[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]
I agree that doing the same thing for five years is stupid. However, a lot of jobs require that you know how to use the Office suite. I am applying for placement years and most say that knowing how to use Office is essential.
knowing how to office is part of the IT AS/GCSE course, it shouldn't leak into the computing one
Doing law politics and history AS levels at the moment, just about all of them still require me to just memorise a load of shit and write it down for the exam - the summer exams have a huge difficulty gap too compared to the January ones, I have to remember easily over 100 cases for [I]one[/I] law exam.
Sixth form colleges are mostly about getting their students into uni by any means neccesary - even worse the education system is getting more rigorous by 2015.
I'm in my first year of college and I'm doing a game design media course. Until recently, we were told that the college will mark the work from the lowest grade which is bullshit, even my tutor said it was stupid how they don't average it out.
As an example, if I were to get 3 distinctions out of the 4 assignments in my 3D Modelling unit, and got 1 pass, I would get a pass for that unit. Who the hell thought of that?
I just love how a GCSE in Latin is 'worth' the same as a GCSE in media studies. By no means am I saying media studies isn't a good course, I find it amusing how two completely different things can be classified under the same name (ie. a GCSE).
[QUOTE=Drakehawke;40291448]A-level: Physics, Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry
Uni: Maths
[/QUOTE]
yeah then it's totally different for you.
You chose a pure subject and also further maths (you must be crazy!?). Hopefully the career worked out, you've got to be some kind of professor right?
[QUOTE=AK'z;40327363]yeah then it's totally different for you.
You chose a pure subject and also further maths (you must be crazy!?). Hopefully the career worked out, you've got to be some kind of professor right?[/QUOTE]
lmao what further maths is barely harder than normal maths
[QUOTE=alien_guy;40290581]And then you progress to first year of uni which is vastly easier than Higher or Adv Higher.[/QUOTE]
isnt the adv higher course pretty much identical to uni for a lot of subjects?
I'm not in the British system but I've noticed a near universal trend that's hurting alot of education systems. The focus on passing exams instead of learning the material and finding a career you like is this trend. Large classes, lack of teacher interaction, poorly qualified teachers and serious underfunding are also huge problems. People are taking classes on how to take tests ffs, it's incredibly stupid.
The Finnish focuses on teaching students by providing small classes that focus on teaching individual students and providing tons of human interaction when learning.
[url]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&page=2[/url]
I'm envious of Finland. Simply copy them.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40343611]I'm not in the British system but I've noticed a near universal trend that's hurting alot of education systems. The focus on passing exams instead of learning the material and finding a career you like is this trend. Large classes, lack of teacher interaction, poorly qualified teachers and serious underfunding are also huge problems. People are taking classes on how to take tests ffs, it's incredibly stupid.
The Finnish focuses on teaching students by providing small classes that focus on teaching individual students and providing tons of human interaction when learning.
[url]http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&page=2[/url]
I'm envious of Finland. Simply copy them.[/QUOTE]
Small classes cost a lot of money, imagine all the extra teachers you'd have to hire.
In my opinion taking classes on how to take exams is perfectly reasonable thing to do for those people who find it difficult. Exams aim to be as clear and concise as possible - and I think they succeed at that, but as we've seen in this thread before some people struggle with them, just like someone could struggle with any communication form. For example I'm OK at answering exam questions if I know the material, and I think they're quite clear, but if I had to produce something like a reflective analysis on an experience, I'd probably seek guidance on how to write in that form, because I've only had to do it like once and it was terrible.
[QUOTE=itskovu;40292251]Maths AS/A2 involve modules such as Pure (or Core), Mechanics, Statistics and Decision. You can choose (or your school chooses for you) which modules to take.
Further maths allows you to take "Further Pure" modules as well as additional Mechanics, Statistics etc.[/QUOTE]
I'm doing WJEC further maths and have never heard of Decision, what is it?
[editline]19th April 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Eltro102;40328659]lmao what further maths is barely harder than normal maths[/QUOTE]
IMO it's easier. You can just do most of the questions without having to worry about layouts so much. so long as you are good at algebra and calculus it's a peice of piss (with hard work of course), but I haven't done the exams yet and haven't had any marked past papers back so I could be in for a shock.
[QUOTE=Eltro102;40328659]lmao what further maths is barely harder than normal maths[/QUOTE]
It's not harder maths, it's just more maths.
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=AK'z;40327363]yeah then it's totally different for you.
You chose a pure subject and also further maths (you must be crazy!?). Hopefully the career worked out, you've got to be some kind of professor right?[/QUOTE]
Just finishing my first year of uni now, no idea what I want to do after it yet
[QUOTE=Eltro102;40316860]A level maths is so much easier than gcse its unreal[/QUOTE]
I don't know, C3 and C4 are pretty hard.
[QUOTE=Goodthief;40357847]I don't know, C3 and C4 are pretty hard.[/QUOTE]
yeah but you're a lot older and more experienced with learning maths when you're doing c3/4 compared to when you did gcse
[QUOTE=Goodthief;40357847]I don't know, C3 and C4 are pretty hard.[/QUOTE]
I got 100% on both, I didn't think they were hard :v:
[QUOTE=Eltro102;40358876]yeah but you're a lot older and more experienced with learning maths when you're doing c3/4 compared to when you did gcse[/QUOTE]
unfortunately that's not stopping integration and differential equations from haunting me in my sleep.
[QUOTE=Goodthief;40362475]unfortunately that's not stopping integration and differential equations from haunting me in my sleep.[/QUOTE]
Once you get to FP3 you are doing them in your sleep, especially if you are doing M3.
[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]
Not really unless your some kind of fucking downy, all you do is use your head I mean you can count to 10 but then you run out of fingers dont fuck with my england.
They're are a lot of entirely useless classes, and history classes are very, very biased.
[QUOTE=KillerSlash;40291411]I'm not someone who can perform in exams but can show great understanding.
All in all, I'm failing because the British education system doesn't suit for everyone. No GCSE's for me, apprenticeship next and then the army for further training and another apprenticeship.[/QUOTE]
This all day every day, while I did above average in my exams (they were quiet a few years back now)
I just did not like the pressure of sitting in that exam hall and having my entire life hinge on the next hour and a half. For example I had A+ course work for my Business Studies but in the exam i was feeling like crap due to little sleep from stessing the night before, i couldent eat in the morning so I was hungry and in the test I just froze, as a result i came out of it with a D for my final grade, that in no way shape or form reflected how good I actually was at business studies but because of that one OFF day i got fucked.
That said when you get to college you can get a chance or option to redo these things but that's still not the answer.
[QUOTE=Kingy_ME;40346922]I'm doing WJEC further maths and have never heard of Decision, what is it?
[/QUOTE]
Decision is essentially free marks.
It's incredibly easy stuff like Sorts, simple algorithms, route inspection, critical path, linear programming and matchings.
You also learn how to spell Dijkstra.
[QUOTE=alien_guy;40278317]They really need stop writing ambiguous exam questions.[/QUOTE]
Oh.
My.
Fucking.
God.
I SO agree with you on this. Im in Argentina and Im frequently taking Cambridge MOCKs. And damn, those fuckers ALWAYS put 2 answers which are correct in the reading sections of the MOCK. It annoys me so much!!
The British education system is so centred on pushing people towards university (and actually I feel this is a problem that a lot of the world has) - you end up with people taking toilet-paper degrees when they really should be working for those 2-4 years.
I don't think that realistically uni is for everyone, but these days it really does seem taboo for one [i]not[/i] to aspire to come out of A2s and then not go straight back into school.
[QUOTE=Eltro102;40328659]lmao what further maths is barely harder than normal maths[/QUOTE]
I'll agree with you for fp3. But my whole class is finding fp2 much, much harder.
Although it may just be due to the amount of stuff you need to learn compared to fp3.
But overall, I personally find nothing wrong with the education system. Apart from gcse IT, the class finished the whole course in half a year and spent the other playing bloons tower defense.
[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 this this this this. If I had a decent IT department I'm almost certain I'd've taken computers further. It literally never crossed my mind to do something with computers because I was so put off. Really regretting it because now I almost have a [I]philosophy [/I]degree.
[QUOTE=Moustacheman;40428255]They're are a lot of entirely useless classes, and history classes are very, very biased.[/QUOTE]
How so?
Also, at least at my school, Latin is so much harder than every single other subject. We do grammar endlessly and we never get the chance to learn it properly before we move on. Then there is French which is extremely easy (except if they fuck you with stupid essay questions) and IT which is the biggest joke (though I'm not doing it). Everything else seems to be at a fairly good level.
Though this is coming from a private school student who is doing iGCSE.
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