"The Gender Gap"

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

The BBC have reported today that pass rates for GCSE dropped for the first time in years. Now while this is good news for the "Exams are getting easier" delusional brigade on here, what is even more concerning is the increasing gap between the performance of boys and girls. For example, with regards to passes at A* or A, 26.5% were girls while only 19.6% were boys.

 

What is interesting is that the gap at A-Level narrows between the two. No doubt the media will whip out the old "maturity" cliche, but surely it comes down to the teaching of boys, the attitudes of the child/parents and society itself. What is causing this seemingly ever growing laissez-faire approach from young men towards education?

 

While we're at it, well done to anyone who got what they needed to get into Sixth Form, there were some very happy students at my school this morning. The department I worked in last year (English) achieved 85% pass rate while the school itself achieved 64% 5+ A*-C grades including C or higher in Maths and English - which anyone who knows anything about it will agree, is bloody good for a state school.

 

A lot of self-congratulation this morning amongst the staff: normally I'm wary of such things, but this year, with the education cuts, we deserve to pat ourselves on the backs.

[norwaysaint]

For example, with regards to passes at A* or A, 26.5% were girls while only 19.6% were boys.

 

 

What gender were the other 53.9%?

[Weston Super Saint]

What gender were the other 53.9%?

 

Education cuts mean the calculators are all broken and not to be replaced.

 

What's that saying about 'lies, damn lies and statistics'?

[dune]

I was talking to lady who in charge of organising the switch to academies and bachorloreattes (sp) etc in Essex (i did think of you TLS ha ha) and I put it to her that exams were easier now and she said the reason that poorly performing schools turn around in a couple of years is because basically they encourage students to take easy subjects to fiddle the figures. In my day this didn't happen so clearly the Conservatives are right to make the core subjects - english, maths, science more valued and those that are hairy fairy - drama, social studies, history less valued.

[CB Saint]

BBc says here that it is another record year

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14661746

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

What gender were the other 53.9%?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14661746

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

BBc says here that it is another record year

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14661746

 

9th 'paragraph'

[Verbal]

bachorloreattes (sp)

 

Sorry, I couldn't get past this without laughing my head off.

[dune]

Sorry, I couldn't get past this without laughing my head off.

 

Take your pills.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

I was talking to lady who in charge of organising the switch to academies and bachorloreattes (sp) etc in Essex (i did think of you TLS ha ha) and I put it to her that exams were easier now and she said the reason that poorly performing schools turn around in a couple of years is because basically they encourage students to take easy subjects to fiddle the figures. In my day this didn't happen so clearly the Conservatives are right to make the core subjects - english, maths, science more valued and those that are hairy fairy - drama, social studies, history less valued.

 

Hold on, your beloved Conservative party want pupils to study more history and georgraphy alongside English, maths and science due to their IB scheme - now get out of that one Perry! Furthermore, you know as well as everyone else that history is not an easy subject which is why record low numbers of students are taking it year on year. Stop trying to get a rise out

[dune]

Hold on, your beloved Conservative party want pupils to study more history and georgraphy alongside English, maths and science due to their IB scheme - now get out of that one Perry! Furthermore, you know as well as everyone else that history is not an easy subject which is why record low numbers of students are taking it year on year. Stop trying to get a rise out

 

...

[um pahars]

I was talking to lady who in charge of organising the switch to academies and bachorloreattes (sp) etc in Essex (i did think of you TLS ha ha) and I put it to her that exams were easier now and she said the reason that poorly performing schools turn around in a couple of years is because basically they encourage students to take easy subjects to fiddle the figures. In my day this didn't happen so clearly the Conservatives are right to make the core subjects - english, maths, science more valued and those that are hairy fairy - drama, social studies, history less valued.

 

With that analysis, I'd rather you stuck to regaling us with tales of your investment portfolio.

 

WTF is a Batchalorrietta???

Edited 25 August, 2011 by um pahars

[CB Saint]

With that analysis, I'd rather you stuck to regaling us with tales of your investment portfolio.

 

WTF is a Batchalorrietta???

 

many lorriettas ?

[CB Saint]

9th 'paragraph'

 

Aha - record number of a to c grades but less overall passes.

[dingbattigger]

many lorriettas ?

 

I lol'd

 

 

He probably means baccalaureate

[um pahars]

many lorriettas ?

 

lorietta, gentille allorietta

lorietta, je te plumerai

[hutch]

What gender were the other 53.9%?

I think he said he teaches English, not maths.

[Verbal]

I lol'd

 

 

He probably means baccalaureate

 

No, he means bachelorettes, surely.

[um pahars]

No, he means bachelorettes, surely.

 

And in Essex to boot. Falsies, procelain veneers and tango spray tans!!!!!!

 

Lubbly, jubbly.

[swannymere]

Now while this is good news for the "Exams are getting easier" delusional brigade on here

 

What information do you have to support the fact you think they're delusional?

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

What information do you have to support the fact you think they're delusional?

 

I see the exam papers ever year. I've seen every GCSE paper from our exam board since 1998 and the questions are not getting easier, it's as simple as that. That is not to say they're becoming more difficult, but they are certainly not getting easier. Furthermore, when I was doing research from my MA thesis on representations of WW1 in the 1960s I went to the AQA archive to study how the war was represented in the JMB exam papers. IMO, only the 'special papers' that potential Oxbridge candidates might sit were any more difficult, the regular GCE questions I would expect my top set year 9s to have a really good go at.

[Jonnyboy]

Basically girls are boring swots, and they smell funny.

[Lighthouse]

It's probably because all the thick girls get pregnant and drop out of school, thereby only leaving the clever sticks in school to achieve good grades.

 

Or, men are fick, innit!

[Viking Warrior]

Is it correct you can no longer fail GCSE's unless you dont sit them

I noticed a five year old girl passed maths she got an E grade

 

years ago an E grade was a failed examine.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Is it correct you can no longer fail GCSE's unless you dont sit them

I noticed a five year old girl passed maths she got an E grade

 

years ago an E grade was a failed examine.

 

Anything below a C is considered a 'fail' really - D,E are I suppose "low passes". F, G, U are categorical fails.

[Saintandy666]

The real sign of pass at GCSE is 5 A*-C grades including maths and English. What were the statistics for that this year???

[Seaford Saint]

My son has just got a grade B in GCSE in German. He is not academic really but he put his mind to learning all that was necessary. For his spoken German he knew in advance what would be discussed and learned a few key words, same goes for his comprehension exam. All in all he did not have learn much at all, and was not far from an A grade.

 

I forgot to say that my son has only just turned 14......he starts his GCSE years when he gets back.

 

No, I am certain that exams are easier now.

[badgerx16]

Girls in their early teen years are probably a couple of years ahead of boys of the same age group in terms of their development, so will always tend to be academically superior; the 'gap' closes after 18-19. ( IMO but I think probably borne out by a common sense assessment of things ). As for exams being easier, the system is tied to the league tables, so teaching is tailored to producing children who can pass exams, rather than learn the subject ( not necessarily the same thing ).

 

( Says the father of three who is married to a teacher ).

[pap]

I'm not surprised that the gap narrows at A-level.

 

Most of the kids actually want to be there at that stage.

[pap]

Girls in their early teen years are probably a couple of years ahead of boys of the same age group in terms of their development, so will always tend to be academically superior;

 

From personal experience, and speaking as someone who has been interested in academia throughout, I still f**ked about a lot in school.

[Rattlehead]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14661746

 

Whoooooooooooooooooooooosh

[Ken Tone]

My son has just got a grade B in GCSE in German. He is not academic really but he put his mind to learning all that was necessary. For his spoken German he knew in advance what would be discussed and learned a few key words, same goes for his comprehension exam. All in all he did not have learn much at all, and was not far from an A grade.

 

I forgot to say that my son has only just turned 14......he starts his GCSE years when he gets back.

 

No, I am certain that exams are easier now.

 

So never mind all the huge amount of proper statistical data, one anecdote over-rides all that, eh?

 

Btw I can't see how sitting a GCSE early is a good idea unless the pupil gets at least an A, preferably an A*. Your son now has a small issue in terms of his A level or even later uni study. If he wants to study German A level, will he re-sit or have a 2 year gap then try and start A level with what is only a middling grade and be rusty with it? Not good preparation. If he doesn't want to study German A level then it's no big deal unless he maybe wants to try for Oxbridge or one of the other very selective universities. Oxford in particular tend to "de-select" applicants with any GCSEs below grade A... usually they'll overlook one, if it wasn't in a subject to relevant to the HE course, but no more than one. Since he has done a GCSE 2 years early he is presumably very bright, so may indeed be looking at a top uni one day? If he does have high aspirations, he really can't afford anything else below A. Don't let the school put him in for anything else early unless they are very confident of a grade A or A*.

 

If he is just ordinary bright and the early GCSE is just the school being pushy for the sake of their league tables then just 'well done' but don't sit anything else early that he might want to study at A level.

 

Oh and "forgot to say" I passed French O level at 14 and another 10 O levels when I was 15 ,and got a B in the full A level Maths when I was 16, so does that mean exams were easier in the 60's and early 70's when I sat them?

Edited 26 August, 2011 by Ken Tone

[Wes Tender]

The BBC have reported today that pass rates for GCSE dropped for the first time in years. Now while this is good news for the "Exams are getting easier" delusional brigade on here, what is even more concerning is the increasing gap between the performance of boys and girls. For example, with regards to passes at A* or A, 26.5% were girls while only 19.6% were boys.

 

 

Count me in with the delusional brigade, or perhaps accept my accusation that you are part of the delusional brigade for considering that education standards have actually improved. There are several factors that can be debated in this respect. Marking can have become more relaxed, less attention given to actual exams and more emphasis placed on course work, more frivolent subjects being included in the statistics, the GCSEs being devalued against the O Levels, any number of things.

 

But still, you carry on believing it, because as a teacher you have a vested interest in believing it. Personally I believe that many of the current GCSE brigade would have difficulty with an 11 plus paper from the 50s.

 

But what is important really, is whether the employers consider these exam results to be a credible and reliable guide to their applicants' educational standards, or additionally whether a degree nowadays has anywhere near the kudos that one had 20 years or more ago. If not, then surely educational standards have declined.

[Verbal]

Count me in with the delusional brigade, or perhaps accept my accusation that you are part of the delusional brigade for considering that education standards have actually improved. There are several factors that can be debated in this respect. Marking can have become more relaxed, less attention given to actual exams and more emphasis placed on course work, more frivolent subjects being included in the statistics, the GCSEs being devalued against the O Levels, any number of things.

 

But still, you carry on believing it, because as a teacher you have a vested interest in believing it. Personally I believe that many of the current GCSE brigade would have difficulty with an 11 plus paper from the 50s.

 

But what is important really, is whether the employers consider these exam results to be a credible and reliable guide to their applicants' educational standards, or additionally whether a degree nowadays has anywhere near the kudos that one had 20 years or more ago. If not, then surely educational standards have declined.

 

There's a kind of apples-and-oranges element to you argument Lord T. The so-called 'Flynn effect' provides a much better and more rigorous explanation for the perceived improvements in GCSE over time.

 

James Flynn, a psychologist, wanted to know why IQ scores in the US seemed to do the same thing that GCSEs have been doing - even though the tests barely changed. Could it really be that people were getting smarter? Actually, no. They were improving their cognitive skills, because populations were (are) adapting to a more cognitively demanding, technologically sophisticated, more white-collare society. This has very real consequences in the US, where the death penalty cannot be carried out against people below a certain IQ score. The problem was that pople ith clear educational/psychological problems were, like everyone else, getting higher and higher scores. So Flynn proposed 're-normalising' IQ tests - basically refreshing them every so often, so that they reflect these changes, and don't send people unfairly (!) to the gas chamber.

 

Similarly with GCSE. If you compare a GCE paper in the fifties with a GCSE equivalent now, the former will consist of questions that require a great deal of rote learning, while the latter is more cognitively challenging. Now believe it or not, GCES marks ARE re-normalised frequently, but it remains a question as to whether they are keeping up with the growing levels of cognitive ability in modern societies. There's also evidence that the limits to cognitive growth have been reached and are starting to plateau in the West (but are continuing to increase greatly in developing countries).

 

The upshot of which is that whatever weaknesses that previously would have been cured by rote learning (like good spelling for example!), if you simply transplant someone with great GCEs from the fifties into a group of modern-day GCSE students, the 50s time-travellers would sink like a stone against their younger competitors, better adapted to a more cognitively demanding world.

 

Or to boil it down still further - it's complicated, and the old reactionary argument about '...in my day' should be set aside.

[buctootim]

There's a kind of apples-and-oranges element to you argument Lord T. The so-called 'Flynn effect' provides a much better and more rigorous explanation for the perceived improvements in GCSE over time.

 

James Flynn, a psychologist, wanted to know why IQ scores in the US seemed to do the same thing that GCSEs have been doing - even though the tests barely changed. Could it really be that people were getting smarter? Actually, no. They were improving their cognitive skills, because populations were (are) adapting to a more cognitively demanding, technologically sophisticated, more white-collare society. This has very real consequences in the US, where the death penalty cannot be carried out against people below a certain IQ score. The problem was that pople ith clear educational/psychological problems were, like everyone else, getting higher and higher scores. So Flynn proposed 're-normalising' IQ tests - basically refreshing them every so often, so that they reflect these changes, and don't send people unfairly (!) to the gas chamber.

 

Similarly with GCSE. If you compare a GCE paper in the fifties with a GCSE equivalent now, the former will consist of questions that require a great deal of rote learning, while the latter is more cognitively challenging. Now believe it or not, GCES marks ARE re-normalised frequently, but it remains a question as to whether they are keeping up with the growing levels of cognitive ability in modern societies. There's also evidence that the limits to cognitive growth have been reached and are starting to plateau in the West (but are continuing to increase greatly in developing countries).

 

The upshot of which is that whatever weaknesses that previously would have been cured by rote learning (like good spelling for example!), if you simply transplant someone with great GCEs from the fifties into a group of modern-day GCSE students, the 50s time-travellers would sink like a stone against their younger competitors, better adapted to a more cognitively demanding world.

 

Or to boil it down still further - it's complicated, and the old reactionary argument about '...in my day' should be set aside.

 

If what you say is true then exams are measuring different things now compared with 40 years ago. Cognitive ability is reasoning and processing power whilst rote learning is knowledge. Both are important, but actually neither are exactly what most employers want - which is practical skills.

[bridge too far]

I would have thought cognitive ability to be more important, quite frankly.

 

What's the point of learning by rote if you don't understand the 'why' behind what you've learned? Having said that, I still rely on the tables I learned as a 5 year old!

[Lord Duckhunter]

I dont have a clue whether exams are getting easier as I haven't seen a paper since I took mine. Having had 4 children my gut feeling is that there is more course work and more teachers teaching just to tick box's than there ever was in my day (and I'm not saying that's the teachers fault).

 

I can not believe that our children have got brighter year on year, so have to conclude that the exams must be getting easier. I would suggest that today's children are no brighter than my generation, yet the exam results indicate that they are. If you saw some of the job applications I get from them nowadays, you really wonder if some of them went to school at all.

 

I had a pretty **** poor education and a pretty bad attitude towards school,ending up with 1 O level and 7 CSE's, there was never any thought whatsoever of me going to Uni. Nowadays even with my lack of education I'd more than likely be off to study something and wasting another 2/3 years of my life ****ing it up, before entering the job market.That is the major change in education in the past 30 years, only the brightest and top kids went to Uni, now every Tom, Richard and Harry seems to go. Personally, I dont think that's a good thing, but others obviously think it is.

[View From The Top]

You will not drive up standards when teaching is being done so kids solely pass exams for league table positions.

 

The amount of coaching that "D" students get, just to squeeze that extra mark out that may become a "C" is obscene. It's not for the benefit of the child, it's for the school. I know this from experience.

 

The teaching of the humanities, IMHO, is very good and still rigorous but English teaching can be poor and maths and science, due to lack of qualified staff, is dire in swathes of the nation.

 

From the top down the whole system needs an overhaul. GCSE's are too easy but "A" Levels are about right but could do with a tweak.

[um pahars]

It must be remembered that GCSEs are quite simply achievement tests and certainly not a measure of innate intelligence. That said there is no evidence to suggest that exams have become easier and instead, as someone above has pointed out with reference to the Flynn research, there is significant evidence that "we" as a body have grown more intelligent over time (even if we might find the old style Maths GCSEs difficult to pass).

 

Saw a good tweet the other day something along the lines of:

 

"1960s literacy levels were 60%, 2011 levels are 95%.

Are we suggesting reading has got easier?"

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Count me in with the delusional brigade, or perhaps accept my accusation that you are part of the delusional brigade for considering that education standards have actually improved. There are several factors that can be debated in this respect. Marking can have become more relaxed, less attention given to actual exams and more emphasis placed on course work, more frivolent subjects being included in the statistics, the GCSEs being devalued against the O Levels, any number of things.

 

But still, you carry on believing it, because as a teacher you have a vested interest in believing it. Personally I believe that many of the current GCSE brigade would have difficulty with an 11 plus paper from the 50s.

 

But what is important really, is whether the employers consider these exam results to be a credible and reliable guide to their applicants' educational standards, or additionally whether a degree nowadays has anywhere near the kudos that one had 20 years or more ago. If not, then surely educational standards have declined.

 

Until you see it for yourself I can only give you my word. Marking is more scrutinised now than ever so that needs to be dismissed. Plus, I would be happy to send you my findings for the O-Level papers I studied for my MA. However until someone categorically proves it either way, I guess were stuck in a cycle of purists and optimists.

[um pahars]

That is the major change in education in the past 30 years, only the brightest and top kids went to Uni, now every Tom, Richard and Harry seems to go. Personally, I dont think that's a good thing, but others obviously think it is.

 

30 years ago one of the key factors in deciding on whether you went to University or not was not intelligence, but instead social status.

 

One of the reasons it was elitist, was not due to ability, but due to the lack of social mobility. Fortunately this has changed in recent years (although I fear recent developments might take us back a few decades) and access and ability to attend University has been widened.

 

I certainly don't think degrees have got "easier", just more accessible to a large section of the population.