Hot potato

It seemed appropriate, you'll find out why if you read on...

My entry is in two parts today - a positive part, and a rant. I've not had a good rant for ages. My blood is boiling. I need to vent!


The Positive

A while back I was pondering, as a colleague had asked me to write a summative paragraph about our school and it's ethos. It was at the end of term, when I was also pondering on the outcomes for our students this year.

Targets? What targets.....they've blown them all out of the water. I've spent the past 24 hours crunching numbers, checking, cross checking, random sampling and rubbing my eyes a lot, and fighting the urge at times to cry from the sheer joy of moments like I have had today.

So, Year 11 just gone - I'm proud as proud can be. You've given us a historical moment, the best ever set of results in the school's history and it is down to your hard work, determination and effort. And to our staff - the students wouldn't get there without your hard work, determination and effort too - and your persistance in seeing it through even when the trials of working with teenagers sometimes get on top of us all.

I am proud to do the job that I do, in the place that I do it, with the students and staff that I work with.

The rant

So, if you're still reading, you'll understand why I am mightily p***ed off that our hard work is instantly denigrated in the media and by some sections of the general public who think that exams have been 'dumbed down' and that students don't actually have to learn anything in order to achieve higher grades. Education is a hot potato. The national media contribute to a public perception of the state of our system, its value etc etc. What the media fail to report is a balanced picture of educational policy and processes.

What they also fail to do, when reporting facts such as ...
* "students don't have to learn the key scientific formulae used in their science papers as they are provided with them" and
* "students are coached in exam technique and given access to past papers, and often given model answers to questions to revise from" and
* "students were allowed to take in cue cards with key vocabulary into French oral exams"
etc etc
...is contextualise those statements - 21 years ago when I did my exams, all of those things happened....back when the exam system was supposedly more rigorous. 19 years ago when I was doing my A'levels ("The Gold standard of exams" apparently) we worked on past paper questions on a weekly basis, looking for patterns in the examiners questions, looking at mark schemes, unpicking the 'right' way to answer the question, as well as learning the right facts and developing our understanding to hit the marks. THATS HOW PEOPLE PASS EXAMS.

Devaluing the achievements of young people does nothing to improve their self esteem, raise their aspirations or encourage them to continue in their education. It is not just school leavers from recent years who suffer from poor literacy rates, or worse still, a lack of work ethic that stops them from actively seeking work. It is not just the younger generation who engage in crime, benefit fraud, dealing and abusing drugs and alcohol. Some of the less 'acceptable' members of our society are products of the "OLD, BETTER" system.

The people who run the education system NOW and who write the exam papers NOW and who make the decisions about how schools should be run and organised are products of the "OLD, BETTER" system - quite probably most of them privately educated rather than in a State Secondary school.

If it was THAT good, why did it need changing? I'm not saying its perfect. Not all teachers are good all of the time - some are satisfactory - I confess that on some occasions, I am only satisfactory...other days I'm good, other days I'm outstanding...if I have had no sleep, or I'm ill, I might be a bit crap - but then I am human and as far as I am aware, most teachers are!!! To be honest, I had some pretty questionable teaching in all stages of my education, as well as some outstanding teachers.

SO....
Can we not, just for a couple of days every year, perhaps on A'Level and GCSE results day, stop having a go at "yoof" and give them a pat on the back for achieving something ? Would that be too much to ask?

To finish, I am setting my own exam question, for journalists and whoever else likes to comment on the state of education today...

"The improving trend in examination results in the State Education system is due SOLELY to the "dumbing down" of exams and not to do with the effort, hard work and motivation of students and school staff.

Therefore, would it be fair to assume that if the performance of students nationally began to decline, that would be to do with the exams themselves given that students and teachers have no impact on outcomes?

Discuss, ensuring that you provide an imbalanced argument that ensures that the people who are being discussed (students and teachers) are treated with a lack of respect and demoralised through your statements"

There endeth the rant.

To anybody who passed their exams, or have have sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, family friends etc who have achieved success, in whatever way today in their exams - CELEBRATE IT - and well done from me