"Actually, that's a shit idea" - UK plan to scrap GCSEs abandoned
39 replies, posted
[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21363396[/url]
[QUOTE]Plans to scrap GCSEs in key subjects in England and replace them with an English Baccalaureate Certificate seem set to be abandoned by the government.
The major reversal is expected to be announced, alongside changes to the curriculum, in the Commons later.
Plans for the new qualification, which was announced last September, seem set to be shelved, with GCSEs expected to be retained, despite having been condemned by the education secretary.[/QUOTE]
Someone want to give us a lowdown on what so bad about each?
[QUOTE=download;39500475]Someone want to give us a lowdown on what so bad about each?[/QUOTE]
Critics say GCSEs are not giving children a good enough education, specifically in English and ICT.
On the other hand, the government are demanding they be scrapped and reinstated with an entirely new system which teachers are ill prepared for and would prefer to see a revision instead of starting from scratch once again. Also, the new system isn't guaranteed to be better, just 'harder'.
In my personal opinion ministers are too willing to scrap and introduce new ideas because that's how they/the popularists think, rather than what is best. There is little wrong with GCSEs that a moderate overhaul wouldn't fix. (More focus on spelling and grammar, more relevant ICT material and not just Word and PowerPoint, etc)
I can't comment on if the baccalaureate is better or not since I've never taken one, and I don't think they currently do one for core subjects.
[IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63643000/jpg/_63643354_govenew.jpg[/IMG]
Michael Gove is such a blithering idiot. Why is he still the minister for education?
[QUOTE=Wiggles;39500562][IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/63643000/jpg/_63643354_govenew.jpg[/IMG]
Michael Gove is such a blithering idiot. Why is he still the minister for education?[/QUOTE]
The same reason the health security strongly believes in homeopathy and has no experience of medicine.
This government is a joke.
make your bloody minds up
Stupid UK, why don't you just copy Finland? It's like, [I]right next to you[/I].
[QUOTE=CloaknDagger;39500671]Stupid UK, why don't you just copy Finland? It's like, [I]right next to you[/I].[/QUOTE]
Finland's education system seems to turn them all into drunks! :v:
[QUOTE=MrEndangered;39500719]Finland's education system seems to turn them all into drunks! :v:[/QUOTE]
It's Russian influence from when they invaded.
[QUOTE=CloaknDagger;39500671]Stupid UK, why don't you just copy Finland? It's like, [I]right next to you[/I].[/QUOTE]
I want to leave the UK and live in Finland :downs:
I have done for a few years actually. The way they do certain things over there pleases me. Education being one of them.
Scotland recently had a big overhaul of our education system as well. Replaced Standard Grades/Highers/Adv. Highers with "National Qualifications". All the teachers hate it, there wasn't really anything wrong with our previous system.
GCSE's were fucking awful. (Did mine in 09)
ICT I learnt fuck all. All we did was do a powerpoint presentation. Getting columns to add itself in excel was about as extensive as it got.
Im not awesome at anything computer related, but I am capable of running servers, building my own PCs, creating basic websites, basic modelling and world creation. I learnt it all off my own back with no agenda whatsoever. 2 years is a long time and so much could be learnt within that time in ICT but I shit you not, we spent 2 years on powerpoint and excel.
Edit. Oh actually, we did make a website I think (frontpage). I am fairly sure I was probably the only one in my entire year who actually had any idea of how the HTML underneath it all actually worked. Without the UI everyone would have been fucked.
By the time you are 14 and ready to take your GSCEs, learning about hardware and installation and making websites should absolutely be there to be learnt in the curriculum.
[QUOTE=Puni;39503757]GCSE's were fucking awful. (Did mine in 09)
ICT I learnt fuck all. All we did was do a powerpoint presentation. Getting columns to add itself in excel was about as extensive as it got.
Im not awesome at anything computer related, but I am capable of running servers, building my own PCs, creating basic websites, basic modelling and world creation. I learnt it all off my own back with no agenda whatsoever. 2 years is a long time and so much could be learnt within that time in ICT but I shit you not, we spent 2 years on powerpoint and excel.
Edit. Oh actually, we did make a website I think (frontpage). I am fairly sure I was probably the only one in my entire year who actually had any idea of how the HTML underneath it all actually worked. Without the UI everyone would have been fucked.
By the time you are 14 and ready to take your GSCEs, learning about hardware and installation and making websites should absolutely be there to be learnt in the curriculum.[/QUOTE]
That's a problem with IT and computer science teaching in general in this country, and they say they are gonna put more focus on programming instead of just computer literacy.
[QUOTE=MrEndangered;39500570]The same reason the health security strongly believes in homeopathy and has no experience of medicine.
This government is a joke.[/QUOTE]
But think of all the money we'd save if we just used water instead of medicine.
[QUOTE=Puni;39503757]GCSE's were fucking awful. (Did mine in 09)
ICT I learnt fuck all. All we did was do a powerpoint presentation. Getting columns to add itself in excel was about as extensive as it got.
Im not awesome at anything computer related, but I am capable of running servers, building my own PCs, creating basic websites, basic modelling and world creation. I learnt it all off my own back with no agenda whatsoever. 2 years is a long time and so much could be learnt within that time in ICT but I shit you not, we spent 2 years on powerpoint and excel.
Edit. Oh actually, we did make a website I think (frontpage). I am fairly sure I was probably the only one in my entire year who actually had any idea of how the HTML underneath it all actually worked. Without the UI everyone would have been fucked.
By the time you are 14 and ready to take your GSCEs, learning about hardware and installation and making websites should absolutely be there to be learnt in the curriculum.[/QUOTE]
I took computing for A-levels. One of the key assignments was to make a calcuator through VB, I already knew how to use VB so I made a 2 player game that was Darth Vader vs steve mcqueen. Got an A for it.
GCSE ICT is an absolute joke and a waste of time
it's literally just microsoft excel, and powerpoint presentations. We did our entire assessment using windows XP, so most of the things we learned were out of date before I'd even got the qualification.
[QUOTE=Puni;39503757]GCSE's were fucking awful. (Did mine in 09)
ICT I learnt fuck all. All we did was do a powerpoint presentation. Getting columns to add itself in excel was about as extensive as it got.
Im not awesome at anything computer related, but I am capable of running servers, building my own PCs, creating basic websites, basic modelling and world creation. I learnt it all off my own back with no agenda whatsoever. 2 years is a long time and so much could be learnt within that time in ICT but I shit you not, we spent 2 years on powerpoint and excel.
Edit. Oh actually, we did make a website I think (frontpage). I am fairly sure I was probably the only one in my entire year who actually had any idea of how the HTML underneath it all actually worked. Without the UI everyone would have been fucked.
By the time you are 14 and ready to take your GSCEs, learning about hardware and installation and making websites should absolutely be there to be learnt in the curriculum.[/QUOTE]
ICT was a joke, all we did was copy a load of crap, then in the second year the new teacher had no idea what she was doing and my progress just halted.
And somehow someone who did absolutely nothing got a distinction yet I only got a merit.
That's why I never took IGCSE ICT - I know how to use Excel and Powerpoint, and I don't really want to learn some crappy pseudo programming language which is of no use to me.
[QUOTE=Ymir;39501420]I want to leave the UK and live in Finland :downs:
I have done for a few years actually. The way they do certain things over there pleases me. Education being one of them.[/QUOTE]
That smiley doesn't mean what you think it means.
[QUOTE=Puni;39503757]GCSE's were fucking awful. (Did mine in 09)
ICT I learnt fuck all. All we did was do a powerpoint presentation. Getting columns to add itself in excel was about as extensive as it got.
Im not awesome at anything computer related, but I am capable of running servers, building my own PCs, creating basic websites, basic modelling and world creation. I learnt it all off my own back with no agenda whatsoever. 2 years is a long time and so much could be learnt within that time in ICT but I shit you not, we spent 2 years on powerpoint and excel.
Edit. Oh actually, we did make a website I think (frontpage). I am fairly sure I was probably the only one in my entire year who actually had any idea of how the HTML underneath it all actually worked. Without the UI everyone would have been fucked.
By the time you are 14 and ready to take your GSCEs, learning about hardware and installation and making websites should absolutely be there to be learnt in the curriculum.[/QUOTE]
For what it's worth, i finished school in 05, with that said, i just started working in a building society, and we do actually have people with literally the ability to copy paste and just about open the right programs, So it's not a major waste of time for somone who knows nothing about computers, just for anyone who has any sort of knowledge before hand, yeah ICT is pretty shitty. My college had a good scaling of courses depending on your experience.
With that said, i allways felt like GCSE's tought you the answers, not the application of the knowledge in the real-w
[QUOTE=Ymir;39501420]I want to leave the UK and live in Finland :downs:
I have done for a few years actually. The way they do certain things over there pleases me. Education being one of them.[/QUOTE]
Why did you downs smile? What are you trying to say about finland?
I'd say the main problem with education is that a lot of teachers are shit. A lot of people don't realise that teaching people correctly is actually difficult, and just walk into the profession thinking it'll be easy.
I had a physics teacher last year, she didn't teach you physics, she just told you physics.
Also you don't actually have to have any interest in the subject to pass an exam, you just need to know how to pass the exam. This doesn't actually teach anything but how to pass exams, which doesn't really help at all.
[QUOTE=FlashFireSix;39506240]GCSE ICT is an absolute joke and a waste of time
it's literally just microsoft excel, and powerpoint presentations. We did our entire assessment using windows XP, so most of the things we learned were out of date before I'd even got the qualification.[/QUOTE]
I've almost finished my GCSE IT course, and I can confirm that it's shit. Even my teacher thinks it's dull as fuck.
[QUOTE=a dumb bear;39506891]I've almost finished my GCSE IT course, and I can confirm that it's shit. Even my teacher thinks it's dull as fuck.[/QUOTE]
Our IT teacher was some insane old bat who had lost the plot a long time ago
She spent most of the lessons telling us all how great and inspirational steve jobs is, she made us have a silence in the lesson the day he died, and her homepage was the apple website
She also shouted at two deaf kids for not listening to her properly
When I did it a bit back we had to include a Flash video in our website, and the teacher didn't know how to add a play button to it so it played continuously as soon as you loaded the page. I just added it anyway. Sad.
Wow, if only this was a couple years earlier, I am at the moment in Year 11 with this system. It's awful. in Year 9 where you choose your options at our school if we were predicted to get C's or above you were recommended to do this, if you were aiming at B's and above (like me) you were forced to. The Baccalaureate made me do Geography, History and one Modern Foreign Language, despite the fact that I am dyslexic and had been struggling in French since day one. So two years down the line after the school forced us to do subjects we didn't like and/or were bad at they seem to notice that with the way were working we weren't going to pass, pretty much anything. So now instead of doing Geography, which I got a U in because we took the exam in the middle of a term where we were being assessed in lessons aswell as about 6 other exams, French because I got a U in that because I was god awful at it I have to sit through extra English and Maths lessons because I dropped behind in those. Also English Literature was another thing I had no choice in dropping.
Also with ICT courses, the GCSE course does look dull as shit, but it depends what exam board the course is on, I do BTEC IT with Edexcel and it's actually pretty interesting, although college level ICT looks awesome. Also if you are reading this and haven't chosen your options in school, go for R.E I fell asleep in my first exam for it got an A*
Why is it that in every single discussion about GCSEs, people only ever talk about ICT?
We get it, ICT GCSE is shit, but my other subjects were actually pretty good.
GCSE ICT is so fucking shit though.
Any computing related course at high school is outdated shit.
I have no idea what level GCSE is though (scottish) I presume its like standard grade here.
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