Martin Allen The Coalition’s education policies for secondary schools appear to be moving in two contradictory directions.On the one hand new league tables announced by the DfE will publish ‘broader’ indications of success, yet the narrowness of the University Technical Colleges and now the proposed ‘Career Colleges’ seemingly originating from the Department for Business, Innovation and … Continue reading Education or ‘Skills’ ?
Category: 14-19
Exam system ‘unsustainable’. We need a General Diploma for everybody!
Letter 24/08/13 http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/aug/23/gcses-unsustainable-pressure-pupils Martin Allen The pressures and contradictions that young people now face when they take their examinations have indeed become ‘irreconcilable’ and ‘unsustainable’ - as Russell Hobby of the National Association of Headteachers told The Guardian (21/08/13). The education system is now increasingly like trying to run up a downwards escalator where you … Continue reading Exam system ‘unsustainable’. We need a General Diploma for everybody!
A-level stampede continues as Twigg defends the AS
On the day that 300,000 students received their results, Stephen Twigg, Labour’s spokesperson – not usually prone to intervening in debates about education (!) – criticised the Coalition’s decision to make changes to A-levels, making them linear rather than modular with end of course exams, but also committed Labour to restoring AS level as a … Continue reading A-level stampede continues as Twigg defends the AS
Guardian letter : response to Wilshaw
19/06/13As youth unemployment rose in 1976, Arnold Weinstock, managing director of the General Electric Company, wrote a letter in the Times Education Supplement headed "I blame the teachers" for not preparing pupils for employment. Since then relentless repetition by other leading industrialists, politicians and now the chief inspector of schools, Michael Wilshaw, has deflected attention … Continue reading Guardian letter : response to Wilshaw
New ‘grammar school’ GCSEs can only short change young people – we need a general diploma for everyone
There are few surprises in the new GCSE exams that have now been officially unveiled by Ofqual. Coursework and modules – as well as the chance to resit parts of exams – have continually been cited by Michael Gove as reasons for the ‘dumbing down’ of standards, with the 2010 White Paper The Importance of … Continue reading New ‘grammar school’ GCSEs can only short change young people – we need a general diploma for everyone
Here comes the Baker-laureate
Lord (Ken) Baker who, in another life as Margaret Thatcher’s education minister brought us the National Curriculum and more recently the University Technical Colleges (UTCs); has been busy again – this time upstaging Ed Miliband, (https://radicaled.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/milibands-proposals-for-training-without-jobs/) by announcing plans for a new Technical Baccalaureate and also warning that Michael Gove’s English Baccalaureate is a ‘huge … Continue reading Here comes the Baker-laureate
A-level of expediency? (Soft and Hard, Vocational and Academic Part 2)
The huge media coverage of the GCSE grading scandal particularly in English, meant A-level results received less attention than usual this year. Like GCSE there were signs of things to come with a 0.4% decline in the percentage of A/A* awards; even if the total percentage grades A*-E continued to increase - by 0.2 per … Continue reading A-level of expediency? (Soft and Hard, Vocational and Academic Part 2)
Back to the grammar school
Martin Allen Education for Liberation Issue 5 April 2012 ( ed4lib@yahoo.co.uk)Since coming to office Michael Gove has set out clear proposals for learning and the curriculum. No more so than for the upper secondary years. Most significant is the emphasis on traditional academic learning - the 2010 White Paper and the more recent National Curriculum … Continue reading Back to the grammar school
A level of discontent
Michael Gove’s call for increased involvement by elite universities in formulating A-level examination questions attracted both media attention and considerable controversy, yet it’s consistent with Gove’s more general intentions for A-level - replacing modular assessment with end of course examinations, ranking some subjects above others in terms of difficulty and reducing the importance of ‘process’ skills in favour … Continue reading A level of discontent
Gove, vocational qualifications and league tables
Michael Gove’s decision to limit how vocational qualifications are included in school league tables is consistent with recommendations in the Wolf report. Wolf proposed restricting vocational learning to no more than 20% of a key stage 4 student’s curriculum, but her proposals brought her into conflict with the still influential Lord (Kenneth) Baker - the … Continue reading Gove, vocational qualifications and league tables
Education, Economy and Society 