A levels - my experience!

[jinnyj]

With all the news yesterday of more As and A*s than ever before I thought I would share my experiences this year.

A couple of years ago I signed up to a company to look after foreign schoolchildren from boarding schools over their half terms and exeats. One of our early children was a 16yo German girl who got herself suspended (don’t ask.....:lol and she came here for four days. She was actually delightful and I kept in touch with her. So roll on last October half term and she needed to come back having spent the first lockdown in Germany. She was now unable to return. So she came for half term which was fine. Then she told me she wasn’t allowed home for Christmas because she had to retake a Maths GCSE exam on January 6th and quarantine would mean she had to leave Germany on Christmas Eve. At this stage I did query why she couldn’t resit it in the summer ONCE she knew the result from November.....but no the school insisted.
Now this girl has ADHD which makes learning pretty difficult at the best of times. And prone to some serious meltdowns. None of which the school explained to me.

So Christmas came and went...and as I said before, she’s delightful and fits in really well here.
Then came the second lockdown and the commencement of online learning. Her parents had been told all was fine but when I looked at her Google Classroom, there were 137 missing assignments.....so clearly it all fine! I contacted the school and kicked up a fuss. They gave me zero support in how to manage a student with learning difficulties. In fact I researched the entire condition myself. And then got involved with her lessons and revision just so she could get some sort of work done.

She was taking A level French, German and History....with a BTec in Travel and Tourism through in. So a huge amount of work. OK German she didn’t need to do much but the others meant a lot of work. The history covered WW1, American presidencies from 1940-1981 and coursework on the Cold War in which she had to analyse three papers......not exactly for the faint hearted let alone a non native speaker with ADHD.

Anyway, yesterday we got the results. And she passed them all. OK they were just passes (although she did get an A* in German) but she passed. Which is a complete miracle. And I am very proud that we were able to get her there despite everything.
......oh and she actually passed Maths in the November getting a 5....so she could have gone home all along for Christmas!

And she’s actually now in her second week on an apprenticeship at a Beauty Academy in Austria training to be a makeup artist.

 

[Colin Phillips]

Well done, her and you.

 

[Desert Orchid]

The entire exam system has become a joke and the pandemic-influenced decision-making on how to resolve the issues has made things so much worse.

The migration towards teacher-assessment is the stupidest move ever. In theory it should be the best but we're dealing with the real world here.

Teachers want their pupils to do well and pass their exams. That's natural. But a big percentage do what they can to make it happen.

It's the talk of teaching circles up here.

I have heard of cases of certain teachers doing the pupils' work for them to ensure that they get top marks because it reflects well on them when the results come in.

In one school in which I worked, the head of the department was actually writing all the stuff on the board for the pupils to copy and learn by heart. This led me to complain further up the school. I was told not to worry, that the HT knew all about it and was 'dealing with it'. To my knowledge, nothing was ever done.

I was raging about it because I had retired following a 10-yr stint as HoD myself ('Principal Teacher' up here), and knocked my pan in trying to make sure all pupils' written and spoken work was their own and unique to them, so that there could be no question of SQA investigating my results. I was now working as a supply teacher for a lazy bitch whose only concern was the top 10% of pupils. I still wonder how she got that job.

Most of my family are [now] retired teachers and four of us held managerial positions. All four of us have witnessed cheating on a massive scale. My wife had to have one PT disciplined for rigging submissions.

Allowing teachers to decide the grades of pupils is naturally going to lead to sympathetic assessment. It used to be that the exam boards employed what they referred to as a 'curve of equal distribution' to ensure standardisation over many years. They're now calling it an 'algorithm' to make it sound up to date. But they've abandoned it now because of the uproar last year.

The bottom line, though, is that the pupils who get into HE without due merit will soon be found out. The shame is that some worthy pupils will have missed out on a place when they were more deserving of it in the first place.

 

[barjon]

The natural flow of education is from told/by rote through to self answer/research. Teachers do their pupils no favours by interrupting or “falsifying” that flow.

 

[Marb]

My idea of our education system is like the sieve or sifter that you drain the water from your pasta, basically if you can progress from GCSE's to A Levels, to higher education, degrees or Masters, you start to see how in many ways, the degree you once envisaged was impossible, was actually not as hard as you thought. As I say, the system has been designed like a large sieve to filter excellence from the very bottom upwards.

The sad part of it is many youngsters could get degrees if only they could stay the course, as it were, from GCSE to degree or masters, but mental health and emotional issues plus the drugs some people get hooked on seem too common for it not to impact on educational development.

I can think of a few people who did badly at GCSE's but with a bit more time in a different type of system could excel at a higher education in a specialist subject. I am in that catagory myself. Only three or four A-C's at GCSE level, but then an access to higher education course, then degree.

In an increasingly globalised world the other big and well documented issue is the sheer cost of it and the fact you aren't guaranteed to get a job in the area you studied in afterwards anyway.

 

[jinnyj]

What surprised me about the history A level was that she was pretty much given the questions before her exams. Rather than like we were expected to revise the entire syllabus, she was told she would be doing a question based on “the decline of presidential popularity between 1968-1980 in the US.” And also questions about General Haig and his offensives in World War 1. So she could throw the rest of the revision out of the window, so to speak.....and not do it! It most definitely helped her as she had the attention span of a dead gnat so being able to concentrate on just a couple of small areas was perfect. But I’m not sure if that is really A level standard?

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed revising World War 1 and looked into doing an A level next year in History but I think they have changed the syllabus to China which I don’t want to do. (This is Edexcell).

 

[jinnyj]

And I think more people should be encouraged to do apprenticeships again which is very common across Europe instead of getting a Mickey Mouse degree and an inflated sense of their own worth. I was talking to a woman who had brought the ice cream van to a dog show I organised last Sunday. It’s a local firm and is well run. She told me they had set up interviews for five candidates and not one of them had bothered to turn up.

 

[Marb]

Aye.

I see all these posts on the internet about various aspects of the education system, especially the difference between ethnic groups like the 'white working class versus the afro carribean working class' etc.

I just have to refer them to my earlier post.

It's all a sifter which obviously favours people with more income from higher classes, but let's not forget the mechanics of the sieve itself.

Which is simply to seperate the wheat from the chaff. That's how it's designed to be.

Re, mickey mouse degrees. The problem is in many areas you do actually need the qualification to have a chance of getting a job in the subject area.

You won't find a doctor who didn't study some form of medical degree, or a broadcast journalist with no qualification in journalism these days...

 

[Desert Orchid]

Some people will call it evolution but there's no doubt the exams are not of the same standard as they once were.

There may be all sorts of different reasons for that, probably sacrificing depth of knowledge in a few areas for breadth of knowledge in many areas being the main one.

But I admit to being horrified at the lack of basic English grammar, spelling and punctuation of modern degree holders, some of whom would struggle to spell "bum" in three attempts.

Teachers, sadly, are as lacking as anyone nowadays. In my last permanent job before I retired I even approached the HT to suggest that anyone putting out a message to all staff and/or parents should run it past me first for proof-reading as I was embarrassed at the poor English being used.

She agreed in principle but didn't go for it in case it caused friction. (Her English, I have to say, was good, but she was ages with me and came through the business studies route so would have had proper grammar and pronunciation hammered into her as a school pupil and student. I always found school secretarial staff had excellent grammar and punctuation skills.)

At school, we were never allowed calculators or dictionaries in exams. We had logarithm books and slide rules in maths but that was it. (I never mastered the slide rule as I was in hospital when its use was taught and I never got any remedial tuition on it.)

I remember the angst my pupils suffered having to prepare essays and learn them by heart for exams. One day I told them I really felt sorry for them because I never had to learn an essay in my life. I said I didn't think I could do it. They asked how come I was good at French then. I told them I learned vocabulary and grammar and was able to put together anything I wanted to say.

They asked if they could do that. I told them I'd experiment with them for a month. They gave up after a week. They found it much more difficult to absorb the grammar rules because they had never been taught English grammar whereas I was parsing sentences in Primary 5.

The brother taught in one of Scotland's most prestigious state schools. It's prestigious because its catchment area is in the 'stockbroker belt' in which 90% of the parents are doctors, lawyers, etc. He had a top-set Higher class, all of whom were expected to get As in their exams (they did) but he gave them his O-Grade French paper (so 1970), again as an experiment. One pupil 'passed' it.

Orchidette, thankfully, is a very keen grammarian, currently doing her Masters in Education and she is a chip off the old block. Her English is far better than her mother's (but I wouldn't tell either that). But she despairs at how poor some senior staff she's had to work with are.

I often wish my mother had encouraged us to go down the vocational route, though. I see guys that didn't make it past junior secondary out earning twice and three times what I earned as a promoted teacher, working as joiners, plumbers, etc.

The guy who painted my house recently charged £1500 (+ materials) for what was effectively four days' work. If that was a week's work to him and he worked 40 weeks a year that would be £60kpa. But while he's waiting for one coat to dry he's off elsewhere on another job, so probably doubling his money. And his was the cheapest non-cowboy quote.

 

[walsworth]

I'm trying to write this without it sounding like a hard luck story, or me sounding bitter and jealous but perhaps I am a bit of both.
My father was a dustman before they were called Waste Disposal Operatives and my mother had been in "Service" for most of her working life until they were married in 1937.
My father was born in 1900 so was just too old to be called up and my brother was born in 1941 so obviously my mother did not work during the War apart from some field work, peas, currants etc.
Dad used to dig dandelions and horseradish and other wild plants including Deadly Nightshade to sell to a local firm that would probably be given a posh name today but was then simply known as "The Distillery".
After the War, when my brother was seven, the year that I was born, my parents were told by the Headmaster at my brother's Junior School (mine as well later) that they considered him very bright and definite Grammar School material, so my father got a job on the railway as a fitter's mate, thinking this sounded better than a dustman.
My brother did indeed get a scholarship to Grammar which in those days was entry by filthy lucre or scholarship only, before the days of Eleven Plus.
When my parents expressed their doubts that they could afford to send my brother to the Grammar the Head of the Junior School was horrified and he pulled some strings to get them a grant from a local trust fund to help to buy books and sports equipment etc.
My brother did very well at the Grammar, nine 'O' levels and four 'A' levels and eventually went to University gaining a B.Sc. in Physics which eventually led to him getting a job in research at ICI and further education to a Ph. D in Polymer Technology ,whatever that is!
My brother started at University the same time that I started at the Grammar having scraped through the Eleven Plus, doing just enough to pass exams was something that I was very good at throughout my life.
By this time my father was off work with ill health and never worked again, so you can imagine that times were hard, I did not realise just how hard at the time. My brother had got a grant for University and worked in pubs and cafes etc. in the evenings to make it go farther,
I was working as a grocery boy and newspaper delivery boy and also on the cattle market during school holidays, that paid quite well and if you helped some of the farmers you could get some decent tips as well.
I’m afraid that I lagged behind my brother in the academic arena and managed only four ‘O’ levels so I left school to take an apprenticeship with a local firm manufacturing mechanical handling equipment, gaining a Full Tech Certificate in Product Design and staying there for nine years until the asset strippers took over, this was an experience that was to happen again several times until we reached the present day with very little engineering firms left in the country.
I don’t really regret doing the apprenticeship as at the time a Draughtsman was a pretty well paid job but it began to go down the slippery slope pretty quickly once I was fully qualified.
I’m not really sure just when plumbers, bricklayers etc. began to make good money, I would guess late 70’s with the self employed options being the way to go, along with the tax evasion that they all deny of course.

 

[Desert Orchid]

I can't help having regrets about some of the career choices I've made.

The week after I left school I was interviewed for 'summer relief janitor' in a local primary school. I turned up for the interview in an open-neck, button down 'something-Palmer' shirt and chinos. The other guys waiting in the corridor all had suits on.

The guy chatted to me about school and my plans etc and then asked me if I would like to start on Monday full-time in the finance department. I said it was a very kind and flattering offer but I wanted to go to uni to do languages (incredibly stupidly, because my brother had just done a year in France mid-degree and I fancied a bit of that!). He said the finance department would put me through uni on an accountancy course and, even more stupidly, I declined.

I did four stints as summer relief janny and, to be honest, it was almost the easiest money I ever earned. Well-paid for the time and no deductions cos of the nature of it (the authority paid all my contributions). I had my mates in during the day playing badminton and indoor three-a-sides, etc. I had the telly set up in the staffroom and watched Wimbledon, the Open, etc.

After I finished uni (did my mid-degree stint in France - easily THE best and easiest money I've ever made) and teacher-training I did my stint in Spain (hard work and tough financially) and came back to no job. By this time I was dating the future Mrs O whom I'd met during the TT year and we had become engaged so were planning our future.

There were no jobs in teaching by this time so I was 'on the burroo' as we called it up here. I was then referred by 'the burroo' to a branch called 'Professional Executive Recruitment' for another 'chat'. The guy there suggested changing career tack to computing, which was still largely in its infancy.

I was sent up to Glasgow for an 'aptitude test'. There must have been 200 people in this huge hall, like sitting a uni exam all over again. The test was like an IQ test but with a variety of format of questions. This must have been early September.

A week or two later they contacted me to tell me I was in the top seven (which I interpreted as being seventh) and would be offered a place with a prestigious computing firm in Glasgow. It would involve a year's training while still receiving 'burroo' money. They said at the end of it they couldn't guarantee me a job but that nobody who completed the year successfully to date had failed to get a job [in computing]. I was due to start on 01 October.

The next day, I got a letter inviting me to interview for a temporary supply teaching post. It was a fair wee journey at the time for someone with no transport of their own, Clydebank to Hamilton, involving buses and trains, but I made it in time. It was more of another 'chat' with the HT, after which he told me the local authority had given him four names to interview, one was to get a full-time permanent job and one the temporary supply post. He said he thought I was the best candidate of the lot and wanted to offer me the full-time job, starting the next day, 30 September.

Talk about coming to a crossroads...

By this point the future Mrs O had been teaching for a year and a bit, having been doing that during the time I was in Spain and she had single-handedly saved nearly £1000 for a deposit on a house (we needed closer to £2000) so I felt the right thing to do was to take the permanent job and start contributing to the funds.

Thus disappeared over the horizon my possible career as a computer programmer. How ironic that nowadays I'm a techie neanderthal.

A year later, at a variety of social dos, I bumped into ex-schoolmates, some of whom were pretty bang-average at school (but perspective is required - it was a 'senior secondary', "la creme de la creme" as Miss Jean Brodie would have called it, so they weren't thick) and the ones who went into computing were making serious money. One actually said, and I recall his exact words to this day (which probably tells a story in its own right), "I have no idea what to do with the money I'm earning."

My wife's pal and her husband, both programmers, said similar things. And there were Mrs O and I, trying to keep a roof over our heads on £3kpa each.

Within about 10 years the IT bubble had burst to a degree in the sense that only those with the highest skills were holding down the jobs.

Accountants were, as ever, in demand and earning big money.

And I was trying to herd cats in school uniforms.

For not a lot of money.

Anyway, it's never too late. I'm joining a local Men's Shed to try and pick up some woodworking skills as it's something I've always wanted to do.

 

[walsworth]

Woodwork can be very therapeutic, I’ve always enjoyed it although never tried to make a living at it, it did come in handy occasionally in my last full time job as a glorified handyman for a company selling computer systems and associated services.
I’ve given most of my tools away now as there is simply no room for them in my flat and I have lost the strength and dexterity to use most of them due to the chemo.