News Lol! From the horses mouth :)

[Scouse]

Hopefully this'll put an end to the (endless) debates:

Top Private School To Drop GCSE's, because they're a nonsense education for thick people.

That is all...

 

[taB]

Good for them!

 

[cHodAX]

Rightly so, they are a complete farce these days. 20 years ago they were just about acceptable but now they are utterly worthless, they hand out A Stars for fun and kids who can barely string a sentence together are leaving with enough GSCE's to get onto A level courses. There is a whole new arguement as well, worthless A levels that are handed out like confetti.

 

[ECA]

It doesnt really matter what the qualification is, if you teach kids how to beat a test rather than to learn/interpret the subject matter... then really there is no difference between regurgitation exam A or regurgitation exam B.

 

[Jeros]

Heh old people are funny in the way they have contempt for the young and our better level of education due to the things they put in place so that we could have it in the first place

 

[chipper]

It doesnt really matter what the qualification is, if you teach kids how to beat a test rather than to learn/interpret the subject matter... then really there is no difference between regurgitation exam A or regurgitation exam B.

couldnt agree more

 

[Scouse]

Heh old people are funny in the way they have contempt for the young and our better level of education due to the things they put in place so that we could have it in the first place

Lol, young people are funny in the way that they are absolutely assured in their belief that they have a better level of education despite all evidence to the contrary

 

[Everz]

:lol:

Bitter old farts. What evidence is this Scouse?

 

[Aoami]

Rightly so, they are a complete farce these days. 20 years ago they were just about acceptable but now they are utterly worthless, they hand out A Stars for fun and kids who can barely string a sentence together are leaving with enough GSCE's to get onto A level courses. There is a whole new arguement as well, worthless A levels that are handed out like confetti.

That's bullshit, but ECA hit the nail on the head. Schools are geared to teaching kids to pass exams, and it's a complete waste of time.

 

[Tom]

Heh old people are funny in the way they have contempt for the young and our better level of education due to the things they put in place so that we could have it in the first place

Presumably you're a recent graduate, in which case I should say that you would be entirely correct to be ashamed at the poor standard of English demonstrated in the above sentence.

 

[Scouse]

Nice, Tom

Bitter old farts. What evidence is this Scouse?

Biitter? I'm doing very nicely 12 years after getting my worthless degree, thankyouverymuch.

 

[Mey]

You cannot really blame the "younger generation" for our poor level of education, it is your generations fault the world is so backwards.

Damn hippies.

 

[SilverHood]

GCSE's and A-levels today aren't about educating young people, they're about showing them that if you work hard, you can achieve the top grade, no matter your actual intelligence.

As someone who has gone through the school system in 2 countries, the problem with GCSE's is that they try to cater to everyone. There's the higher level paper, the intermediate level paper, and the lower level paper. These follow bands A*-C, B-E, C-whatever is lowest these days, respectively.

If you tell someone that the highest grade they can get is a C, what motivation do they have for studying? Secondly, they're being taught to pass the exam with a grade C so all the more advanced stuff isn't taught because they wont get marked on it anyway. It's appalling.

As for A-levels... totally worthless too. More teaching to the exam... of the A levels I did, the only one that's come in useful in the real world is general studies, a qualification scoffed at by all the universities for admission. Irony.

Oh, and English and Maths in some shape or form needs to be mandatory at college level. I still fail to understand why it isn't, but it explains why a jolly foreigner like me has better written English than 95% of my peers.

 

[leviathane]

not to mention probably speak better english than most english ppl

 

[Scouse]

You cannot really blame the "younger generation" for our poor level of education, it is your generations fault the world is so backwards.

We're not blaming the young for the atrocious level of education nowadays. That blame is firmly levelled at the government.

The pissy "no, GCSE's aer teh greatz and yooz is just oldz" denial crap, however, is entirely the fault of bitter younglings

 

[Jeros]

Presumably you're a recent graduate, in which case I should say that you would be entirely correct to be ashamed at the poor standard of English demonstrated in the above sentence.

Not a graduate yet heh But it brings me onto a point, I do science and most of my time is spent doing graphs and working out equations, its not about how good the grammer is, its about the infomation your getting across. On essays when i spend large amounts of time on something i of course ensure all the grammer is perfect, but to judge someone on something not directly linked to there education is a bit silly no? The opportunity to get good at english skills is there in school, but i ignored it, but the important thing was it was there for me to learn if i had wanted to.

I admit it was a slightly provocative statement but tbh all of the people i know who have achived top marks in school are very intelligent, the competiton for places at top unis is testement to the improvements in education.

I went to a school with a massive amount of kids going on to A levels with A* grade GCSES, not because they where easy but because the education was good (then again the huge numbers of girls at the school proboly pushed that average up). And while remembering facts might get you through the exam, it wont help you as much with the huge amount of coursework that gets you the majority of your mark, not to mention THAT THE PURPOSE OF AN EXAM IS TO TEST THE PERSONS ABILITY TO RECALL INFORMATION AND/OR SHOW SKILL IN A GIVEN SUBJECT. Im back in education now after leaving school in 2000, i have done courses and stuff inbetween working and my spate in Oz, and if there is one thing i have learnt its up to the individual to study and get through what ever they are doing, the teachers lay out the data, its up to you to learn it and learn how to apply it.

I am doing chem and bio at A level on my access course, there is nothing easy about what we are learning, and i hope when i have kids, they will come home and tell me about what they have been doing and for me to go "wow i wish it was that advanced in my day"

This is getting stupid now, if you a young high roller your a "Bloody Yuppie pushing up housing prices", if your going to uni your a "Bloody Student whos not doing anything", less hate for the young, we will be paying your care home bills!

:Edit: On the subject of schools scrapping GCSEs to do something else, thats fine if they feel it is best, but not all students study on the same level, you cant just pigeonhole students into "pass" and "fail" or we will have a generation of kids feeling like they have failed just because they did not "make the grade". The current education system is very good at getting younger people into alternate quals and pathways if they show that it would be better for them....how society sees that is a different matter however. Well the goverment can always declare these non-gcse quals "invalid" if they wish

 

[DaGaffer]

Not a graduate yet heh But it brings me onto a point, I do science and most of my time is spent doing graphs and working out equations, its not about how good the grammer is, its about the infomation your getting across. On essays when i spend large amounts of time on something i of course ensure all the grammer is perfect, but to judge someone on something not directly linked to there education is a bit silly no? The opportunity to get good at english skills is there in school, but i ignored it, but the important thing was it was there for me to learn if i had wanted to.

I don't understand that. If you can write properly, why wouldn't you choose to do so all the time? There are two reasons; laziness, or contempt for the reader. I wouldn't mind, but it's not even much of an effort; as I look at the quote above Firefox is highlighting your spelling mistakes.

:Edit: On the subject of schools scrapping GCSEs to do something else, thats fine if they feel it is best, but not all students study on the same level, you cant just pigeonhole students into "pass" and "fail" or we will have a generation of kids feeling like they have failed just because they did not "make the grade". The current education system is very good at getting younger people into alternate quals and pathways if they show that it would be better for them....how society sees that is a different matter however. Well the goverment can always declare these non-gcse quals "invalid" if they wish

Every generation has "a generation of kids feeling like they have failed just because they did not make the grade". You know why? Because they didn't. The danger of a system that drives kids into "alternate" (read; less valuable) qualifications is that its also the easy path, but one that can lead to a dead end. This is also one of the problems with an education system obsessed with league tables; schools would rather push the higher achievers into a narrow band of A, A+, A*, A-with-a-fucking-cherry-on-top performers, and push the ones who might drag their league position down out of the process altogether, and in to "alternate" qualifications. I say this as someone who left school at 16 with average qualifications and took the "easy" (BTEC) path, only to have go back and do A-levels in my spare time when I realised that alternate qualifications will almost always hold you back.

 

[Jeros]

Laziness I guess, I don’t have time to pick over every spelling mistake on an internet forum, when im just writing normally and not picking over what I am writing, my spelling and grammar is not great and I tend to get letters and words mixed up. When doing an essay I spend so much time working on it comes out perfect, hell a women who writes novels complimented me on my writing skills when reading some of my work. Strangely my day-to-day English skills seem to be degenerating as time goes on but im putting this through word, just for you

I guess depending on the area you work in, alternative qualifications will effect you in different ways. Hell some jobs you cant do standard qualifications for them. At the end of the day as long as you do the job you want at a salary you can comfortably live off and your happy, job done tbh. Everyone deserves the opportunity to better himself or herself, we won’t be looked up as a country to if we have a generation of maccers employees, we must have an education system that EVERYONE benefits from. Did/are you going on to uni? Most unis I have seen have no issues with alternative quals as long as you can prove you have the aptitude to study at a degree level.

 

[nath]

Laziness I guess, I don’t have time to pick over every spelling mistake on an internet forum, when im just writing normally and not picking over what I am writing, my spelling and grammar is not great and I tend to get letters and words mixed up. When doing an essay I spend so much time working on it comes out perfect, hell a women who writes novels complimented me on my writing skills when reading some of my work. Strangely my day-to-day English skills seem to be degenerating as time goes on but im putting this through word, just for you

I guess depending on the area you work in, alternative qualifications will effect you in different ways. Hell some jobs you cant do standard qualifications for them. At the end of the day as long as you do the job you want at a salary you can comfortably live off and your happy, job done tbh. Everyone deserves the opportunity to better himself or herself, we won’t be looked up as a country to if we have a generation of maccers employees, we must have an education system that EVERYONE benefits from. Did/are you going on to uni? Most unis I have seen have no issues with alternative quals as long as you can prove you have the aptitude to study at a degree level.

Word doesn't catch everything it seems .*









*For the record I don't give a shit how you type, I'm just being a pedantic fuckwit.

 

[Scouse]

its not about how good the grammer is, its about the infomation your getting across.

And if your grammar is shit then it's hard to get the information across. Standards are so bad now that in my last job we used to pull out new graduate's CV's just so we could have a good laugh.

This is getting stupid now, if you a young high roller your a "Bloody Yuppie pushing up housing prices", if your going to uni your a "Bloody Student whos not doing anything", less hate for the young, we will be paying your care home bills!

It's always been that way. Don't think that it's anything special. I got shit for being a student and I got shit for doing well. Meh.

we will have a generation of kids feeling like they have failed just because they did not "make the grade"

They DID fail because they didn't make the grade. So what the government did was what they do in America - give everyone good grades to make them "feel good", regardless of whether they're shit or not...

 

[Tom]

Not a graduate yet heh But it brings me onto a point, I do science and most of my time is spent doing graphs and working out equations, its not about how good the grammer is, its about the infomation your getting across. On essays when i spend large amounts of time on something i of course ensure all the grammer is perfect, but to judge someone on something not directly linked to there education is a bit silly no? The opportunity to get good at english skills is there in school, but i ignored it, but the important thing was it was there for me to learn if i had wanted to.

I admit it was a slightly provocative statement but tbh all of the people i know who have achived top marks in school are very intelligent, the competiton for places at top unis is testement to the improvements in education.

I went to a school with a massive amount of kids going on to A levels with A* grade GCSES, not because they where easy but because the education was good (then again the huge numbers of girls at the school proboly pushed that average up). And while remembering facts might get you through the exam, it wont help you as much with the huge amount of coursework that gets you the majority of your mark, not to mention THAT THE PURPOSE OF AN EXAM IS TO TEST THE PERSONS ABILITY TO RECALL INFORMATION AND/OR SHOW SKILL IN A GIVEN SUBJECT. Im back in education now after leaving school in 2000, i have done courses and stuff inbetween working and my spate in Oz, and if there is one thing i have learnt its up to the individual to study and get through what ever they are doing, the teachers lay out the data, its up to you to learn it and learn how to apply it.

I am doing chem and bio at A level on my access course, there is nothing easy about what we are learning, and i hope when i have kids, they will come home and tell me about what they have been doing and for me to go "wow i wish it was that advanced in my day"

This is getting stupid now, if you a young high roller your a "Bloody Yuppie pushing up housing prices", if your going to uni your a "Bloody Student whos not doing anything", less hate for the young, we will be paying your care home bills!

:Edit: On the subject of schools scrapping GCSEs to do something else, thats fine if they feel it is best, but not all students study on the same level, you cant just pigeonhole students into "pass" and "fail" or we will have a generation of kids feeling like they have failed just because they did not "make the grade". The current education system is very good at getting younger people into alternate quals and pathways if they show that it would be better for them....how society sees that is a different matter however. Well the goverment can always declare these non-gcse quals "invalid" if they wish

 

[Scouse]

Just to resurrect this thread: more proof that GSCE's are getting easier!

 

[Turamber]

testement

Sorry Jeros but the only thing your post is "testement" (sic) to is the disgrace that our school system has become. And you were probably trying hard to sound informed and well educated. Jesus wept.

 

[Talivar]

The only thing anybody can gather from this thread is the fact to many older people seem to beleive and want to cling to this childish belief everything was better and harder when they was young. I remember being told the same nonsense when i was young aswell by the older generation. Lets take a look at the world at the moment and the recession. How many of these heads of goverments and banks that have screwed up are young?, the answer is not many. The fact of the matter is we all whine about the older people when we young and then when we old we whine about the younger people. Just an endless cycle that wont go away. And if we being picky about spelling then it takes more braincells to interpret and understand a sentence than it does to write it correctly, so maybe all the people complaining about bad grammer are actually the people with lower IQs not vice versa. Rubbish of course but you can start an argument either way if you want and thats the point.

 

[Scouse]

I disagree with you there Talivar. I was in the 3rd year of GCSE's and I was shown, by my teachers, just how they'd deteriorated in that short time. I was also shown O-Level papers and A level papers at the same time. Since then I've looked at the evidence.

Then we've got the evidence presented above - one of a school who say they're ditching them for being too easy, and another from the government's standards regulator saying that science needs to be redone 'cause it's not up to scratch.

I did 'em. I admit they're shit. Why can't you? Living in denial much?

The only thing anybody can gather from this thread is the fact to many older people seem to beleive and want to cling to this childish belief everything was better and harder when they was young.

I'll state again. It's kids who are pissed off to find out that they've been getting fucked over with sub-standard education who are in denial about all this...

 

[Turamber]

beleive

Perhaps there is a ... subtle ... reason why you side with the illiterate camp

It is also quite possible that standards of education have been falling for many years, but surely that should be addressed and not accelerated or accepted?

 

[Talivar]

The problem is all to do with how ppl are being taught purely how to pass the exam. Marketisation and league tables combined with capatalism have screwed everything up. Its not so much the courses and exams being easier its more the fact the students are being made to just focus on the few key things needed to pass. No application to the real world is needed. Take away this style of teaching and the courss would seem much more of a challenge.
And to reply to Turamber. The fact simple spelling mistakes annoys you shows more about you than it does me. It has never hindered me in life so i dont see what the problem is.

 

[Krazeh]

And to reply to Turamber. The fact simple spelling mistakes annoys you shows more about you than it does me. It has never hindered me in life so i dont see what the problem is.

The problem is that your spelling is wrong. It makes no difference whether or not you believe it's hindered your life, it's still wrong. And frankly if people can't even manage the basics like spelling and grammar then it raises doubts about the rest of their education.

 

[Scouse]

It has never hindered me in life so i dont see what the problem is.

If you attempt to apply for any job worth it's salt and spell like that it'd affect you. If you tried hard and your CV was great but you continued like that in the job I'd sack you.

I think it's lazy not to do it in a forum and when I read posts structured like that it makes me less likely to lend any weight to the arguer.

 

[Talivar]

Im an Occupational Therapist at my Local Hospital and i spend my time helping people overcome REAL problems in life and i can safely say not once have i had a problem because my spelling wasnt upto par. If anyone was to even suggest to sack me over it then they are truly the idiots not me. Good grammar maybe vital to some of you but there are lots of jobs and areas in life where it is not important at all ( or atleast not AS important) .