A level Exam Grades

[Marylou]

It still seems really unfair though... So what if she has had the advantage of a good education and a supportive family, after all it's the end results that count. University admission should not be decided on accident of birth. The end result is the same - any talented and hardworking student denied the chance to follow their dreams for reasons unrelated to academic merit is despicable, whatever their family background.

Rant over.

[hermanmunster]

that's the art though - learning to write a personal statement that everyone thinks is aimed at them!

Interesting article somewhere .. BMJ I think // about what they were looking for in medical students. thankfully they are wary of extremes in commitment, empathy etc etc as this can lead to burnout.

[Looking for help]

It still seems really unfair though... So what if she has had the advantage of a good education and a supportive family, after all it's the end results that count. University admission should not be decided on accident of birth. The end result is the same - any talented and hardworking student denied the chance to follow their dreams for reasons unrelated to academic merit is despicable, whatever their family background.

Rant over.

I know it seems unfair, but this accident of birth etc argument is used so many times for so many different debates. What about the really underprivileged but very bright child who has no supportive parents, he might get a chance to get to a great university, get a great degree, and move himself out of poverty. That is a positive in my view. I would also like to say that if my youngest child who failed the 11+ (after a year I can actually say that , so I must be on the mend ) gets some positive discrimination on account of his school not being perceived to be as 'good' as his siblings' school, then I am all for that.

I imagine Marylou that your daughter will do very well, and if she follows all the advice given to her will receive her offers, and move on happily to her chosen university - good luck

[Marylou]

that's the art though - learning to write a personal statement that everyone thinks is aimed at them!

Interesting article somewhere .. BMJ I think // about what they were looking for in medical students. thankfully they are wary of extremes in commitment, empathy etc etc as this can lead to burnout.

I hope this is the same for veterinary medicine. Some of the accounts I've read of the masses of work experience gained by applicants makes me wonder if there'll be much new to discover once they start the course! DD is letting herself be guided by the individual universities' stated requirements and has already discounted one course because of the amount of advance experience required, but if she is forced to take a year out then it all becomes a whole lot easier in this respect.

[Marylou]

I know it seems unfair, but this accident of birth etc argument is used so many times for so many different debates. What about the really underprivileged but very bright child who has no supportive parents, he might get a chance to get to a great university, get a great degree, and move himself out of poverty. That is a positive in my view. I would also like to say that if my youngest child who failed the 11+ (after a year I can actually say that , so I must be on the mend ) gets some positive discrimination on account of his school not being perceived to be as 'good' as his siblings' school, then I am all for that.

I imagine Marylou that your daughter will do very well, and if she follows all the advice given to her will receive her offers, and move on happily to her chosen university - good luck

Thank you - I hope your youngest also gets the chances he deserves. Is there a chance he might be able to move to his siblings' school for 6th form?

I do agree that there is nothing wrong with giving those who would not otherwise have much chance a "leg-up" as it were. Such applicants as the one in your example would have to be extremely motivated even to get that far and they deserve some help. I do however think there is something wrong when applicants are advised not to apply to certain universities as their perceived privilege will count against them because of the need to meet certain quotas. The end result is the same - whether you don't get the place because you were failed by your family, background, school whatever - or were effectively "failed" by your parents who thought they were doing the right thing by sending you to a private or selective school, a bright student still ends up without the place.

[Fran17]

Oh my goodness this is a difficult one. I will admit I voted for labour - Tony Blair's first term - because, unfortunately, I was gullible enough to believe his commitment to education, education, education - what a joke that turned out to be - never again. Our two older DSs went to state primary - one did ok, the other excelled, one went to grammar the other to a very good comprehensive (thank goodness both doing v well at moment) - we took youngest DS out of state primary where he was struggling and put him into an indie where he came into his own and has done very well, securing a place at grammar in September. We are very conscientious parents but if we hadn't been lucky enough to be able to send youngest to indie he would have been playing catch-up at senior school.

The whole system so unfair - everyone deserves to receive an excellent education - class, background, money shouldn't come into it. I know it is hugely complicated and that the most successful children seem to come from supportive families and unfortunately there are many children out there who have very little encouragement and support when it comes to their education and the poor teachers are doing their best. I really don't have any solutions but if we can find any loopholes to get our children into a good uni we will - was very amused by an earlier comment to say that if your parents didn't go to uni it may earn you a few points - great as neither my husband nor I went to uni! Good luck to all of your DCs hope they all do well and get what they have worked so hard for. I love reading everyone's comments and continue to learn so much.

[Sassie'sDad]

Not before time the A and A* exams are to be subjected to scrutiny. This extract from "Universities criticise exam 'grade inflation'" Telegraph Education News 6 July 2010.

This week, the Coalition signalled that A-levels would be toughened up in an attempt to restore the credibility of the “gold standard” examination.

Universities will be brought in to script syllabuses and test questions and the existing “modular” system – in which students complete courses in bite-sized chunks – could be scrapped in favour of traditional exams at the end of the two-year course.
[...]
Fergus Rose, of ACS International Schools, said: "Of the pre-university qualifications surveyed, the IB diploma is the most highly rated by university admissions officers for its ability to prepare students best for university study.

“This confidence is also reflected in the increased uptake of the qualification in the UK.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/tele ... ation.html

[Sassie'sDad]

The following extract taken from an artical about how exam boards increasingly provide exam guides and tutorials to help teachers and pupils improve A level grades explains why, to people of my persuasion, the entire system of education maintained and independent is failing even the brightest of our children:-

All that may well be true, but it perhaps points up the difference between attainment, as measured by British exams, and learning.

There is some evidence that the whole vast edifice of school examinations is becoming not just anti-educational, but adrift from practical reality.

International comparative tests, such as the TIMSS maths and science study, suggest that for all the rise in GCSE grades, the actual performance of British children may not have improved at all.

The growth of supplementary tests by universities and employers shows that exams are becoming less and less useful to the people they are supposed to inform.

And the students may be short-changed, too. In order to be taught exam tactics they will never need again, they are being denied knowledge and skills they really will need, such as the ability to think for themselves.

"Tony Blair treated exam results as a product," said Prof Smithers. "But whereas you can count tins of sardines, we lost sight of the fact that exams are a sampling of behaviour, and the way people behave depends very much on the purpose to which the results are put. If you put teachers' jobs on the line, you can't be surprised that you get this kind of manipulation."
source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... ation.html

[Tree]

I know it was a while ago but

sassie dad quoted :

The Cambridge figures also showed that more than one in eight A-level candidates now achieve three A grades. Yet of this group, more than a quarter went to grammar schools — which teach fewer than one in ten of the school population. At the same time, more than a third of students achieving straight A grades were from independent schools, which educate just 13 per cent.

One has to ask, if this is what a government that came to office with the slogan Education, Education, Education, has done for the majority of the school population could another do any worse!

This is like the oxbridge argument see my thread :

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 58&t=15461

It is a meaningless statement and in no way proves anything about non selective state schools, of course proportionally more children are going to get a's at A level at grammar schools because you have selected them on the basis of academic potential or as my dd would say 'duh'. The same applies to private schools whose pupils are either selected by exam or by socioeconomic factors it is so unfair to make a direct comparison like this.

The maths for grammar schools works like this :

1 in 8 children get 3 a grades or 12% of population

grammar schools select the top 30% of the population

grammar schools contain 8% or so of the poulation

so 12/30 of the grammar school population are in the top 12% ie (12/30)*8% = 3.2% of whole population

so 3.2% of the 12% or 26% (ie just over a quarter see original quote ) will come from grammar schools just on the basis of their selective nature and not because they are better schools but because they contain selected children.

You can do a similar calculation for private schools but it's difficult to quantify how selective the whole private sector is (see above oxbridge thread).

[mystery]

I would go one step further and say that almost all grammar school pupils should get straight As at A level as in most subjects the proportion overall that get As is higher than 25%, and grammar schools generally select the top 25% (or better) by IQ (but in reality grammar schools do not achieve as well as this at A level so maybe they are failing the most intelligent section of our population!)

So if one in eight of the sixth form population get straight As, as per the article, and all grammar school pupils got straight As (10% of the sixth form population), this would still not result in 25% of the straight A's coming from grammar schools.

I think there's something wrong with the statement . Or maybe it is that grammar schools take one in 10 of the school population at 11, but in the sixth form they have far more than one in 10 of the sixth form population (it is possible that people from comprehensives / non-selectives go and join the grammar school sixth forms).

I don't know, but it doesn't say much to me as a statistical quote, much less about a government of any particular colour. I just always feel that grammars (superselectives apart) in general don't get the proportion of As at A level that I would expect!! Maybe they have too many children doing media studies with very few A grades being awarded!