A level results being celebrated?

Subject: A level results being celebrated?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 09:09 AM

Have your children achieved the passes thay need for University? I expect so now that we are led to believe that they are of a similar standard to that of 1960s O levels!!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,Cliff
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 09:19 AM

Get the kicks in quick eh!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 09:54 AM

When I took my A levels only 70% could, by definition, get a pass (A, B, C, D or E) today's results show 97%+ achieved this. Hmmm, does that mean I can up my grades by 27%?

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,Ex-Academic
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:02 AM

Furthermore, it seems that something like 60% have been given an "A" grade. Hah!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:11 AM

I failed all 3 subjects that I took, I could probably get into University with the equivalent result now!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Banjiman
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 12:49 PM

It's a good job no one under 25 reads Mudcat (well no one under 40 reads it really) seeing as their academic efforts are being thoroughly dissed by you bitter oldsters.

It's a shame really.

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: oggie
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 02:11 PM

The figure for A grades is 25.9% not 60%.

The basis of grading has changed since I (and many of us here) took the exams. The principle now is that if you get the mark you get the grade, logical I'd have thought, rather than an arbitrary decision that only so many get As, Bs or Cs no matter how well they've done.

And if your children have achieved the grades they need to go to University, congratulations. May they have a wonderful and fullfilling time there.

Steve

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Dazbo
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 03:14 PM

So it doesn't matter that my A level results are being dissed by this grade inflation? Mustn't upset the young dears must we, they're such delicate flowers - hello sky, hello flowers... Chizz

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,EricTheOrange
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 03:26 PM

The kids can only pass the exams they're given, they don't write them you know.

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,aeola
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 03:31 PM

Progress!! That's the name of the game. In my day the methodology of teaching was apparently quite different. My kids were taught to approach learning from a different view point, some of which I prefer. There are some aspects though which I just cannot reconcile, but the marking system still remains suspect,although the results can be challenged. You can't blame the kids when the whole structure of discipline and respect has been eroded by successive Govts.

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: oggie
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 03:58 PM

"So it doesn't matter that my A level results are being dissed by this grade inflation? Mustn't upset the young dears must we, they're such delicate flowers - hello sky, hello flowers... Chizz "

And the last time you relied on your A Level grades for anything was when?

Strange, no-one makes the same comments about degree classes but the same thing has happened there.

Steve

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 05:40 PM

My daughter, Sarah, got her results today, AAAB. Fairly similar to what I got 35 years ago. However she worked her little tits off for 2 years to do this. Years ago you didn't have to do this, just be a bit smarter than most of the people around you. Now you have to do what you are told and jump through hoops for a whole school lifetime.

And why, because we have become a society who profess that competition and accountability will improve public services. We(the adult, voting population)decide that schools and the people who work in them will be judged by the number of kids who hit an arbitrary target and then moan when that is what happens).

We have been sold this nonsense by an elite who know the true value of education. They don't put up with this nonsense for their own kids.

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 03:36 AM

'We have been sold this nonsense by an elite who know the true value of education. They don't put up with this nonsense for their own kids.'

mmmmmmmmmmmm, almost all the children of the upper / professional classes get to University, even the strange children of the aristocracy. Although to be fair many of them have to be sent to enclosed institutions from the age of 8 to make sure they get into Uni.

Clearly something must be wrong when oiks from comprehensive schools in the north, who's fathers cannot be found and who's mother's are part time cleaners, are going to Uni, not quite in the same ratios but get there we do!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:01 AM

Naw..Pass out condoms, and gift certificates for free abortions..and classes on 'self esteem'...then pass them on through....
Seems to be more emphasis on these things, than actually learning something!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:11 AM

What on earth are you trying to say Guest?

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Hawker
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 04:51 AM

My daughter is half way through her A's and whatever you think about the levels etc, I have to say she has worked bloody hard, the course work I have seen has been challenging and not the piece of cake you are all making it out to be. Her results were a not too pleasing 2 Ds (that's not too pleasing to her, not me, she is bemused at getting A in one paper and an unclassified in another, making an average D grade! she has been told to request an explaination!) Her third subject is iMedia, a modular course, she has to wait until September for the actual results, which are a recognised industrial qualification rather than an A level. I know there are seveal techno heads here on the 'cat but I would challenge most of you to get your head round what she has studied so far in i Media, piece of cake? More like humble pie I'd reckon.
Like has been said they can only sit what they are set, by all means denigrate the politicians who make the rules, but please not those striving to achieve of their best!
Cheers Lucy

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 09:19 AM

From the Times:

Queen Elizabeth (Boys' Grammar) School in Barnet, North London, is the leading state school in The Times league table of A-level results, showing that boys do not always perform less well than girls. It is among a clutch of selective schools to dominate the rankings.

Of the 139 boys at the school receiving their A-level results yesterday, 37 have confirmed places at Oxford or Cambridge.

Bloody hell, when I was there (I left in 1964) we got an extra day's holiday if a boy got a place at Oxford or Cambridge!

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 03:11 AM

I will regret getting involved in this but A level students work very hard and they and their teachers are getting better at learning and teaching and especially at exam techniques.

Some Universities are calling for a higher grade A+, even harder to get than A. This is because the Universities are incapable of identifying the most able students! Most peoples experience of Uni is that the quality of teaching is often poor. I seem to remember that the correlation between A level grades and final degree class is not close.

I think we should not take too much notice of what the Universities say and a lot more notice of teachers and students in schools and colleges.

Cheers

L in C

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 03:54 AM

I agree very much with Les in that most of the students do work very hard and that getting a high grade is not the simple thing that the media likes to make out.

I do believe, though that 'the system' is entirely wrong. Because the government has this mad objective that some 50% of people should go to University, most employers insist that their staff should have degrees whether it makes any sense or not. That means young people have very little choice but to try to go to University whether it suits their nature or not, and they are well aware of the need for the high grades.

In my day it was a major struggle to get into University at all, by definition: there were far fewer places. Correspondingly, employers only insisted 'O' levels in English and Maths so there were many more openings for people who didn't want to go to University.

For those who did try for University, after that very severe competition if you did reasonably well, life was much easier; when I left Uni I had seventeen job offers in my hand to choose between.

Now, it's much easier to get to a University becaused there are many more places, but all that has achieved is to move the struggle to the end of the process rather than the start and to oblige people to go who would, in my day, have left and found a job around 18 (or even 16). And the other thing it has achieved is to force many young people to start life with a massive debt, of course.

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 07:23 AM

Good points DMcG.

I guess University is a good place for independent, academic study. But that is only one learning style and not a very sociable one - it certainly doesn't suit everybody.

Some employers are lazy and ask for degrees because they don't really know what they want or how to find it.

Work is over-rated but learning can be unpleasant and boring!

Cheers

L in C

Subject: RE: A level results being celebrated?
From: oggie
Date: 16 Aug 08 - 05:57 PM

To go back another generation. In my father's day you went to university in order to teach, be a doctor, do research or join the Civil Service. Anything else and you left school after O'levels and you employer put you through the appropriate qualifications by part- time study. So accountants, solicitors, architects etc all took articles and studied part-tme. Nowadays you need a degree to get a foot in the door and then have to do part-time study to get the professional qualification.

Steve