exams are taken at two levels, Higher (A* to D grades, below D is a fail) and Foundation (C to U grades). So there are actually two “C grades” which cannot be compared. Statically Wrong.
Everybody knows the system has always been illogical, statistically unsound and educationally de-motivational.
The Educational Establishment are so intransigent for the fear of loosing face they just keep add new statistical hoops like points and Value Added. The majority of parents know, they have no choice of school, so these values have little relevance anyway.
If the Educational establishment cannot understand something as simple as this, how can they possibly see the real problem.
Why haven’t the Unions and the Teachers stopped this system.