Parents role in Education ?

Gary!! no-no-no...the 70's was brilliant for it's disco music and has never
been beaten. I ran a disco outfit from 1974 through to 1983 and the only time
Disco Duck ever got played was for kiddies do's...it never got played
in the big club functions...god!! you'd get laughed out of the club if you did.

In Message 1300198 I expressed the view that I didn't like course work because there could be manipulation by the teachers. Well the latest from Ofqual (the office that supervises education standards in the UK) on the fiasco about the English results agrees.

Independent - Damning report reveals GCSE marking scandal

Teachers are today accused of perpetrating a widespread abuse of the exams system by bumping up the marks of their pupils to get them top-grade GCSE passes. In a report, the exams watchdog Ofqual claims that a widespread loss of integrity in the profession has led many teachers to deliberately inflate coursework marks.

Children have been let down by an exam system that was open to abuse by teachers under pressure to achieve good grades.

Too much pressure on schools in England to get good GCSE grades led to over-generous marking of coursework by teachers, the exams watchdog concludes.

In Message 1300198 I expressed the view that I didn't like course work because there could be manipulation by the teachers. Well the latest from Ofqual (the office that supervises education standards in the UK) on the fiasco about the English results agrees.

Independent - Damning report reveals GCSE marking scandal

Teachers are today accused of perpetrating a widespread abuse of the exams system by bumping up the marks of their pupils to get them top-grade GCSE passes. In a report, the exams watchdog Ofqual claims that a widespread loss of integrity in the profession has led many teachers to deliberately inflate coursework marks.

Guardian - English GCSEs overmarked by teachers pushed to limit, says regulator

Children have been let down by an exam system that was open to abuse by teachers under pressure to achieve good grades.

BBC - Pressurised teachers 'marked GCSE too generously'

Too much pressure on schools in England to get good GCSE grades led to over-generous marking of coursework by teachers, the exams watchdog concludes.

Did you really expect anything different?

Speaking to BBC Radio Four's Today programme, Ms Stacey added she believed teachers had marked the test "optimistically", rather than with a deliberate intention to inflate grades.

She said: "Teachers are not making up marks here. They are doing their level best to do the best for their students and they are bound, given the pressures they are under, to take the most optimistic view.

There's an amount of tolerance... some lee-way in the marking. But if enough teachers mark up to that tolerance, mark up to that limit, then overall it has a national effect," she added.

Ms Stacey added she believed teachers had marked the test "optimistically", rather than with a deliberate intention to inflate grades.

We have to cheat': Aa teacher confesses

Extracts from an email in the report:

"I've just read my school email... including the instruction 'all folders (pupils' assignments) must be at or above target grade'...

When I've dared to suggest that the controlled assessments (CAs) should be done in exam conditions and that lots of schools are doing that, I'm told that is rubbish... and that we have to cheat because other schools will be doing so and we cannot afford to let our results slip at all.

I'm sorry but that is wrong and the demand to have all folders at or above target grade is unrealistic... I thank God I am taking early retirement at the end of this year."

Ms Stacey added she believed teachers had marked the test "optimistically", rather than with a deliberate intention to inflate grades.

But that doesn't quite agree with what teacher Aa said in the Independents version.

We have to cheat': Aa teacher confesses

Extracts from an email in the report:

"I've just read my school email... including the instruction 'all folders (pupils' assignments) must be at or above target grade'...

When I've dared to suggest that the controlled assessments (CAs) should be done in exam conditions and that lots of schools are doing that, I'm told that is rubbish... and that we have to cheat because other schools will be doing so and we cannot afford to let our results slip at all.

I'm sorry but that is wrong and the demand to have all folders at or above target grade is unrealistic... I thank God I am taking early retirement at the end of this year."

Which basically is what I suspected all along with teacher assessments, is that once somebody see's there is a method to inflate the results then everybody assumes everybody else is and so they also do it.

Result, grade inflation, the very thing that most politicians and teachers have said is not happening.

ES

Looking in from the outside with several teacher friends and falimy, I fully endorse your comments. Age is a thing to take in to account, but all of them have left the prodession for the same reasons.

I wonder if the head, and parents, would try an bully a teacher who is an athletic 19 stone and 6 foot 4 inchs (1.93 metres) tall, and a champoin boxer? I think not!
____________
It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I also fully endorse Es's remarks. I think it may not be as bad in the year 1-6 age groups, but certainly the year 7-11's are a total nightmare. I taught a year 11 all girls IT class for one term, then told the Dean that he had to find someone else, as it was a total waste of everybody's time. They just saw it as a way to skive off from school for a day and mess around.

I taught the ECDL for 8 years in College and the pass mark for each of the 7 modules was 24 out of 32. If any student scored 23, 24, or 25 it was classed as a border fail or a border pass, and the exam had to be re-marked by another teacher to ensure continuing standards. Once a year the BCS as the governing body, carried out an annual inspection, where they could remark any or all of the years coursework at random as they chose.

Only upon successful completion of that inspection was the Collage awarded a licence to put on the course again for the following 12 months. One year we had a female inspector of the hospital matron type, who gave me quite a grilling because she thought that the module 7 emails didn't have enough relevant content. It was almost like being back at school myself!

Teachers start off with laudable ambitions to want to make a difference to deprived inner city kids, then end up wanting to murder the lot of 'em. And that's just the parents! If anyone in the UK wants to go into teaching, make sure it is FE, or adult education, ideally make sure it is in the provinces, and preferably an upmarket area. Else I won't be responsible for your sanity. Es has actually taught at a private school and they were even worse than the state ones!

There are some more teachers comments in a follow up in the Telegragh 'We have to cheat, nanny and fiddle', teachers say
Here's one of the comments,

I feel I am being made to cheat. I've taught the kids and then let them do the tasks - we have to do them in the classrooms, except for those who need access arrangements, who are under the beady eye of external invigilators. I taught my kids, gave them the opportunity to make notes, and then did the damned things like an exam. Result? Lots of them underperformed against their targets. Not good enough. This work, I am told, is really coursework, and has to be at target grade, or they will not reach their targets at the end of the course. Others in the department have done marked drafts. I'm now feeling pressured to get some of mine to redo various pieces. I've voiced my objections, but have been told that the long and the short of it is that they have to be nannied through at every stage - there is disbelief when I say that some schools are doing the CAs as exams. I resent the implication that I am failing my kids, when actually what they produce is probably more accurate as an indication of their abilities than their target grades are. The sooner this nonsense is stopped and we go back to 100 per cent exams, the better.

Yes, these days its all about meeting target grades to survive in league tables. The profession seems to have forgotten that along the way, you're actually supposed to teach the kids something. But, there are increasing numbers of teachers that are now speaking up and making their views known. And in far too many cases the grades "achieved" do not match the actual abilities of the pupils.

But chickens come home to roost, and too many kids leave school and find that they can't get a decent job. My Grandfather started work at 14, and my father at 15, and in both cases they were fully employable from day 1. These days employers often find that the kids are of no use to them, unless they send them to an FE college for a year, to learn the basics which they should have been taught in the first place. We have a business to run they say, we are not philanthropists.

There is also a vast difference between the unemployed and unemployable, which does not show up in the statistics of those out of work. How many of them are "actively" seeking work? Many just exist on unemployment benefit as a way of life, then drift into petty crime and such. Much easier than having to use what little brains they have at College, or working for a living.

Well, we know that the state education system has been messed around with too much by meddling politicians, but as per the thread title, what about the parents? Well what about them indeed. How many these days bother to take any active interest in their child's education? How many bother to turn up to school open days or PTA evenings? My child's education is down to the school, nothing to do with me. But, if one teacher lays a single finger on my kid for misbehaving in class, I'll sue the pants off them and the school!

Sigh ........

Qbert - I do hope that was not a personal attack upon ES99.

Qbert - I do hope that was not a personal attack upon ES99.

All I know is that in my early years of teaching I gave honest reports and grades to my classes. I got abuse at parents evening from a parent that left me in tears and the headtecher instead of backing me up also laid into me. I learned never to do that again.

You must have missed the part of your liberal indoctrination that discriminating against equal outcome for any kid was wrong to begin with. It took this event to teach you that you must have been born a racist/bigotted/homophobe. I don't blame you for being a liberal, I blame the hippie movement of the 60's.

Qbert - I do hope that was not a personal attack upon ES99.

ABSOLUTELY NOT! I'm just pointing out what modern liberalism is. Modern liberalism is the problem in public education. Public education has been indoctrinating liberals since the hippie movement of the 60s. Liberalism teaches discrimination is wrong. Wrong in ALL cases.

You see, to discriminate is to say someone is right and someone is wrong.

To say someone is right or wrong is what's been happening in human civilization for the past 50,000 years. Since nothing in recent human history has rid us of war, crime and poverty, everything in recent human history is wrong. What we've been doing for the past 50,000 years is judging people. Therefore, judging people is the problem as defined by modern liberal philosophy. If we quit judging people, we'll get rid of all war, poverty and crime.

That's what modern liberalism is.