Fail

Its not often I respond to someone else's blog in my own. But this time I am forced to because his web site does not work (will not take comments).

GSCE results

A debate as old as exams themselves. Should you vary the scoring so that a % get As or leave as absolute and risk lots of As.

The first model risks someone who effectively scores, say, 80% getting a B when the following year they would get an A.

The second model though allows for variations in the difficulty of papers.

Would you deal with the scoring manipulation on a class by class basis, school by school, town by town, region by region or nationally?

What is clear is that in both models there are winners and losers.

Another point surely is that the result is not the exam result for GCSEs but an overall mark including course work. I would have thought that if I have an A* at the end it is not just down to an easy exam? Surely I must have done well for the 2 year course.

The media always make a play for this. I have to say I detest it. I think those who do well always get the negative feedback. Exams are too easy, dumbing down, change the marking scheme. What about all those who don't do well. Ah, yes, that's the schools fault or the parents fault. They cannot have it both ways.

I had terrible o-level results and we were the last year before GCSEs. So the blame was that they made the exams harder to make GCSEs look good the next year.

Maybe. Or it could be because I was a lazy bugger who did not do the work and had the attention span of a goldfish. When it came down to it I did not know the answers to the questions on the day. It was material covered in the 2 years ahead of my exam and I did not know it.

My fault.

So well done to all those who pulled their finger out this year and did well in their exams. Don't listen to the media or the negative so and so's who put your hard work down.