Why Tony Blair Wants To Get Rid of Exams
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
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With the pandemic highlighting potential issues with the UK's Education system, the Tony Blair Institute has put forward ideas to reform exams. So what are they suggesting? Are they feasible ideas? And most importantly, would they actually solve the problems they're raising?
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The main issue with exams is that they are used for EVERYTHING. Why am I taking exams in my essay-based subject? How does forcing my to write a first draft in 40 minutes testing any actual relevant skills? It isn't. It doesn't give time to think about what you are writing, doesn't give time to edit or change approach, and forces students into an unhealthy habit of rushing a first draft that. Coursework fixed these issues by actually testing necessary skills in essay writing.
+ With being examined on memory issues related to the first draft, this is something for which can lead to confusion in an extremely intensive exam for where you're encouraged to write and write.
I think there's still the paranoia that people can simply pay someone else to do essays or coursework for them but it's harder for someone to get a proxy to sit an exam for them. I know that for the accountancy exams during the pandemic, the students had to have a live camera feed on themselves at all times to make sure they weren't cheating. But then again a woman in the UK was recently imprisoned for sitting driving theory and practical tests for more than 100 people. For many subjects it makes sense to have some sort of timed, invigilated test to get a sample of their work which the tutors can then use to check that their coursework is their own. So instead of a final exam, just an unmarked mini project sample. Essentially a mock exam.
@@Draggonny there are usually pretty easy ways to tell this through plagiarism detectors. Coursework is already used for exams such as History A Levels, so there are certified protections
Exams do work for some like Maths, but in more essay-based subjects it makes no sense.
Written exams for essay based subjects are excellent. It demonstreates you can quickly use critical thinking and dissiminetante information into a logical argument in a set timeframe.
@@harrydamien6346 it places emphasises on speed over quality for a subject that generally tests skills and abilities that rely on quality over time.
The UK exam system is atrocious. I was a very mediocre student as a teenager. Fortunately, in my country the system is not nearly as competitive, got into College anyway and did extremely well there. And one of the reasons I did so poorly when I was in Secondary School was that I was dealing with an extremely difficult situation at home at the time, as we didn't have a lot of money and my mother had mental health issues. This terrible UK system is no doubt absolutely unfair and it looks designed mainly to block social mobility.
what in the UK isn't designed to block social mobility lmao
UK exames are easy af. you have to be really dum not to get an A.
@@riskinhos >UK exames
>dum
No spag marks given. (I know you're prob not from here, but you clear no jack shit if you're referring to these as "uk exams" as there's no specific uk exam with this being a devolved power so Scotland an other regions can issue their own curriculums).
3:00
"Difference between AAA and AAB is going to Oxford versus a less prestigious school."
Thought he would mirror Sir Humphrey (yes, minister) there 😋:
"Difference between AAA and AAB is going to Oxford versus the LSE."
How to catch the media attention as a retired politician:
A: Do contriversal stuff
B: Go on tv and talk about policies never implemented even though you have so much time and a majority in legislature.
C: Get re-elected
D: Get sued
E: Be Gordon Brown and hold the government's gross mismanagement to more account than your successor Keir Starmer does
I think you'll find Blair doesn't require the attention of the media he already had it, never lost it the media fights for his attention
@@darrynmurphy2038 getting rid of exams isn’t controversial. Teachers, teacher unions, and education experts have been advocating for the elimination of exams and standardised testing for decades.
@@darth_kal-el yes, which means that exams must be a good thing if unions want to make it impossible to evaluate crap teachers' performance and sack the useless and incompetent ones. Teachers' prejudices can be regulated even less through coursework portfolio evaluation by the teacher.
Educational "experts" tend to be failed would-be teachers with zero childcare or teaching experience. I submit OfSTED and the SQA into evidence.
@@JohnDoe-gc1pm how does it feel to be so pathetically uneducated?
When I was at school I was terrible at exams but good at course work. Luckily I still somehow managed to scrape a C average. So after GCSEs I went and did a BTEC to avoid exams.
I ultimately believe this better prepared me for uni which is more coursework based anyway. There needs to be more options for kids like me who might just not do well in exams.
Tell me all the dates for major events of Hitlers life and i can tell you about it all verbally, doing the whole 5 w's etc
Ask me to jot it down on paper within an hour and i am a mess
you’re just slow. Just face the fact instead of coping hard. Exams don’t just test your knowledge and mastery of a subject, they also are designed to weed out people with abnormally slow mental processing speed which is probably you by the looks of it.
100%, coursework is definitely the way forward imo
@@nickurban6201 you are just not smart enough for exams son
Surely another solution is to lessen the view that children MUST go to university. So many graduates barely get a chance to use their degree; in some cases it's because there isn't a good career path for one reason or another, but in other cases it's because the student realises they just don't like the subject. Instead we should focus on finding the path that is best for the student and have the school system support them, even if that means halving the number of butts on university seats. Someone working with passion will always outperform someone without.
Anyway, that's my idealistic thoughts.
Completely agree. So many people are forcing themselves to study for hours on end when they really aren’t meant for it & would benefit much more from apprenticeships. It’s a shame those are viewed poorly in our culture. In Germany & Switzerland they’re a valid & respected alternative to A-level equivalents
I agree, but I don't really think that there are any levers the government can pull here. The valorisation of university permeates our entire culture. The government has made university prohibitively expensive but UCAS applications have continued to soar anyway. Ultimately you can't stop either young people or their prospective employers valuing degrees, even if that valuation is irrational.
It's not all that idealistic. Lots of jobs require a practical formation but not an academic one so not everybody should be forced to go to university. In Switzerland apprenticeships aren't viewed as something trashy individuals do, just as what you do if you want a job. So yeah, it's definitely possible
@@alexpotts6520 It's an odd one, as someone working in HR, outside of specialist fields, employers don't even ask for it all that often, they only really care about having some related job experience that means people can 'hit the ground running'.
Sometimes it's even a disadvantage if there is a risk the person may be too ambitious for the role and there is a risk of it being used as a 'stepping stone'.
If we're talking engineers, doctors, IT architects etc then yes it absolutely matters during those early years, but even that gives way to work experience after a while.
I think it's a good comment, the education always has a value in itself, but the costs are so high it seems damaging unless you have a specific career plan. And that is either gonna hurt the student due to huge debt costs or the taxpayer if its forgiven/written off.
I came here to say exactly this. We could reduce the skills gap, get more people into employment faster and reduce student dept by promoting vocational courses over university. I don’t know about anyone else but when I was in college, we were basically told you either go to university or you’ll never get a job.
Why is no one talking about the core problem with the education system. The fact CHILDREN have to choose their entire career direction at 15. Once I was set on the path of Physics I couldn’t decide to do anything else at University. By the time I got there I realised I would have much preferred Architecture or Art but it was too late. I ended up doing 3 years of physics and engineering degrees but dropped out feeling disenchanted by the lack of creativity and focus on maths exams. The bachelorette system is better as students keep their options open for longer, and the American major/minor system is better as they can change their courses quite drastically and get experience with a greater variety of topics before refining down.
Honestly, I think it would help if there wasn't so much pressure to choose the "right" degree that'll get you a job. I had no idea what I wanted to do career-wise so I just picked the degree that I found most personally interesting: anthropology. That led to a psychology master's degree. Now I'm 30 and not working in either field, but after spending years writing long essays and dissertations about people and communities, I've fallen into a perfect job for me in knowledge and research management at a large social charity funder. It took me a while to find what I wanted, but I only managed it because I was able to follow my intuition about what I enjoyed and didn't enjoy.
Yes, architecture especially demands a portfolio of art/design work which many students could only realistically achieve through taking A-level Art. It can be done other ways but only if you have the space, time and resources available.
@@bassetts1899 that was only possible because your degrees have a lot of crossover with over areas and transferable skills. If I finished my Physics masters I would have been limited to maths and physics (and finance but eughhh). As the ‘smart kid’ through school I was railroaded into the logical smart kid path even though I am extremely creatively driven it was ignored as Logic is valued more in the school system.
The UK is not the only country like this, though. Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands all have similar “predetermined” paths.
All you actually had to do, was spend a year or two getting another A level or two, and regroup. But I seriously doubt anyone was saying, you do realise instead of just taking a year out, you could do another year of A levels and bobs your uncle, right? Or speak to the university's clearing office, or do a foundation degree or lots of other options. But yes, the general point that trying to work this out while 14/15 so you can focus your GCSEs to get the A levels you need, to do the degree you think you'll want is basically ludicrous. Especially seeing as many first year degrees are teaching that subject for the first time - you don't do GCSE Medicine, followed by A Level Medicine then do a medical degree for instance.
Considering the way the world is going, we really should normalise not entering the workplace at 21 as if that somehow is an achievement. If it takes until you're 25 to finish university that should be fine. No problem.
From having teacher grade assesments during COVID myself I can say that it was really unfair to those student's that didn't get along with their teacher. And with continuous assessments they are way more stressful than preparing for one exam. You have to do well in every class test throughout the whole year.
This mentality is wrong. You should aim for the place where you belong, as opposed to trying far beyond your limits, succeeding by chance, just to drop out of uni a few years later because you can't keep up. Real life is not a sprint. Real life is about how hard you can push in a sustainable way. Continuous assessment, if done well, can help you understand your actual level. If you can and want to put in extra hours on evenings and weekends, that's great, if not, that does not mean you are a lesser human, just that you have other priorities. Ideally, continuous assessment should be less stress, as individual failures do not impact your average performance at much as a single exam lottery
@@ArgumentumAdHominem Very true
The feelings of the teacher shouldn't matter, my college told us not to put our names down with just our ID number and then the assesments will be given to a teacher that hasn't taught us
Surely though a continued assessment is
A: more representative of your actual ability rather than an exam you could potentially fluke or flop on the day.
B: more able to come back from a single bad topic. If, say geometry in maths is a weak spot then flopping one topic test won’t dent your grade that much. But if it happens to be the topic of the big questions at the end then that could make you drop the line to a lower grade which would make all the difference.
I grew up in Italy (moved to the UK for Sixth Form) where they assess grades in this way and even though it is harder, I've learnt a lot more and was less of a procrastinator back in Italy. This method is better than A-Levels
To those in the comments saying that the GCSE exams are too narrow or random: a lot of exams are designed in a way that memorization of dates or figures or quotes will only get you so far. It's all about your understanding of the time period/text and how well you can write. This ability to write and analyse seems important and is something that can be learnt, but need not be memorised. GCSEs are different than when you took them even 4 years ago, the application and presentation of knowledge is way more important than just rote memorisation. Yours, a student going into y11
Exams are also largely unrealistic. You will seldom ever be in a situation where you have to recall a bunch of information and analyze it off the top of your head. If you aren't sure about something, you can go and check it or ask someone. Coursework/project based assessment is a better reflection of real life whilst still testing comprehension of a subject
It is true that being able to think is important but it is also important to have a base of knowledge.
There is a place for memorization just as there is a place to teach creativity and problem solving
I need information I don't have time to look up all the time.
That's why we train workers.
If you could just google everything everybody would make minimum wage
I used to think that media courses were redundants... and that... journalism is not so useful. Or even history is not so useful either. But here we are... an entire global world of..."social" media... every aspect of the historical life is here. Every aspect of somebody else's life is on here. Your life is on here. My life, (which I thought I shielded away and tried to secure away) is here... What else is there to learn ? We cannot keep a distance of both emotional, and physical safety ????
@@seanfaherty : To solve what , exactly ? What kids now see, is everything that is in a Freudian nightmare... That is the reality. How to teach a child to find the "truth" ??? How ? How to teach them how to make things ? But everything is already made. So... and I thought that, there can only be a market if the old things are taken away. But I would NEVER have thought in a single moment in my life that. SOME people, brings it back into circulation !!!!!! Goodness me !!!
As an ex invigilator I beg to differ on the comment made on exams not affecting mental health. I’ve seen to many young people in desperate states and strung out. Also, course work used to be involved before Gove got hold of the system and girls did better then. BTECs are continually assessed and moderated externally so I don’t see an issue with it. To be honest though, it’s not just the topic on what sort of grading system we should have, it’s more a question of what and how we teach. We are funnelling kids through a one size fits all system that is letting our non academic kids down and is based solely on recall - this does nothing to prepare for the jobs of the future. I would say that we need an education system that encourages critical thinking, creativity and problem solving before information recall which we can all do on our phones if we need to. The world has moved on and we let our kids down by not moving with it. Let’s stop teaching kids to pass exams and instead teach them how to think for themselves, be inventive, curious, independent.
I agree I did full exams at GCSE, AS and ALevel with coursework but still mostly exams, I now Invidulate for students with extra needs at a university and the biggest reason for extra time or a separate room is mental health. In the end, exams are about recall and writing/typing speed not knowledge of the subject.
It is interesting that universities were possible are moving to open book exams which are more like a quick turnaround project than traditional exams as they test the skills of learning better than closed book short exams and translate into real life more readily.
Mental health is a huge issue in schools. Me and so many friends were stressed out of our minds from ages 15-18. Wasn't uncommon to find students crying in bathrooms. Seems like they're trying to skirt around the lack of mental health resources and support with a new system. I'd support a continuous exam system but schools still need much better mental health support.
i still remember crying in the bathroom because I couldn't understand anything in a-level physics. it was horrible. I have a really good job as a software engineer now, but school still haunts me. I found uni way easier than a-level, I feel like there was more support and lecturers had more time to help you, I dunno.
This was not a maor issue
@@iwasborn8470 Don't blame the current generation blame the government for underfunding education and not paying teachers the wage they need.
Stress of exams is not new. Pretty much everyone older than you that you've encountered has had the same stress.
I'd argue that Exam stress doesn't cause Mental Health. The mental Health issue might have been there anyway but is made worse by exam pressure.
There is a big difference
@@zaksharman It's their fault they were brought up with this Government and not Blair's, Brown's etc. They pay the price of a broken Britian.
I remember reading a report that showed how on average, someone who attended a state school and got a B in A-levels would usually outperform someone who got an A in a private school.
That's actually really interesting. Any idea where I can find this?
That's because private schools teach you how to pass exams. Public schools teach you the course. So private schools always have inflated grades
It's how you apply the information you've learnt in real world and not how you studied for it.
Lol that’s rubbish - where’s your evidence for that?
@@loowyatt6463 its more that public schools are so tragically underfunded that the worst don't really even teach some of the course, while private school children are taught exam technique that seems to matter more than knowledge or ability in the current exam system
Having completed the International Baccalaureate myself and being currently in my final year of University, I can say that the continuous assessment process is far superior and far more representative of achievement than a single end of year exam. Both in the IB and in University, I've had to frequently submit essays and complete quizzes and tests. This keeps me accountable to the work and up to date with the work, and also makes sure that my final result is representative of my achievement, rather than just representing how I was at remembering content on one day. People have off days and good days and that shouldn't be the deciding factor to whether you get into University and beyond. I'd much rather have several smaller assessments than one large one.
This video is definitely over-exaggerating the importance of A levels. Yes, it's true that your A levels, in the end, are what decide whether you meet your offer or not; however, there is a very large aspect of teacher assessment and continuous assessment in both year 11 or 12 which determine whether you get the offer in the first place or not. This helps you strike a balance between exams and teacher assessment.
I personally think leaving it 100% up to teachers is kinda stupid, but having them not be involved at all is even worse.
@@shaaravguha3760 has UCAS changed then? Do they contact every single teacher of an A level sprog applying to their university and interview them to ask them if they think the kid can hack it? Or do they just make offers based on predicted grades, then you only get your place if you get the results you were asked to, or if you get it in clearing because people don't want to go to that uni if they can avoid it?
Serious question - when I went to university my teacher's expectations didn't mean much at all since if they didn't have confidence you'd get AAA you weren't going to Oxbridge, if they did, you weren't likely to go but might, and you definitely weren't going if a university wanted 3 As and you got 3 Bs.
@@jonevansauthor Obviously you have to meet your courses minimum requirement (A*AA for most oxbridge courses) and it's definitely good to be above that as it helps set you apart from the other applicants, but what I'm saying is that there are many other factors (some of which being as important as A levels) that decide whether you get an offer or not.
One of said factors is the review your form tutor has to write about you alongside your personal statement. (This is where your teacher comes into play as the university will know how you're like in school). This isn't nearly as important as A levels, but aside from A levels there's also things like the BMAT and STEP which are just as important as A levels.
Three points:
a) always be critical of the "innovative" reform suggestions of a pampered member of the 1% - it could be good, it's more likely to be riddled with "you [poor] people shouldn't aim too high"
b) Ask why exam results vary so much by SES, rather than just finding ways to paint over the mold
c) We need to drop our cultural obsession with Oxbridge. Many universities offer courses that score just as highly as Cambridge. "Only" doing quantum physics at Manchester isn't a failure.
c2) We probably should question why the Oxbridge logo opens so many extra doors, rather than ramping up the pressure for just the "top" universities.
Manchester is good enough for Brian Cox, after all! The Oxbridge obsession is bizarre but seems to be self-sustaining. So long as everyone else thinks it's special it's worth something.
This is just me speculating for the third, but I guess that when you go to Oxbridge you end up brushing shoulders with more people that will end up working in top positions everywhere, not to mention the lecturers. Thus there might be a perception that an Oxbridge student would end up better "connected", even if their courses weren't that different from other universities. It feels like a self-sustaining phenomenon.
On another note, this reminds me of Japan somewhat, where the name of the university you went to is everything.
I personally can't relate as my country doesn't have very prestigious universities, so you either go wherever is closest to where you live or to the capital city.
@@2712animefreak Well, you do end up better connected, and it is a self-sustaining phenomenon. It's much easier to get to do internships, you pretty always get a foot in the door for first stage interviews. Many employers also more actively recruit at the university.
Universities should be scrapped in favour of apprenticeships. University should exist for researchers, and not be used as entry to the working world. They don’t give students the practical knowledge and experience you need to excel in real jobs. It’s rather just studying for an expensive piece of paper.
Part of the cultural obsession with oxbridge probably comes from how they teach differently to other universities, in a way that I would say is better
I received 58% on my Biology A Level, I received an A. The curriculum was so fucked that if you didn't use a specific turn of phrase you wouldn't get the mark. But the kicker? The words and phrases you had to use changed literally every year. I spent 2 years of my life studying material most of which didn't receive a single question.
"No evidence exams actually cause stress" I think more people need to actually speak to A-Level students more often then.
....yeah, but life causes stress....That is part of the exam. No stress in school - fall apart at work
The point made in the video was that it was the importance of the letter grade that causes stress, not the exams themselves - so a continuous assessment model would presumably spread that stress throughout the course rather than having more concentrated doses every 6 months or so...
@@rmsgrey Yeah but that’s just not true. It’s the exams themselves. So many people didn’t even need the grade they would get from it, but the fact that they had to concentrate 2 years worth of knowledge into one test to determine if they’re any good at this subject creates huge amount of stress.
@@benji9870 Have you ever taken a BuzzFeed quiz? Or anything along those lines? How stressful did you find it?
Yes, having a single 90 minute period determine your evaluation focuses the stress, but is it really better having a two year period where any mistake at all will reduce your final evaluation and potentially ruin your future? It's like having an exam that lasts 20 months...
@@rmsgrey the stress doesn’t start at the start of the exam and end when the exam ends, it’s perpetuated throughout your A-Level experience because you’re so fixated on trying to prepare well for the exams that you’re not focused on actually learning anything. Periodic assessments based on things that aren’t 2hr exams in absolute silence would make it so much less stressful as you know that your entire future isn’t pinned on this one thing.
In the video you referred to “UK” a number of times, but it’s worth noting that the UK does not have a single education system. In Scotland for instance we have a completely separate system known as the Curriculum for Excellence, which has some of the elements you talked about but does still ultimately produce grades, with our own qualifications system of Scottish Higher, Intermediate, and other qualifications.
Right, but if the government in London has the power to scrap a system like this one and they are not doing so, it may be partially their fault as well.
As a student in a country were a recommendation like the tony blair one was implemented, our equivalent of the GCSE’s and Alevels now are 70% from the exam and 30% from continuous assessment that is gathered from the past years. Having experienced both systems, CA actually increases the stress, as now you not only stress about the exam itself but also in all the school year as all the homework, tests and even class participation would effect your grade. Now this is very unfair for obvious reasons but helpful in a case were the student doesnt feel well, thus unable to do the exam as the grade is taken as 100% CA.
That system has an obvious loophole - students who have done well on the CA are probably better off "being unwell" on exam day rather than gambling on getting a relatively minor grade increase at risk of a major drop...
That is actually great because it rewards people who put in constant work throughout the school term. Not the ones that relax for 2/3 of the term then begin to revise 24 hours before their exam, somehow manage to exploit short term memory to earn a pass mark or more, then forget everything in 2 days.
AS an ex-IB Teacher, I can say it isn't perfect, but no system will be - perfection is the opposite of complete.
It's important to say that while starting with teacher assessment for about 25% of the final grade, this is the first of several rounds of standardisation before external review by a neutral expert body. The review body then checks to see if their grades agree with the teacher's and then applies this to the cohort. Too lenient - all grades may come down; too harsh - and grades may increase.
Is it perfect - no, as there is no system where sample grades are extrapolated across classes can be. Arguably, there is more care and attention in the IB system than harassed teachers marking hundreds of papers at a time under time pressure.
A better idea would reduce the number of students looking to go to universities and provide those who don't have valuable, engaging skills-based learning that can lead them to viable careers.
The issue I see...... I've personally been saying, or heard others saying the exact same things about needing to provide serious 'non-academic' alternatives to A-Levels and University for the last 15 - 20 years....
The thing that annoys me is the constant fiddling with the system, introducing one 'new skills based qualification' only to then scrap it 2yrs later for a 'new and improved skills based qualification system' to again re-invent the wheel but mere years later.
I find it totally annoying and nigh on 'offensive' that the same powers at be that made huge pushes to significantly increase University numbers (and associated student loan debt) are now complaining that too many people are going to University.
Theres a whole generation of kids that 'did what they were told to do' (encouraged by parents, teachers, and government policy) and now their university qualifications are brought into disrepute as being 'worthless' and that they are somehow part of the problem...
I would much prefer the a cross party agreement on a system of both academic, and non-academic qualification routes, avaliable to everyone with proper funding for both systems and then for it to not be mucked around with for a decade or more. Its the constant fiddling that confuses children so they struggle to know what is the best route for them (and confuses parents and teachers who try to help them make their choice) and later on confuses industry who don't understand what the qualifications 'really mean'...
(These gripes aren't about anything you said, just more off the back of your opinion. I agree with everything you said).
@@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you, And I agree.
We turned education into a product you had to buy to secure a viable future. Which is less accurate now than ever.
Polytechnics were turned into Universities and told to "sell courses" to balance their books. This drove up fees and increased their dependence on international students. Courses were invented more on their ability to attract students than educational or vocational merit. And along came the finance industry to make this all possible, at a profit, of course.
We then pile pressure on young people to jump through a hoop (the hoop being of different sizes depending on where you went to school) of A Levels (or any exit point exam).
And all are subject to the whims of a Minister in charge of Education for less than two years before another ministry or appearing on the next series of "I'm a celebrity".
What is needed is calm reflection, including all parties - students, parents, teachers, heads, academics, employers and policymakers - to provide different pathways to the three main works of life - vocational, academic and creative. But no one is interested in long-term thinking, so we have the piecemeal, disjointed system we have now.
“Current education system in the UK”
England…is…not…the…UK…
For all intents and purposes, it pretty much is. Wales, NI and Scotland are still colonies of England
@@bothi00 Last I checked. It was a Union….which implies equal stakes…but I guess they don’t teach that down in there where they think the EU is such a big bad place and that scotland is subsidised without actually knowing we bring in more than 3 times the amount of money than the pocket change we get back from the government when we send our hard earned money down there and told to live on it….somehow our money goes further…maybe because it’s not used redecorate No. 10 and London every couple months.
Kinda makes sense Education would be lacking when the government always seems to be lacking money for essentially services
@@DeeFourCee 😂😂
As a student with special needs myself and entering my 2 year coursework for BTEC and GCSES, I find that the one flaw with the exam and school system is time limits. They give me a sense of pressure and cause me to stress and get less work done in the same amount of time without a time limit. The main quality that decreases is my thinking speed and my handwriting. They say “don’t rush” but if I have about an hour and a half to write a whole essay that is readable, then the best thing they can expect me to do is walk out in stress. I think the whole system needs a rework and to get rid of the time limit, instead I think they should give you individual weeks for each subject with no time limit so students can do their best.
Sorry teachers are often bad at assessing a child's educational ability. I had dyslexia that went undiagnosed while at primary, secondary, and sixth form school...It was only when I was at university my lecturer advise me to get assessed, low and behold I was severely dyslexic with DCD. I apparently slipped through the net because I was in the top sets for my classes, and my grades were good. But unbeknownst to my teachers I had no clue regarding what they were teaching me in class, and I would go home and basically teach myself what we covered because their teaching styles / approach did not accommodate my learning disabilities.
Sad
I empathise, but I think this is more of a problem of the system they're operating under than the teachers themselves. Britain has the largest class sizes in Europe, teachers just don't have the resources to individualise their teaching.
Teachers are assessed on their individualisation of work for those with needs but the problems with this scenario the original person stated are;
- failure to speak up about the teaching style when they know it doesn't work.
- pretending like they then don't need the help by self teaching.
- then complaining they never got the help when they never showed signs of needing it.
Once they needed the help in university as it was a completely different level of study then their coping mechanism failed and they were diagnosed.
On the one hand, yes, it would probably have been better if you'd had the targeted support for your condition. On the other hand, you were in the top sets and getting good grades, so you were getting the support you needed in order to get good grades (and the ability to teach yourself the material is a much more useful life-skill than the ability to regurgitate the teacher's words in an exam).
Really we need to end the narrative that everyone should go to university and we should off a more extensive range of vocational training in College's.
GCSEs and A-Levels are a metric employers understand. They're like the QWERTY keyboard - a legacy too established to change without massive disruption. However, if we're expecting people to stay in some form of education unit they're 18, why not conduct GCSEs a year earlier, allowing 3 years for A levels (studying 4 of them, or allowing more space for a vocational element)? It's daft that kids are schooled for 11-12 years before their first qualifications, then only 2 years before (potentially) their last ones. [Edit: also allows extra space for GCSE retakes, if necessary]
Gcses and A-levels unfortunately aren't metrics that employers really understand, primarily because they are metrics that even the education system doesn't quite understand. For example the changing from letters to numbers threw off alot of employers and employers in my experience genuinely don't seem to care about qualifications - I have 5 9s, 3 8s and 1 6 at GCSE and the equivalent of 3 A's at A level - but I can't find a job because covid made it so I had no job experience. Vocational courses are in my books 100% better in terms of employment than A levels and GCSEs as you actually have to use the things you're learning. At A level and GCSE I just memorised the text books right before exams. With Btecs I had to actually put effort in but it wasn't much stress as I could just do a little per day and get by (though if you neglect the work you get buggered) and also allows you to have experience with employers.
Exams and continuous assessment are both unfair and in ways that overlap: in both, children are just as likely to neglect a "disruptive" child, meaning poor performance either way.
To combat that, you need (a) smaller classrooms and thus more teachers along the Finnish model, (b) teacher awareness of cultural differences (see Batja Mesquita's book "Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions" for ways to eliminate accidental bias when dealing with people's reactions) that can lead to mislabeling of children as disruptive, (c) support for mental health services and services for those with learning disabilities so that kids who are say, dyslexic, autistic, suffering from depression, &c., are identified and given the support they need to thrive.
None of that is cheap, and none of that is simple. It's probably a lot cheaper ultimately than the outcomes produced by the current system, where you end up with having to deal with the consequences of deprivation. It'll never fly though because it's not simple and people still argue about stupid things like whether grammar schools should still be a thing (they shouldn't).
Our system of grade boundaries makes absolutely no sense - why should the performance of other students in my cohort have any impact on my grade? Also, we specialise way too young in England. I picked my GCSEs at 13, and I would say most people would change their options if they could go back.
If you get rid of A levels and GCSEs, universities will demand iGCSEs and the IB diploma, and schools will teach them instead. Exams are required to select between high and low performing students, and universities are selective institutions.
You NEED to be able to tell who's smart and who isn't, and exams are the best way of doing that. You don't want everyone getting A's, you want only the top performers to get A's so you can actually tell who they are!
the thing is, everyone is capable of getting very good grades, it's just that people are in different situations and might have a bad year (i.e. are unlucky). Everyone needs to be given the opportunity to prove themselves, and be given as many chances as it takes. The current system is far too selective because of too much competition, and this means huge amounts of talent are not being realised or taken advantage of, and someone who could have gone to a top university under the right circumstances, instead ends up working in retail or a warehouse or some other dead end job.
As for university education, I think it's ridiculous that there are a limited number of spaces, when the vast majority of content for courses is digital and could therefore be free to access for anyone on the internet, instead the knowledge is behind a £9000 per year paywall.
@@Tom-uy6te Far too selective? Almost everyone gets A*s and A's as is, and universities try to grab as many students as possible. It has never been easier to get into university, even top universities, and they have never, ever been less selective. If you can't get into university now in its current form, it's because you haven't tried hard enough. I do think people should be given multiple chances to take A level exams, but to say the current system is "too selective" is a lie, it is the exact opposite, given that people with useful degrees from top universities still struggle to get graduate jobs.
I just did GCSE’s and more of the stress comes from the fact that you get your exam results like 10 days before A-levels start so if you don’t have a guaranteed place it will always be stressful
Bro you can still get on your collage course you want if you fail you just need to re take math or English if you don’t get the grade
The current 'education' system is complete and utter shite, with final qualifications just measuring how good one is at preparing for exams. This is wholly different from understanding a subject, and has become a deeply unfair game in and of itself.
For instance, I got As in GCSE sciences merely by (at the last minute) writing concise notes based on the spec, then doing loads of past papers whilst preparing/memorising mark scheme answers.
Did I actually gain a solid understanding of scientific knowledge? Well, seeing as I didn't know what 'life' really was, why evolution was definitely true, or in physics, anything beyond basic applications of Newtonian equations, I'd say no.
Did I gain an appreciation of what science is about? Absolutely not. It was all just presented as a bunch of arbitrary facts to be memorised and regurgitated (in a highly specific and timely manner). In fact, this caused me to hate 'science' thereafter - at least, until I left school and discovered it to actually be about investigating the mysteries of nature. The endless fascination and beauty I've now found is such a contrast to the “utterly boring and uninteresting” (my words of the time) lessons of Year 11.
In general, with many subjects, people are just taught seemingly-arbitrary facts devoid of enough context (tragically, maths is the worst offender of this).
And then, there's the diabolical issue of how the primary purpose of all this is to compete in the aforementioned ‘exam games’. These only serve to funnel into lifelong privilege those who are more rigorously tutored or have personalities conducive to being mind-numbingly conscientious (which may happen to include *some* of the genuinely brilliant).
For the rest, the entire ordeal of schooling has been a complete waste of time, stifling brains during their prime years of development. This isn’t just a case of mild child abuse on an industrial scale, or one of the worst social justice issues of our time, but a serious retardation of the potential for human flourishing (whatever you may think that is).
As someone who received their A-level results a few days ago, I’d like to think that I understand the system well enough. And I do think there are flaws. I sat 4 A-levels and got 4 A*s. But my results felt a little cheap on results day. In one of my subjects, I was around 13% over the A* boundary. This makes it seem as though I am comfortable, and very good at this subject. But I disagree. I did put in a lot of work in the build up to exams, but I hadn’t received an A* in any mock exam during the year. To get one so convincingly makes the system feel cheap to me. In another, I put in almost no effort. It was not relevant to my university place, so I could afford to ignore it. But I still got an A*. Knowing this, it makes my other A*s feel less significant, as I know that they can be achieved relatively easily. And that’s not how the system should be. On the issue of stress, I also dislike the exam system. In my favourite subject, physics, I had been getting top grades in my mocks since the very start of year 12 (the first year of A levels). It was a guarantee that I would get an A* Yet I found myself coming home after a stressful 2 hour exam, and revising physics for 3 hours. Part of this was no doubt my own paranoia- I probably would’ve got my A* without the revision. But having to stress over a subject which I so clearly deserve an A* in, based on 2 years of proof, because I am only assessed over 6 hours, bothers me. It doesn’t seem fair. But I also see the flaws with any alternative. Teacher assessment is problematic. The suggestion that Independent schools inflated their grades is not surprising, and I would fear that richer students, at both state and private schools, would do better under this system. I do not wish to call teachers dishonest, but they are underpaid and overworked. Bribes or influence from parents would happen, although probably not often. Also, I think that my own state school inflated grades during gcse (2020). I believe a large portion of my year would not have passed english at gcse; they were failing just months before the exam. Yet most passed. TAGs are very flawed. Continuous assessment is better, IMO. It truly reflects the hard work that students put in for 2 whole years (or 3 at gcse). But it would cause more constant stress. And this may be a problem. My preferred solution would probably be keeping final exams, but having a series of assessments throughout the course also. Perhaps weighting each as 50/50, although the details are irrelevant. It caters for those who prefer exams, and those who like continuous assessment, therefore disadvantaging none. I’d also consider having teacher assessment as a backstop on students flunking exams. Perhaps a system whereby if the achieved grade (in exams) and the teacher predicted grade differ by a large amount (more than 2 grades), a student is given a grade in the middle of these two, to allow for the mistakes that can so easily be made by good students in highly stressful exams. Whatever the solution, I know it is not simple, and I do not expect a satisfactory results any time soon.
Congratulations on your results, there's some luck involved in any system but you don't get 4 A*s for nothing! I know what you mean with A-level physics, most of it is very straightforward if you read about physics anyway and also take maths but the exam is too high stakes to risk slacking. Once you get to university (assuming that's what you do), you'll take so many more assessments that each one will feel less and less important. You'll also meet people who got onto similar courses by entirely different routes and gradually realise that all the stress about A-level grades is a bit weird and artificial - once you get a degree no one will pay much attention to them unless you're applying to something incredibly competitive.
Universities do split assessment between coursework of various formats, mini-tests and formal exams, some of which allow notes - every one of which has its pros and cons.
Someone who's done the IB here - I think this video definitely overexaggerates a teacher's influence on a continuous testing scheme. For most subjects, we have one component (the Individual Assessment) which IS marked internally - yet from each subject group and grade (from high, medium, low), there are samples selected to ensure that teacher grading is fair and none of the teacher's biases. There are final exams yes, but there usually is far less weighting than 100% for the total grade. It definitely is not a perfect system, but it is better than the current A-level model.
Hi TLDR I love ur videos but just remember next time to mention that scotland has a different examination system and routes to university. Its a lot for one video but just a caveats would be great.
We've needed educational reform for decades!
It's essentially the GPA system used in the US, which does not work at all. Teachers are biased, private schools will inflate GPAs, and students know how to game the system. Also, one point is that students are placed under a lot of stress if they only sit one exam; imagine the stress they would be under if they have to keep up a 4.0 GPA.
The current reforms of only taking A-Levels at the end of the two years certainly doesn't help. We should look at bringing back the AS exams and also the possibility of retakes.
In 2020 it definitely would have helped to have coursework already completed!
Also, exams are so unpredictable. In my AS English lit exam, it didn't go well and I got a C overall. I resat exam in the January, with probably less prep, and got full marks and an A overall. Having one exam to determine your whole grade is ridiculous, anything can go wrong, bring back modules/coursework.
"exams don't worsen mental health, it's the stress from exams" is as clever as saying being shot doesn't kill you, bleeding out does.
Not really! If exams were done with nothing at stake because of them, I imagine their effect on mental health would be reduced. It’s possible that it’s not the exams per se that affect mental health, more the knowledge that they impact so heavily on the child’s future.
@@valerieblackwood9777 Someone should explain to the kids it's not all that important in the end and there are options to redo. In fact, my step son had four goes at the same exam till he got the result he wanted all inside a month. Seems too easy almost.
He didn't say that. The stress is caused by the enormous importance placed on exams.
Teacher grade assessment is a terrible idea. Teacher’s aren't impartial and favour certain students (not necessarily those who end up with the best results after an exam assessed by an independent third party).
Continuous assessment also sounds horrendous. It would be really stressful for students and difficult to keep this mode of assessment impartial (particularly when covering more subjective topics).
Continuous doesn't need to be any different from the current, except that the assessment is split into dozens across the two years instead of two or three at the very end. It literally could just be small exams at the end of each term that add up to the final grade.
@@freewyvern707 Agreed, I don't see how that is more stressful, if anything is less stressful as you have less to learn and if you flop on one test, you can compensate in another. With big exams, it's all or nothing.
Love this video. My teachers hated me, mainly because I was bored and so didn’t pay attention. If I’d had this system I’d probably not gone to university, the exams were my time to shine and actually pretty fun. Me and a mate used to mess around in them 😂. Still breezed through them. However after also studying in America I have to say their emphasis on multiple choice is a lot better. As your answers are more based on your knowledge rather than your English skills
That's why they'll never be multiple choice and continue to rely on prose, the education establishment is far too interested in promoting elocution compared to just ensuring competence on technical matters.
@@Treblaine Being able to articulate and communicate clearly is not a skill that should be ignored, it's actually not emphasised enough in schools. English lessons should focus far more on communication skills that analysing Victorian literature.
@@undead_corsair Yes, but it must be assessed separately, it shouldn't be a bottleneck in achievement.
I would disagree with you when it comes to multiple choice, as multiple choice emphasises getting the right answer over having the right ideas and understanding of the subject.
glad you put this out after exam results 😮💨
...scrap that its not helping
I will be starting a PgDip course in September and I specifically chose a course that is 100% coursework except for a final interview. Exams definitely had a detrimental effect on me during A-levels, so much that I limited my university choice. My previous 5 years of university had zero exams too. If exams were open book that would be better because why on earth are we expected to remember everything when at school. I'm always looking things up at work and there is just far too much information to remember
Last year I got a master's degree in psychology of education. I could see various advantages of continuous assessment, and some disadvantages. But ultimately I think it's a bad idea. It will create more disadvantage for pupils whose school year is disrupted through no fault of their own. They could be sick, they could be a young carer, they could have mental health problems, they could suffer a bereavement, etc. Currently, these pupils can still catch up somewhat if they dedicate a few weeks to it right before the exam. But continuous assessment means you drop grades based on anything that happens to you in the whole year. Plus, teachers absolutely do not know their students perfectly. The ones they know the least are the ones who are already the most disadvantaged in education. I'm absolutely 100% against relying on student-teacher relationships for any part of assessment.
I acknowledge your points and your experience in this field considering your degree subject but it can also be an advantage for those students aswell. For example during covid while I was studying A level politics, a family member died the day before my January Mock paper and for one of my May Exams my cat died infront of me just before I went out to do the exam. This being an arguement for continuous assessment because those are two very short term impacting events and during that exam period my college decided to do A level exams for each subject over the course of march - may. This for me was a massive advantage because it meant that if there was a significant drop in my performance due to those events my results were relatively untouched because of the spacing of assessments between one another, whereas under our traditional model all of my exams not just for that one subject but all 3 would have occurred in the span of two weeks - that stress + tragic loss(es) would have ruined my chances of going to university. Furthermore, I believe it would actually advantage those students whose years are disrupted as it would mean that there would be a higher emphasis/notice on the fact that as a student there are external pressures on them and so these mitigating circumstances can be made aware of and accommodations made. If a student is ill with a long term illness at the beginning of the year or middle, their teacher can communicate that to external examinning bodies to make arrangements. We can use Btecs as an example, as a btec student my grade in music for example was a merit, I slumped into depression and also had incompetent classmates whom in such a subject you have group projects with. But my grade was not impacted by this - because the point of continuous assessment is to mark progression. GCSEs and A levels do not do this. Another example I shall use - I suffered a medical emergency the weekend before my GCSEs began and had to sit the first couple of exams in crutches. If I were impacted by that event all of my grades would have been skewed against me but thankfully it was just hospitalizing constipation (lmao) and since for most of the gcses 100% of your qualification comes from those end of secondary exams along with bell curving I would have been screwed. Whereas with BTECS the 100% of the grade is not concentrated in one region of time and thus makes issues of bereavement and caring responsibilities much less harsh.
I always thought the fact we had to predict what questions would come up on upcoming A-level tests based on previous patterns was a sad indictment of the system and inflated curriculum. That, and papers varying a lot in difficulty - I had an A2 physics exam that was ridiculously difficult and I struggled to finish, let alone do well in; then the next year it was much easier.
yeah, as someone who did their a levels this year and got some advance information, I feel like that needs to become a standard, as it allowed me to be more efficient with my time. I will say that when it comes to changes in difficulty that the grade boundaries always reflect the difficulty of the paper, so while you struggled in A2 physics that year, the year after you probably would've got the same grade. It's not a perfect system, but it isn't too unfair in that regard.
Personally, I don't think exams should be scrapped. However, they way subjects are examined and grades determined should be changed in any way that reduces the stress pupils may experience. When I was S4 (2020/2021) the SQA brought in a system where tests throughout the year (particularly prelims in January) would be used as evidence if they were a better result than what you got in the final exam. This was only for that year but to me it felt a lot fairer than just emphasising the last exam in May (June for England etc).
As someone who has recently gone through this system themselves (going into second year of university), there’s a lot in this video that I don’t think it’s necessarily right. First and foremost a lot of emphasis is put on how the system is “far too competitive” for university places compared to other countries but that’s because it needs to be, the U.K. has a very good share of the top universities in the world, drawing many internal and international students every year. As such the system NEEDS to be competitive or you get people who deserve places not getting them and those who don’t dropping out early. I also don’t agree with continuous assessment from 16-18. I personally (and I know this isn’t universal) much prefer exams to any other form of assessment. It’s fair. It’s standardised. It’s simple but effective. Coursework and continuous assessments means that stress about results and performing well isn’t limited to a few weeks at the end of the year, it’s constant throughout the time period. Also, doing badly on an assessment can be massively demoralising and damaging. If that happens at the start of the 2 years, what’s to say that progress and confidence and effort and willingness to continue doesn’t drop off immediately, causing more and more stress and students slowly realise it’s getting near impossible to get where they want to go. With an exam at the end of the course it’s done, there’s no more work to be done so if it goes badly, it’s not like the rest of your course is screwed over. I think GCSEs should absolutely be taken into account when deciding university places, it shows a student’s ability to handle a wide range of subjects, skills and assessment types simultaneously which is useful when you get it university, with assignments and deadlines dotted all over the place. And there’s also the issue of teacher bias. I totally understand teachers marking more harshly against disruptive students (let’s be real we’d all do the same and why should we reward the people who are disturbing and disrupting possibilities for other students), but it also works from the top as well. I was a good kid who answered questions in class, did the homework, was polite and courteous. I wouldn’t have gotten one of the grades I did if we did exams. I would still have done well, yes, we’ll enough to still have gotten where I got to. But it wouldn’t have been the same grade in an exam. Coursework was partially scrapped on the realisation that some teachers were a bit fiddly with it, messing around content and grades awarded, and we saw that in the pandemic with some schools seeing 60/70% or higher increases in students getting A’s and A*’s. Unfortunately not all teachers can be trusted to do it fairly and that’s not because they’re bad or they’re cheating the system or whatever, it’s because in exams students are numbers, they’re sent anonymously to exams as numbers and marked all the same. Teachers know their students, their faces, their circumstances, what’s their lives are like, their effort, where they want to go, and what they want to get. So we can’t expect teachers to mark 100% fairly like a machine would, there’s conscious and unconscious biases knowing that their decision will IMPACT lives, which is why so many teachers struggled doing so in the pandemic. My maths teacher told me they had to sit there and rank every single student in order of worst to best. Can you imagine having to look at a student, knowing they got a bad result because YOU had to put it there, KNOWING they’re not going to get into the place they want to go because of YOUR decision. It’s heartbreaking. I think exams are necessary, and I think they system whilst not perfect does a very good job at what it’s trying to achieve
Scotland is also in the UK and doesn't use this exam system
for some reason the original tldr fella is much more satisfying than the off brand other (but similar) guy
In the Netherlands we have the students take 5 school exams (spread 1-4 over 2 years) and that counts for 50%, then we have a state exam counting for the other 50%.
Although it wasn't perfect, I preferred the system we had pre 2011, with AS levels used for admission to university and taking pressure off of A Levels, because you already had some of the exam points already. Also, projects and coursework was 25% of the grade in some subjects.
Predicted grades being used for uni admissions is a complete fucking absurdity that not enough people are talking about.
IB relies almost completely on a one time exam at the end of school for 6 subjects.
Not super better than A-levels.
Look at the Dutch system for exams every quarter of school through the whole 6 years.
Well, on more than one exam, with the multiple papers. But they also have stronger internal assessments.
Why are we listening to a war criminal? I get that locking him up and throwing away the key is politically difficult, but can we at least not give him any attention?
Well I mean the Queen Knighted him despite him being a war criminal with blood on his hands.
I get he is a war criminal but remember the saying "don't shoot the messenger", don't pay attention to the man, pay attention to what he says
Honestly I much rather have one date for an exam and picking up the pace the months before it then being on edge the whole two years because everything is assessed (i struggle with concentration and I prefer one big exam). I've just finished my IGCSE's and am starting A-level and can't wait to only do three subjects (history, politics and geography) and get rid of all the other ones that I hated which you would have to still do as part of the international baccalaureate
I do the same a-levels as you, good choices 👍
Yeah, i prefer exams a lot more. I don't even stress about them.
@Don´tbehastyThough on the contrary, it's extremely difficult to admit and correct difficulties when you are actively being assessed so early on. You are by definition in a learning environment, so to me it makes more sense to focus on learning, discovering your weaknesses and correcting them before the exam. Rather than facing the consequences right the start via continuous assessment.
Now I'm not in the education field, so this is a very narrow viewpoint that I have. But I've seen it happen time and time again in the similar schemes deployed in my university courses. Courses structured to be very spread out (20% per assignment + a 20% midterm + 30% midterm) put extreme on "getting it right from the start" and "zero mistakes" attitude. Where a more end of year exam gives time to actually learn without assessment pressure. And given that the main purpose of education is learning, I would side against continuous assessment.
Hah, in Slovenia we have both. Exams (written, oral, presentations, lab reports etc.) throughout the year, which gives you your year end mark, and the Matura exam on top. I really dislike A-levels, it's very limiting in my opinion and students are missing out on a lot of general knowledge and thinking in favour of becoming (poor) specialists. Numeracy in the general population in the UK is also astoundingly poor. A-levels in general seem to focus on exam performance, and much less on actual knowledge and understanding. Compared to IB students or other European students, A-level students were much less prepared for university and struggled more. I saw the difference in my undergraduate students at Cambridge. I did the IB (HL Slovene, Math, Physics, Chemistry, Further Math, SL Philosophy, English B), and while I really didn't like TOK or CAS much, the other courses were very useful in general. Especially knowing how to write lab reports made undergrad much easier.
Home educated children can't access continual assessment by a school teacher. Appreciate we're only 1% of pupils, but we really do need an exam-only option to remain available.
This is for England not for UK. School education is very different in other parts of Britain.
If the other system was so great we would have stopped exams a long time again
Not really true, I mean everyone knows cigarettes cause cancer but many still smoke because it's easier to stick with what you know than change for the better
@@Mayomayomayo-l8r cigarette smoking has been and is being replaced my e cigs and Vape
And the number of people who smoke today has significantly reduced
False equivalence, bad answer and analogy.
Standardised testing is used by every sensible school and university and has existed for over 300 years now
So I don’t see any serious education board phasing it out
@@Mayomayomayo-l8r cigarette smoking has been and is being replaced my e cigs and Vape
And the number of people who smoke today has significantly reduced
False equivalence, bad answer and analogy.
Standardised testing is used by every sensible school and university and has existed for over 300 years now
So I don’t see any serious education board phasing it out
The current UK system sounds miserable. It's easy to compare for us in systems with continuous marking: subjects where you get assessed regularly and often give you a greater reflection of your actual ability (and not whether or not you slept well the day before exam) and give you a chance to make up for days where you didn't do well
I know so many people that are incredibly smart and don't do very well at exams and I also people that know very little but are good at cramming before exams and end up getting really good grades so I think a mixed system would be more fair like half course work, a little teacher assessment then 30-40% exam
Instead of University of Birmingham, you could’ve used the unrelated Oxford Brookes University.
I found that during my exchange in Canada I excelled at the methods of assessment they use in North America. I fully advocate “mid-term” style assessments. I found that learning in smaller chunks but being assessed more frequently made me retain the information better than simply regurgitating all of it at the end of the term.
Another obvious solution to the pressure of exams as highlighted by the video would be to change the enrolment date of universities so that exam results can be gained before offers are made. I took a gap year working before I went to uni and not only did I not have as much pressure during my A-levels (although my exam performance was abysmal) I found that starting university a year older and more experience set me off much better than most of those straight out of school. Perhaps there is a good argument for moving university age to the academic year you turn 20?
The real issue is how to resolve the competition fairly and in a transparent manner...
Course work is better than exams it more accuratly demonstrates your work ability you can put in no effort for most of the time when you are being taught but a couple months before the exams if you try really hard you can still get decent grades which is stupid
ontop of all the stress with exams that ruins mental health.
At least with exams you can be sure it's the student's own work. I think a mixture of exams & coursework is more effective than either on their own.
Coursework can be plagiarized & written by someone else. There’s nothing like a standardized exam to really evaluate your knowledge. Both together is even better, like the IB they’re referencing, 20-40% coursework depending on the subject & the rest exams
Or submit three coursework pieces, one of which was done in class time.
Thinking we need the same amount of material spread between more exams. The more there are the more students get used to them and the less pressure placed on any individual one. Would also help universities specialize.
Continuous assessment in nz means constant stress to perform in both tests and assessment throughout the year, not just the end of the year exam time
I wound up doing btecs and GCSE's, doing things throughout the year was way less stressful and frankly most exams are literacy based so subjects I was otherwise strong in I failed because I cant write for shit.
Wound up getting my highest grades in btecs due to it being more applied knowledge and having to do things every 2 weeks made me focus up out of necessity.
Yeah, then 7 times price increase = 7% inflation.
In some parts of the Caribbean that use the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) curriculum, teacher-assessed course work makes up 20-30% of your final grade for the Secondary Certificates and the A Levels. However, graded samples of the coursework are sent to the council for moderation of the grades to help take out some of the potential bias. Also, final grades are delivered through a numbering system, with letter grades for the individual concepts of each subject.
I mean up until further education, the main thing you learn at school is social skills. Basic maths and English is a given, but personally I've never used anything else I learn in primary and secondary education. History, Science, Geography, PE, ICT etc. Definitely need a complete reform as the only thing they hold value in is getting into further education. What's more important to employers, good GCSE levels or the equivalent time spent in the workspace getting hands on experience (2 years)?
I actually lost my first job due to my inability to adapt to an office environment due to how much of a change it was from being in school, nothing to do with my ability to do the actual job.
I think as well as scrapping exams we need to look at scrapping OFSTED. I mean their inspection system of every 4 years is so outdated and doesn't reflect how much a school can change in a short period of time. Teachers also when they promote their school place far too much emphasis on students that are no longer there and thus doesn't reflect on the students currently there.
This wasn’t about scrapping exams. We can never scrap exams completely. It’s the only realistic & scalable way to evaluates people’s knowledge & ability to learn and understand things across schools. It’s not perfect but it’s still the best option. & as they said in the video being evaluated by your own teacher in continuous assessments creates huge favoritism issues in grading. Nobody likes exams but we can’t not have them
@@swegatron2859 Yeah i made a mistake in that. We do need exams but we shouldn't place so much pressure on students to get good grades when they really don't matter that much in the real world
Never expected Blair to be back on the news...
Getting rid of exams would leave the education system far too vulnerable to bribery and corruption.
This fills me with confidence, as this year I will be sitting my GCSEs. Fun.
"being in an exam literally all the time will lower stress, somehow!"
IBC teacher grades are moderated. The IBC will pick 2 students at random and externally mark their work if they disagree with the grades the whole class is marked up or down.
Regarding the increased pass rate in teacher assessed grades; while there is an element of maybe wanting to bump up the school figures, consider this: in any exam some percentage of candidates will have an off day that could be anyone. So given a real exam 10% will fail that should have passed. For teacher assessed grades even if we know that happens we can’t know which students would be affected so there is an inevitable grade inflation.
I think this video slightly glosses over the fact that doing exams is a skill in its own right, which students just aren’t properly trained for any more. Loading educational attainment to just two exam periods (Year 11 and Year 13) means that students basically have to get it right first time.
Yes, school can do mock exams etc but students know that these are just internal: when I worked as a teacher I saw countless students with the mindset of “oh these don’t matter, I’ll just do it properly for the main event”.
At least when there were modular exams and coursework it meant students had opportunities to get exam technique wrong while still having a chance to improve later and get an overall good grade.
Not to mention the additional burden on actual learning: when you spread assessment out over time you are forced to really revise and internalise more content, which then makes it easier to learn the next steps. Having all the exams in one session at the end basically mean students have to remember two whole years worth of learning (across 3 or 4 subjects!), which is just too much of a burden for most
of course this happens just after i finish GCSEs haha. hoping this happens when i start sixth form in september tbh.
Well it’s probably not going to actually happen
Speaking as a former prinary school teacher, i think continuous assessment is awful. Kids are under a microscope the whole semester and they end up stressed out of their minds. Group work and mini projects become the norm, and all the teachers have different opinions on what new projects and mini tests to give the kids.
As a child we just did high volume, low-importance work, then at the end of each quarter or semester we studied for exams by... doing old exams. I used to eat 3 hr math tests for breakfast as a kid. But as a teacher my kids thought 10 equations was too heavy a burden.
No. Retain them England and Wales and Northern Ireland. They system based on testing. Exams improve education system for students.
I went to an international school in Singapore. I did A-level, about half my year did the IB. what I found was that he IB tends to require much more organisation for a good grade, something many students with learning disabilities like adhd (like myself and a growing number of young people) would struggle more with. On top of that, the main difference between A-level and IB that I observed was A-level is in depth and specialised, whereas IB is more shallow and unspecialised. Frankly if you want to fix the education system you need to completely overhaul it, not just change one section. If you want to lower student stress, the schooling under eighteen should not be for employment but simply the benefit of learning. You should then be allowed to take an exam for universities to judge you and for employers to judge you, but it should not be mandatory.
I’m afraid we have only realised this a little too late. We are decades behind
1.19 """Like many other countries the two main sets of exams take place at 16 and 18..."""
Ehm. NO. That's just the UK.
Source?
Great video! This is definitely a complex topic.
Since teachers don't have to take the QTS tests anymore, why shouldn't schools follow suit and drop the GCSEs and A levels? High stakes tests are frankly inequitable and really don't provide an accurate measure of a students capabilities. The sheer pressure that exams like these create for students can honestly distract students from focusing on the content, which is more important. When you focus on content and understanding it, the grade will generally follow, but if you focus on the outcome of an exam, your attention is no longer on the content.
Just some thoughts.
well, I worked hard for my GCSE's and did better than what my teachers predicted, if I was assessed based on that without the opportunity for an exam my schooling would have had a very different outcome.
This the English system. When Scottish kids apply for university they already have their Higher results. I got 5 unconditional offers not because I'm brilliant but because I knew where to bother applying.
Asian students: LOL "High stakes, stressful".
Chinese students: They have no idea what "High stakes, stressful" even mean, try studying 14 years for 1 exam.
Maybe instead they should introduce some exams on morality & ethics in international law which could help prevent another Tony Blair......
The main issue of continuous assessment is that it becomes school-based grade lose more of their meaning. And you are selected from the school you are from.
The point about exams being a fair playing field without outside assistance is simply incorrect. As a dyslexic student I had both a scribe and extra time to do my exams, this is before we even get into outside factors such as tutors.
I would also point out the distinction that exams don't cause stress but there context dose is a waste of time, as we are not changing the context.
I’ll skip your conflation of England and the UK, but why no mention of the Scottish education system? Are you even aware of its existence?
Private schools tend to get away with, or outright advertise, teaching the test vs a more generalized edu. Primary edu should be the time where we learn how to learn, be exposed to subjects we wouldn’t otherwise have exposure to, and be given a chance to fail and do better the next time (LEARNING).
Tests rarely “even” the playing field as it often require huge amounts of both the students and parents time + resources. It’s not about prioritizing one metric over another, it’s about giving options of equal weight.
I have two degrees and a hs diploma. I’ve known plenty of people who as successful or even more so that got a GED. Who were crazy their first two years and cleaned up in the later 2 of hs or college.
In the US, we have the SAT and ACT. With Covid, many students fond schools scrapped it all together and gave essays instead and had other considerations. It’s not the end of the world to not have one single test or consideration, it just artificially limits potential.
I honestly don't think a second term for Blair would be a bad idea, especially compared to anyone on the tory bench going in for any term.
Calling University of Birmingham a lower ranked university but yet they still require A* A A for Computer Science these days.... and had an intake of ~440 last year.
So I know I'm just a lonely ol' teaching graduate (biology/science), but I did my research project on the impacts of teacher assesed grades on percieved difficultly for post 16 options in GSCE students. It wasn't a qualitative study, it was a interview based thematic analysis. But the bottom line is, based on my sample, at my school - regular smaller assessments were percieved to be better than exams. There were students who disagreed, but far and away the majority performed better and felt less stress undergoing more regular, slightly lower stakes 'mini' exams and observations.
I'm not in policy. But I taught some smart kids who I know could perform well at university, and excel academicallty, but they would absolutely have failed at taking exams as they are now. Hell, I would have as a student. It's the first thing we learn about retention as a teacher, little and often, come back and retest previous objectives. Well, why the hell are we asking a student to remember all this stuff, that I'm not even supposed to remember all the time. I had to reteach myself all the time for some GCSE higher stuff and A level stuff. It incentivises cramming, which is completely useless for longterm memory (refer to the little and often above). In the real world, you don't need to know everything. You need to know the fundamentals and how to find out key information and then pro/cons.
Regardless of what is good and bad about educational reform, I know in my core that we need it, and we need it badly - a long with my now ex-collegues (I moved on to private industry) to get a improvement in working conditions, pay isn't bad, but when you consider many teachers are doing 50-60 hour weeks, that salary starts looking much worse.
as a french person. don't fall for the continuous testing thing. it's also unfair because not all schools can provide proper exam conditions. if they make the paper, then some schools will make lower quality exam papers/sheets than others. some rooms are not suited for exams. etc.
maybe the exams should be spread out throughout the year. maybe an university entry exam is in order?
whatever you do, don't do continuous testing T-T
About 6 or 7 years ago I worked for a company making GCSE materials. I was incredulous to discover that the various exam boards, between them, produced 7 different syllabuses for some subjects; 9 when you included "International" GCSEs.
One of the things that varied a lot was the proportion of continuous assessment.
I believe Michael Gove has since scrapped all cts assessment in a fit of "never had that in my day"-ism, but it's not a new idea.
In the United States, we have a choice of two exams, each with their own practice exams that are taken between freshman and junior years, taken in junior and/or senior years. Some universities are doing away with even allowing these exam scores to be submitted in favor of their own placement exams, but some universities have their own placement exams that need to be taken in addition to these other exams. We do have a universalized placement exam that I believe could replace all of this, but I think that the exam makers and the universities have just grown too powerful and would never consider such a thing.
The IB system was very good, and it prepared me a lot for University. Beyond improving grade accuracy, continuous assessment means things like: more emphasis on writing/ researching skills, more opportunities to improve your grade/ recover from a bad week, ect.
Any "reform" under the Tories would be an absolute disaster.
Even if it's undoing a previous Tory reform?
New Labour was all about soft subjects and sandal-wearing hippy shite ideas
@@alexpotts6520 it would reformed worse lol
Naaahhh, it would be totally legit to give an automatic 2 level higher score to private schools along with 2 level lower score to schools in poor areas.
Ensuring that only the wealthy get into the top universities and that a far higher representation of privileged people in the top paid positions is maintained could only be a good thing .... especially if it's still called a "meritocracy". I see no problems at all with that, look how well we're doing currently. \o/
I think the system needs to be reformed to reduce the high stakes (as well as Labour's education proposal for life long learning), I don't think Blair's idea is a net benefit.
Having sat exams in two countries the English system is ridiculous. Exams should be maximum 50% of the grade and these should be spread across the year/s . Several subjects could easily be moved to portfolio or practical components especially the main sciences and the arts. Secondly the exams themselves should change many exams are just memory tests not showing any understanding. Scandinavian exams are a lot more focused on showing understanding. They also allowed us to have food blankets and were about 4hrs but you could leave after the first hour or before the last 15mins and put a lot of students at ease
Before you can assess what changes the education system in the UK needs, you have to first understand why it exists in it's current form.
The UK puts exams on a pedestal, and the resulting grades have such power, for one reason and one reason only, and it's the same fairly unique reason that the UK has and almost no other European country struggles with: The class system.
It is much easier for a student who has been to prep school and Private school, with access to tutors and a curriculum utterly designed to get children to perform well in exams, to get As and A*s. This is why more private school kids go to Oxbridge and other Russell Group Universities. Not because they're cleverer, but because daddy could afford to educate them to jump through the right hoops. It's also why Universities tend not to rely on exams, but on coursework- they want to see what a student knows, not what they remember.
Once you understand THAT, you understand why it tends to be socially liberal people and think-tanks that advocate for a shift to coursework/continuous assessment, because it levels the playing field, while socially conservative people and governments tend to prefer maintaining the status quo, because they ARE the status quo, and they prefer a system that keeps the riff-raff where they belong- doffing their caps, tugging at their forelocks, and living in poverty while the Tories tell them that it's all THEIR fault for being lazy, feckless under-achieving plebs.
The game, in short, is rigged from the start.
The UK is not the only nation to rely on exam results for university applicants.
Poland has the Matura, which is a series of exams which you must take if you wish to apply for university. I know other nations on the continent have their variation on the Matura as well which are also exam based, for examples see Austria and Italy. If your claim that exam-reliant school grades are a result of class systems then this wouldn't be the case.
You also say that Universities don't rely on exams but certainly the one I went to in Scotland did. Most of my modules that counted towards my degree consisted of an exam that was equal to 60% of the grade for each module. The only exception was the dissertation which counted as two modules and for obvious reasons didn't have an exam.
I think you're making more of an emotional and political rather than factual point.
@@SoulReaperIsHere And I would say that your degree probably would have benefitted from a bit more course-work, which tends to encourage comprehension and critical thinking.
I did not say only the UK has exams, as you seem to think, but that it is one of the diminishing few that relies so heavily upon it over coursework. I also said UK universities TEND not to rely on exams.
The examples you give of Poland, Austria and Italy are also countries that lean heavily on their own class systems, so I'm not sure they disprove my argument either.
Good effort, must try harder. 45%
@@peterclarke7240 I said:
'The UK is not the only nation to rely on exam results for university applicants.'
That is not saying that the UK is the only country to have exams as you claim that I 'seem to think'. My statement means that there are other nations, which I later cited, that also rely heavily on exam results for university admissions. Why did I open with this?
Because of your claim in the 2nd paragraph:
'[...] it's the same fairly unique reason that the UK has and almost no other European country struggles with: The class system'.
As well as the view you present in your 3rd paragraph:
'It is much easier for a student who has been to prep school and Private school, with access to tutors and a curriculum utterly designed to get children to perform well in exams, to get As and A*s. This is why more private school kids go to Oxbridge and other Russell Group Universities.'
In the first passage, you make a sweeping generalisation. The claim is that the UK is one of the very few, if not the only, countries in Europe that has struggles with the class system. In the second passage you make the connection that private schools, implied to educate higher class children, train their pupils more effectively for exams and thus their pupils are more likely to gain admittance to more prestigious universities. Ergo, you have weaved a narrative here that makes the following connection:
Grades reliant on exams = symptom of an in-grained class system.
This is why I cited a few nations from Europe as examples of nations with less ingrained class systems who rely just as heavily, if not more so, on exams for university admittance. It's a questioning of your entire premise. You've responded with my examples being nations that also 'lean heavily on their own class systems' which is a contradiction of your original argument. The one I cited earlier where you claim that the class system is a 'fairly unique' issue for the UK amongst all European countries. Either ingrained class systems are more common in Europe than you first claimed or heavy reliance on exam results is not a result of an ingrained class system.
As for universities and exam based assessment. Yes, you did use the word 'tend'. I brought up my personal experience to cement that it at most it is just a tendency. It is particularly curious that, considering my university was not prestigious at all and many courses required relatively low grades, that it was so reliant on exams. If your central premise was true, you'd expect my university to have vastly preferred coursework assessments considering it caters for lower class students who you seem to say are treated more fairly when exposed to coursework over exam assessments.
I was the last year of O'Levels. They were based on single exams at 16 years old.
The students in the year below me did GCSE. At that point in time GCSE were largely course based. Why not just go back to the original idea?
If you take away exams you have nothing to aim for and you don’t bother learning. You create CANNON FODDER