Skip to main content

Summary of "Gove-levels"

I'm posting a very clear summary of the new proposals which are out for consultation, emailed by Philip Collie, the editor of Schoolzone.

As far as languages are concerned, it will be a major challenge to produce a non-tiered examination which is both challenging enough and accessible to a wide ability range. I do not think it is feasible and I will be interested to see what emerges after consultation. I welcome the end of controlled assessment which is cumbersome to administer, open to abuse and too dependent on learning by heart.

Here is that summary:
  • Removing controlled assessment and course from the six EBacc subjects (though "practical" subjects such as art will retain them)
  • No teacher assessment in these subjects at all: 100% externally marked exams.
  • No separate higher and foundation tier papers - everyone sits exams with all level questions included.
  • One board for each EBacc subject - awarded by tender - the most ambitious courses to be awarded the franchise.
  • New qualifications in EBacc subjects leading to English Bacc Certificates - success in all six subjects  = "A Full Bacc". 
  • The pass grade for English and maths EBC to be higher than grade C at GCSE.
  • Exams to be more rigorous, though more will ultimately "clear the bar" - suggestion that this will be as a result of better teaching.
  • Enhanced provision for lower achievers - a detailed record of successes to be kept by schools.
  • Pupils to be able to extend retakes to 17 or 18 to achieve EBacc.
  • English, maths and sciences will be the first subjects reviewed: EBCs to be introduced by 2015, examined from 2017.
  • Entire suite of GCSEs to go.
  • Replacements for league tables to be examined. These will reflect vocational qualifications as well as academic.
  • Disadvantaged pupil performance to be reflected in tables.
  • A return to separate sciences suggested, though there is an acknowledgement that schools welcome double award.
  • Awarding organisations will have to offer more detail in the information that is made available about students’ achievements, in addition to the overarching grading structure.
  • Qualifications likely to be no longer graded with letters. Not necessarily the same grading structure will be used in each subject.
  • Examinations will require the whole syllabus to be covered, in a range of ways.
  • Students will be expected to demonstrate more independent thinking.
  • Schools may be expected to devote more curriculum time to EBacc subjects than others.
  • Restrictions on use of calculators, periodic tables and historical source materials.
  • Universities to be involved in spec development, as has been suggested at A-level.
  • Lower uptake languages such as Russian may be under threat from the awarding organisation tender process.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is the natural order hypothesis?

The natural order hypothesis states that all learners acquire the grammatical structures of a language in roughly the same order. This applies to both first and second language acquisition. This order is not dependent on the ease with which a particular language feature can be taught; in English, some features, such as third-person "-s" ("he runs") are easy to teach in a classroom setting, but are not typically fully acquired until the later stages of language acquisition. The hypothesis was based on morpheme studies by Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, which found that certain morphemes were predictably learned before others during the course of second language acquisition. The hypothesis was picked up by Stephen Krashen who incorporated it in his very well known input model of second language learning. Furthermore, according to the natural order hypothesis, the order of acquisition remains the same regardless of the teacher's explicit instruction; in other words,

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,