Maintaining the Momentum
Maintaining the Momentum
Maintaining the Momentum
We all know how the news agenda works. Yesterday we whipped up a well-deserved stink about the inexplicable drop in GCSE English results across many schools.
It didn’t accord with OfQual’s limp talk of grade standardisation. It felt more as if foundation students were being used harshly and punitively to make some shabby point about standards. It was the C/D borderline cohort who bore the brunt, losing out on the C they might need for college and instead getting a D.
What made this so reprehensible were the signs that schools playing the early entry card - ie getting their students to sit the English exam in January - were rewarded. In other words, marking was more lenient in January than in June.
So students sitting the summer exams were getting Ds instead of Cs because of some decision in some distant office and not because of their own abilities or the quality of teaching.
That was yesterday. The risk is that the issue now goes away, leaving schools to pick up the damage done to their reputation.
We need parents to be making a fuss and we need to keep making a fuss.
I’m in school all day today, but later will make some suggestions about how we can ensure that questions are properly answered about what went on behind the scenes with exam markers, and how we can ensure a similar situation doesn’t happen.
For now, in case you missed it - I’ve posted the edited audio of my unseemly spat on BBC Five Live yesterday with former chief inspector Chris Woodhead (audio is behind the picture above - it lasts 15 minutes).
Here’s the live interview on BBC Look East I did yesterday lunchtime.
And here’s the live TES webchat (recorded!) about results yesterday.
I do think we must maintain the momentum of this story. More, therefore, anon.
Geoff Barton
25 August 2012
Friday, 24 August 2012