Interesting subject as there is a tendency for people to think one board is harder than another.
exam results
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Well, schools certainly used to mix n match to get the best deal for the kids. I assume they did not choose the hardest courses for their pupils. In Wales, all schools only use WJEC papers, unless the subject is not offered by WJEC. Two very out there examples would be A level Classics and Sri Lankan, and GCSE Turkish! All of which I invigilated this time around.
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Generally we did O & C, because it was that sort of school. For sciences I found the Nuffield exams we took suited me. Different brains?
Poking around found several unusual languages being taken in multicultural schools, which makes sense.
Native speakers would tend to do well.
One local to me has several Portuguese takers every year.
On different brains we had one definite case of autism, and a couple of what I'd guess would be Asperger's. ASD wasn't a thing then, though.
Poking around found several unusual languages being taken in multicultural schools, which makes sense.
Native speakers would tend to do well.
One local to me has several Portuguese takers every year.
On different brains we had one definite case of autism, and a couple of what I'd guess would be Asperger's. ASD wasn't a thing then, though.
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I suspect it's a perceived difference really rather than factual. My sons secondary school was an ex grammar gone comprehensive. All Cambridge if I remember correctly. Subject came up talking to a teacher who appeared to think they were harder, JMB for instance much easier. I'd guess that really it can come down to what a teacher can teach and has taught. It is a bit of a repetitive job.
Caused a bit of a problem actually. The school encouraged pupils to practice on a certain web site. They reckoned it was worth a grade. No problem with O or what ever it was then but I couldn't get him to do it with A as the syllabus was different. He did ok anyway but..............Sponsored Links
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O & C - back in my day, used to cover the classical bits of eg maths, where other boards dared to introduce outrageous stuff like matrices shock horror. As said above, once the marks have been put through the mill the grades come out comparable in terms of difficulty. There's far more maths that's learnable by 16 yr olds so the syllabus is a sample. It's set by dept of ed somehow - CG would know.
The main boards have a lot of online and printed material to revise from. I've seen some of it. If you have 10 hours a week for a gcse you could fill it. So if you've forgotten how to "complete the square" there will be a 5 min video on it.
There are loads of youtubes as well,. They start costing at A level, but there are many free ones. Uni level too for popular subjects.
The main boards have a lot of online and printed material to revise from. I've seen some of it. If you have 10 hours a week for a gcse you could fill it. So if you've forgotten how to "complete the square" there will be a 5 min video on it.
There are loads of youtubes as well,. They start costing at A level, but there are many free ones. Uni level too for popular subjects.
I don't know what alphabet soup the other countries are on at the mo, but yes, the curriculum authority in each country (Qualifications Wales here) invites the exam bodies* to submit specifications for approval, which are batted back and forth until QW agrees. The exam board then issues the spec; Schools work up the syllabuses and the teachers teach it.
The first time it's re hashed is a bit of a lottery for schools and kids, then 2 things happen. One, teachers adapt to what is being examined (I mean, they suss what the exam board is assessing) and adjust. Two, the exam board ensures the spec is subsequently 'tested harder' (can't express it better!), and the grade boundaries are set to achieve passes of a consistent value which is not quite 'exams of the same difficulty/fairness.
Hope that makes sense.
*not annually- prob when some dick politician says 'it's not like my day!'
The first time it's re hashed is a bit of a lottery for schools and kids, then 2 things happen. One, teachers adapt to what is being examined (I mean, they suss what the exam board is assessing) and adjust. Two, the exam board ensures the spec is subsequently 'tested harder' (can't express it better!), and the grade boundaries are set to achieve passes of a consistent value which is not quite 'exams of the same difficulty/fairness.
Hope that makes sense.
*not annually- prob when some dick politician says 'it's not like my day!'
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Ah, I thought the boards set out the syllabuses, not the schools. That accounts for the teachers - at the bottom - all over the country having to invent their very own versions of s.o.w, sets of homework, mocks, and Powerpoints, class exercises and the rest. Such a wonderful system.
With the ping-pong, you'd think they'd manage to produce text books, exam papers and whatnot without so many errors in them...
With the ping-pong, you'd think they'd manage to produce text books, exam papers and whatnot without so many errors in them...
To be fair, it's easy to mistakenly interchange specification and syllabus; and who does what. Once agreed, the exam board says to schools, "Here's the specification, get on with it." (anything in the spec MAY be examined); and the school responds to it by devising a syllabus of topics and lessons that will meet that demand.
Interesting. 2 teacher I know. One a cousin the other my wife. Not sure how this fits in.
My cousin's job was mostly being a coordinator. She may have done sone teaching. She took low penalty early retirement when this area seems to have changed. My wife is a teacher, special school which ok is different however the job of being a coordinator was added to that. Net effect on our life was pretty dramatic. Rather a lot of extra work.
From what I can gather a coordinators job loosely relates to what is actually taught in classes and in some respects how. Maybe sone one can shed some light on this?
Special school in this case is behavioural and all sorts up to maybe 18 in some cases but usually a bit younger,
Co-ordinator is a catch-all term. Primary schools would style the teacher in charge of a subject a 'co-ordinator'; and maybe a job in a secondary answering to the Head of Department. In either case, the job might be the first step on the promotion ladder/giving experience of management; possibly attracting a few quid extra.
In a small primary, teachers might co-ordinate more than one area. At the lowest level, it's where the junk mail for that subject goes. More important is cascading training they've received in their subject area down to the rest of the staff, leading training sessions etc. They would have the lead in developing or changing the syllabus in that particular subject in that school.
It's thankless, but is part of self development, and can start teachers who want it, on the promotion ladder.
In a small primary, teachers might co-ordinate more than one area. At the lowest level, it's where the junk mail for that subject goes. More important is cascading training they've received in their subject area down to the rest of the staff, leading training sessions etc. They would have the lead in developing or changing the syllabus in that particular subject in that school.
It's thankless, but is part of self development, and can start teachers who want it, on the promotion ladder.
You really don't understand do you!
But you do reinforce my point...
If you want a 'meaningful grade', why not have a single board so that every student is examined in the same way on the same syllabus?
Private schools have great sway over the exam boards, and by private I include so called state schools (academies) which are effectively the same...
And on the subject of academies, they don't have to follow any syllabus at all, and don't even have to employ qualified teachers...
So could you tell us what 'meaningful grade' means in your mind, because as you confirm different students study differing courses!
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Only you have a problem understanding. You're trolling.
Are you going to witter on about calculators again next?
Are you going to witter on about calculators again next?
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I'll have a last go at this (God knows why...)
Let's imagine a single board. Oh, wait, in Wales, there is only one board. Moving on. Now stick to say, Maths. One board, one subject. Even Ellal is still with me at this point, surely. The board has an expert panel and the members (maybe one for pure, one for mechanics, one for stats) set the exam papers for this year's a level. The papers are accepted by the board. The papers are set by reference to the agreed specification, the one agreed by the Welsh Government. A mark scheme is set to allocate the marks, and the markers- maybe 10, 20, 50 people for Maths- have to mark to it.
The papers get marked, and hey ho, the highest raw mark in Wales is 62/120. ****, the paper was too hard! (These results are across Wales, so IT IS NOT one school's lazy teachers to blame, nor is it a poor bunch of students this year) Not to worry, we have. a mechanism for normalising the grades when this happens; a 'smoother-outer' as it were. It's called a grade boundary, which is not set until the marks are in.
So, your kid did a crippling paper, got an A with 50 marks; mine had a piece of **** paper, got an A, but needed 70. The 'unfairness' in the papers is taken out.
Now, your idea is what? Same paper every year? Good luck with keeping it secure. Same standard of difficulty every year? It can't be achieved in the way you describe, hence the grade boundary system. Hence the 'meaningful grade'.
You have been pretty precise about it all. The only remaining aspect really is why have different boards? On the face of things there is no need for it. The same grading system is needed on all qualifications
I do wonder about Phd's though on the basis of being asked to make use of them in the real world. I have heard of Phd failures though and also noticed various types that get them. Off topic subject.Different boards? Dunno, but there are far fewer now anyway, and they all have the same processes.
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