Seemingly trivial things that annoy you
Comments
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It's not a question of liking them or otherwise. They are necessary and I don't think we have much that is better for core subjects. I just think people overestimate what information they provide about a student's abilities. They're a great test of exam technique and a rough guide to other skills and abilities where those overlap with exam technique. Outside of that 🤷🏻♂️
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I find exam pressure translates quite well to working life.
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Maybe in your particular choice of career. Writing short form and essays to a deadline is a relatively teachable skill. What you might loosely call 'people skills' don't feature at all. I'd suggest those are very important skills in a vast array of careers.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
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The working equivalent of coursework is not normally judged by anyone with a vested interest in it being highly rated.
Anyhow, that's not what annoys me. It is the day long whining, bleeting and general hand wringing by parents, teachers and children that bothers me.
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I think you might have missed the entire creative sector.
On the latter, why are you even looking at it?
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
What do you expect when you try to distil a child's education into a series of numbers, one for each subject?
The biggest lack of fairness in my opinion is that your predicted grades count for more than your actual grades.
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It's the news. The only news. All day.
The pass rates have dropped by a femtopercent. Henny penny those poor children.
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Not at GCSE they don't. No, because it's almost school sports day at GCSE level.
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I mean, you could have a system which isn't designed to kick out a tonne of children at 16, and actually help fixed Britain's education and productivity problem - which would probably take some of the heat out of the GCSE day chat you so hate ;).
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I'm trivially amused that FA hates all the exam day chat so has kicked off a debate about it
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
That's what the thread is all about.
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It's not possible to get a GCSE grade below 5 any more. They've been discontinued. Prizes awarded for participation. Hurray.
And yet they are still hard done by somehow. And it, whatever it is, is definitely getting worse each year. I mean, it's not been this bad, whatever it is, for at least 12 months, and in some cases 24 months.
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If that were true it would be annoying.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
You're literally inventing things to get annoyed about. Have you considered writing a column for the Telegraph?
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
That's a jolly good idea.
I could run the headline - "GCSEs are the real cause for the UKs poor productivity and it's the teachers' fault."
I would need Rick to ghost write for me.
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No need, I'm basically parroting the FT: https://www.ft.com/content/8422f5ae-8be5-443c-a2f7-481ea6b68cbe
and 40% of students failed their maths GCSE (AKA below 4) which I think shows the state of education in the UK (very poor if you are poor).
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That's not too bad though, at least 70% passed it.
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Entirely possible when you give 110%.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Bear in mind, you need at least a 4 in core subjects to qualify for any further education or training, including any vocational or technical qualification.
So 40% of 16 year olds are immediately ineligible for those unless they resit and then pass.
I don't think the system really helps those who find school difficult.
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We all get snobby about the US system, but less than 10% of US 25-64 year olds have "below upper secondary education" compared to around 18% for the UK
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This is the gift that keeps on giving.
16% failed English. 26% failed maths. "Nearly" 40% failed one or other of them.
Everyone who does so re-sits whilst staying in education.
Seriously, please can you ghost write? I'd allow you to post some misleading charts on X once the story is published, if that helps?
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No, you have a better line in unfounded snark.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
There's no need to be nippy.
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I distinctly remember arguing with a school friend that my A for effort and C for achievement subject year results were better than his C for effort and B for achievement results. It took me a good couple of weeks to figure out I was wrong.
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Is there an internationally recognised threshold for upper secondary education, other than age?
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There are lots of countries the UK would better off lagging behind than the US. I think the Tories manifesto policy was to lag behind Japan or Germany.
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You were focuszing on the wrong things.
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Unsurprisingly, the countries at the far right of the chart have all done well recently.
In the FT article; education levels in maths are about the same in the UK as they are in France and Germany at 15 - they're dramatically worse by the time they're in their 20s.
For all the ease for going to university, which the govt bankrolls, there is extremely little funding for further education that isn't univeristy, especially compared to other countries.
So if you are not academically minded, there is no govt money available for you to continue your education, so those people tend to just forego the education. There are around 3 applicants for every 1 apprenticeship in the UK.
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That's just the source of what you quoted.
Let me rephrase - Is "upper secondary education" the same standard across the board?
I'm pretty sure there *is* an attempted objective assessment of reading and maths skills that is used, because Scotland is shite at it now and the SNP have stopped mentioning it.
However, I am not convinced that the data you quote is measuring anything other than the percentage of people who reached a particular stage in a respective education system.
The reason I am saying this is that the US school system spits people out into university at a somewhat lower level than some systems. At least, that was the received wisdom when I was TAing in Canada (Canadian unis get quite a few US applicants, obvs.) It is anecdotal, of course.
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