• The British Education System
    85 replies, posted
So generally I see a lot of people complaining about the Education system in Britain. So I was wondering what you think could be changed to improve it. Sorry if this is in the wrong section, I didn't know whether I should post this in the debate section or here.
The gap in difficulty between secondary and alevel education is way too big then it gets easier all of a sudden when they get to uni. Makes no sense to me.
They really need stop writing ambiguous exam questions.
The exams system is fucking awful.
The fact that there are so many exam boards of varying difficulty/style is depressing. Some people find some styles easier and get ahead easier where as someone who doesn't "say something in a certain way" is left behind.
[QUOTE=AK'z;40279501]The fact that there are so many exam boards of varying difficulty/style is depressing. Some people find some styles easier and get ahead easier where as someone who doesn't "say something in a certain way" is left behind.[/QUOTE] Yes, that. Some people will write an answer which is perfectly acceptable if you're a human being, but that way might not be the way the board wants it, which is fucking dumb
Until recently, I used to do average, maybe a little above, in practice exams and stuff. The teachers often said "He's doing well, but he needs to learn to jump through the hoops a little bit more." Almost every teacher I talked to at parents evenings would use that exact phrase, it just feels like you're being shoehorned (more than is necessary, of course) into doing exactly what they want you to do with absolutely no room for the 'error' of saying something slightly differently. On several occasions I got no marks because I answered a one-word-answer question with several sentences that described the process in more detail, it just seems a little strange.
The problem with A Level exams summarized in two words. "Suggest why" The horrible attempt at trying to force teachers to teach understanding and making the exam so people actually pass it because GCSE's award people who memorize the syllabus and not understand.
Teachers said the exact same thing to me, not many of them seemed to think it was a bad thing
I remember when my graphics tutor put me in for the A level GCSE exam, and I didn't even pass it.. and I couldn't even change cause he thought I would be able to do it /facepalm
[video=youtube;iG9CE55wbtY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY[/video] Watch any of Ken Robinson's talks, they are fantastic.
You don't get any marks in a standard grade computing exam if you say "Hard Drive" instead of "Hard Disk". Always thought it was stupid.
Some subjects (like computing) are practically useless in school.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40281905]Some subjects (like computing) are practically useless in school.[/QUOTE] I'm doing A2 Computing and OCR's mark schemes are fucking abysmal. I resat my AS F452 this year, and there was absolutely no theory at all on it, all algorithms. I'm dreading my A2s because of the fucking wildcards (as my class calls them) they'll pull on us in the exam.
AS Psychology has gotten to the point where if I don't copy the mark schemes my answers are mostly wrong, so I google the exam questions we get as homework and see what the mark scheme wants as the teaching for this subject is unreliable at best. Over marking in mocks made me think what I was doing was right and I failed G541 so I'm not making that mistake again...
English GCSE's and A-Levels need reworking a hell of a lot, AS/A2 General Studies is completely pointless and shouldn't be a requirement for entry to most Uni's, entry requirements to Colleges should not be as strict and rely more on the actual student rather than the statistics My problem with colleges is that all they care about is the statistics and making the institution itself look good, rather than actually caring about the people
[QUOTE=Jamsponge;40279774]Until recently, I used to do average, maybe a little above, in practice exams and stuff. The teachers often said "He's doing well, but he needs to learn to jump through the hoops a little bit more." Almost every teacher I talked to at parents evenings would use that exact phrase, it just feels like you're being shoehorned (more than is necessary, of course) into doing exactly what they want you to do with absolutely no room for the 'error' of saying something slightly differently. On several occasions I got no marks because I answered a one-word-answer question with several sentences that described the process in more detail, it just seems a little strange.[/QUOTE] I currently work at a tutoring centre part time while I finish my degree, so hopefully I can speak a little about this. I was brought on to teach foundation degree level IT stuff (databases, programming etc) to a particular student they have, but during a week I'll teach KS2-KS3, GCSE and AS-Level Maths, GCSE Biology (I think for an Edexcel exam, I only do that once a week and we go through one of those CGP workbooks), and GCSE ICT and A-Level ICT (OCR). Your teachers are absolutely right, although I wouldn't call it jumping through hoops. You need to be able to [U]express yourself appropriately for the question[/U], you do not need to be able to word-vomit everything you know on the subject. Expressing yourself with precision is an important skill for exam success and general life success. If a question requires a one-sentence answer, and you're thinking about writing a paragraph, it should be clear that you've got the wrong end of the stick in terms of interpreting what's being asked of you. This ties into the fact that I hear a lot of students say 'oh but I put loads of information down, I went in to way more detail than it asked!' - yes, but that doesn't mean you answered the question properly. Sometimes it feels like the the student is trying to baffle the examiner with bullshit that's related to the answer in the hopes that, having being born yesterday, the examiner won't notice the lack of evidence for an appropriate depth of understanding given the question. And in terms of questions, it's important to read them. [I]Describe...[/I] does not mean the same thing as [I]Explain...[/I], make sure you make note of the verbs in question. [I]Suggest why...[/I] is a perfectly good way of assessing your ability to apply what you have learnt in the syllabus to potentially unfamiliar scenarios - with that in mind, you don't have to be Dr. Fucking House and know all the muscles in the hand, but you do have to know what you should know, and apply it. Someone in this thread mentioned IT being ridiculous when saying hard drive instead of hard disk and I completely agree with them. In order to get a PGCE to teach ICT your degree has to be at least 50% relevant, and so as a result you can teach ICT with quite a lot of degrees - I had a friend who qualified to teach ICT off of a business degree, and as far as I know schools will take you. I'm not sure how it is now, but I think there's a general shortage of ICT teachers - let's face it, anyone with a computer science degree will want to be doing something more lucrative. So my theory is that a lot of ICT teachers are just going off the syllabus and couldn't critically evaluate an exam answer to save their lives. Hopefully that will change when the ICT syllabus is scrapped a more computer science based one, which is good, because the current one is useless. I was tutoring a student on using Dreamweaver, and frankly in terms of professional web development it was all useless (in my opinion).
Obligatory: [video=youtube;YR5ApYxkU-U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U[/video]
I found computing at school to be useless, in secondary school we pretty much did the same thing for five years, didn't touch any of the hardware side of things, didn't touch programming, none of that. Instead we were pretty much trained to be receptionists or secretaries. Word, Excel. powerpoint. etc. It's stupid.
[QUOTE=Thom12255;40281229]You don't get any marks in a standard grade computing exam if you say "Hard Drive" instead of "Hard Disk". Always thought it was stupid.[/QUOTE] I literally drew a flying space bus filled with cereal when talking about universal serial buses in my standard grade computing exam and I still passed credit...
[QUOTE=Leestons;40285148]I found computing at school to be useless, in secondary school we pretty much did the same thing for five years, didn't touch any of the hardware side of things, didn't touch programming, none of that. Instead we were pretty much trained to be receptionists or secretaries. Word, Excel. powerpoint. etc. It's stupid.[/QUOTE] This is one of the biggest reasons I lost interest in ICT at GCSE and A/S levels, it just got so monotonous staring at a Office Suite program day in day out that I just stopped trying. Though if the government actually manages to reform the ICT curriculum there might not be so many people like me who just got fed up of not doing anything interesting.
[QUOTE=markg06;40286829]This is one of the biggest reasons I lost interest in ICT at GCSE and A/S levels, it just got so monotonous staring at a Office Suite program day in day out that I just stopped trying. Though if the government actually manages to reform the ICT curriculum there might not be so many people like me who just got fed up of not doing anything interesting.[/QUOTE] They have, I'm currently a masters student in computer science, the BCS is offering MASSIVE subsidies to convince us to train to be teachers since they want to bring back CS in schools. (actual programming! :D) I'm really considering becoming a teacher... I'd get paid competitively to train as a teacher as much as if I decided to work.
[QUOTE=AK'z;40278264]The gap in difficulty between secondary and alevel education is way too big then it gets easier all of a sudden when they get to uni. Makes no sense to me.[/QUOTE] I can't say I agree from my personal experience, I thought the GCSE/A-level gap was fine, and A-Level/uni was a bigger gap.
[QUOTE=Drakehawke;40287443]I can't say I agree from my personal experience, I thought the GCSE/A-level gap was fine, and A-Level/uni was a bigger gap.[/QUOTE] Depends entirely on what you did.
I'm currently doing my GCSEs, and they're not great to be honest. Apparently lots of the shit they teach us in GCSE Chemistry and GCSE Physics is actually wrong because it's so dumbed down. E.g electrons having shells of electrons. I'll see how true this all is in september though, as I'm doing both for A Level. The exams do currently suck major shit though, as you just need to vomit definitions word for word to get all the marks, and it doesn't actually matter if you don't understand the stuff a lot of the time. It doesn't help when you get a very vague high mark question either.
[QUOTE=AK'z;40278264]then it gets easier all of a sudden when they get to uni.[/QUOTE] not all the time D:
[QUOTE=TM Gmod;40287364]They have, I'm currently a masters student in computer science, the BCS is offering MASSIVE subsidies to convince us to train to be teachers since they want to bring back CS in schools. (actual programming! :D) I'm really considering becoming a teacher... I'd get paid competitively to train as a teacher as much as if I decided to work.[/QUOTE] With what little experience I have, I'd recommend it. It is quite fun, but you won't be doing anything advanced even with the change in curriculum. And be ready to explain if statements about 50 times - which is fine obviously, that's the whole point of teaching - but as far as I've ascertained, the job will be more about the [I]teaching[/I] i.e. expressing things in understandable ways, lesson planning etc, not the subject (although an excellent knowledge of the subject is obviously important). Off-topic:What did you get your MSc in? Why did you do it? Was it worth it? I'm thinking of doing one in computational intellifence / artificial life. I've applied for some funded PhD's as well but I won't get in with the state of my CV as it is.
Cheaper university. Fuck you Clegg.
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;40288407]I'm currently doing my GCSEs, and they're not great to be honest. Apparently lots of the shit they teach us in GCSE Chemistry and GCSE Physics [B]is actually wrong because it's so dumbed down[/B]. E.g electrons having shells of electrons. I'll see how true this all is in september though, as I'm doing both for A Level. The exams do currently suck major shit though, as you just need to vomit definitions word for word to get all the marks, and it doesn't actually matter if you don't understand the stuff a lot of the time. It doesn't help when you get a very vague high mark question either.[/QUOTE] Thats because the truth is very complex and can't be understood by children.
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;40288407]I'm currently doing my GCSEs, and they're not great to be honest. Apparently lots of the shit they teach us in GCSE Chemistry and GCSE Physics is actually wrong because it's so dumbed down. E.g electrons having shells of electrons. I'll see how true this all is in september though, as I'm doing both for A Level. The exams do currently suck major shit though, as you just need to vomit definitions word for word to get all the marks, and it doesn't actually matter if you don't understand the stuff a lot of the time. [B]It doesn't help when you get a very vague high mark question either.[/B][/QUOTE] I don't know much about chemistry, but if you post some of these vague questions I can try and give you a strategy to break them down if you like. I don't think many of the questions on exam papers are particularly vague.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.