Anyone with children sitting them and think they're much easier than in their day (or O Levels)?
The reason I'm asking is that I can't remember lads getting 10 As in my day. Maybe they did.
Can't compare apples to oranges!
Modular exams with a coursework element will always give the student the best possible chance to excel and more power to them.
The old O and A levels were norm referenced which meant that no matter how hard or easy the exam the same percentage of candidates got each grade, e.g. 69% passed A levels.
This meant that in some years you could pass O level maths with as low as 25 to 30%. No matter how good you were at a subject it was how much better you were than all the others doing the same exam that counted.
So, for example, A level Chemistry had a small number taking it each year, in NI about 2000, but most of them were of high ability so high achievers found it difficult to get a top grade as only a fixed percentage could do so. Real competition to get grades. Whereas a subject like History had a large number of candidates taking it and with a wider range of abilities so more could get top grades because the same percentage of candidates per grade as with Chemistry was applied to a greater number of candidates.
The current GCSE and A levels are criterion referenced assessment which do not have fixed percentage of candidates per grade. The more you know and can do, the higher the grade you get. Hence, as pupils and teachers play the assessment game increasingly better, the achievements continue to improve.
So, GCSE and A level exams are not easier, they are more efficient in finding out how much students know and can do and students and teachers know how to do their best.
Well done to all of those who got their results this week and last.
Would you say teaching has improved?
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
Have subjects evolved like teaching has?
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on August 23, 2018, 11:09:00 PM
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
Have subjects evolved like teaching has?
Do you think your teachers went the extra mile for you?
Look if you have issues with this ... just declare... I live in Ireland, I want to do the leaving!!!!
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:16:48 PM
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on August 23, 2018, 11:09:00 PM
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
Have subjects evolved like teaching has?
Do you think your teachers went the extra mile for you?
I wasn't interested at school, sports and history were the only things i enjoyed, that was, history as I liked our history teacher and sport as I was into sport..
I went to secondary school in the early 80's in West Belfast, getting through to 5th year was an achievement. Did teachers go the extra mile? Looking back I think they were tired and going through the motions, they were all at the school when it opened in early 70's, a tough enough period to teach.
I wouldn't blame them for not igniting a thirst for education , as I never had one then..
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on August 23, 2018, 11:09:00 PM
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
Have subjects evolved like teaching has?
I would say it has had to. I think parents would put a lot more pressure on these days than "in my day". Transfer tests etc involve way more than structured reasoning in primary schools.
In secondary schools also there seems way more "opportunities" in terms of competitions from things like spelling to speaking publicly to sports.
I think the internet has probably pressurised things more especially in smaller schools. Parents and children have access to a lot more information. Pre internet you were really at the will of the teacher. (e.g. I remember going into a GCSE exam where there were questions on a lot of stuff we hadn't covered at all. I doubt that would happen these days and if it did I'd say you would be in trouble for it)
Quote from: imtommygunn on August 24, 2018, 08:57:27 AM
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on August 23, 2018, 11:09:00 PM
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
Have subjects evolved like teaching has?
I would say it has had to. I think parents would put a lot more pressure on these days than "in my day". Transfer tests etc involve way more than structured reasoning in primary schools.
In secondary schools also there seems way more "opportunities" in terms of competitions from things like spelling to speaking publicly to sports.
I think the internet has probably pressurised things more especially in smaller schools. Parents and children have access to a lot more information. Pre internet you were really at the will of the teacher. (e.g. I remember going into a GCSE exam where there were questions on a lot of stuff we hadn't covered at all. I doubt that would happen these days and if it did I'd say you would be in trouble for it)
I remember one of our teachers pulling us all to the side before one of our GCSEs in 2001 (Jesus that'a ages ago now) to tell us about some questions he hadn't covered and basically gave us the answers to cover himself.
Ours just didn't admit to anything and blamed the pupils lol.
Same guy taught us the same subject at a level and first thing he was asked for was the syllabus.
I saw a GCSE Maths paper one time, no comparison to the level of difficulty of the O level exam I did back in the day as far as I recall. Don't suppose anyone could throw up a couple of past O and GCSE papers for comparison?
I went to secondary school in the early/mid 90s. Most of the teachers were of the era when they were allowed to batter you senseless, so they had to adjust and get used to the whole "no corporal punishment" thing. Don't think they coped too well with that.
Thankfully most of my kids teachers, whilst under pressure for results, are pretty good. They really do try and get the best out of them. So yeah, I think teachers have evolved.
Just annoys me that they're mostly all younger than me.....
Went to St. Mary's in Magherafelt . . . It would be considered one of the better schools in the area (3 times as good as St Pats) and we had some absolute dungbags as teachers.
Don't get me wrong there were some excellent ones as well but it still surprises me how many teachers back then could be functioning alcoholics/stupid/totally not cut out for being a teacher.
I would hope that things have changed in that regard!
Quote from: screenexile on August 24, 2018, 11:08:46 AM
Went to St. Mary's in Magherafelt . . . It would be considered one of the better schools in the area (3 times as good as St Pats) and we had some absolute dungbags as teachers.
Don't get me wrong there were some excellent ones as well but it still surprises me how many teachers back then could be functioning alcoholics/stupid/totally not cut out for being a teacher.
I would hope that things have changed in that regard!
I can tell you from ones I know that it hasn't.
Thought Dungannon Academy had a lot of poor/boring teachers back in the day. No idea what's it like now. Looking back a good few of them were definitely going through the motions.
I've seen a few GCSE Maths papers recently and as someone else said on here, there is no comparison to back in the day. In fact some of the tougher GCSE questions have now moved onto A-Level papers.
The modular thing is a great help too. When it was first brought in I was able to resit certain areas if I wasn't happy with my mark.
It's not today's students fault though. Good luck to them. Interesting about how the marking has changed though. Instead of a percentage getting the top grade, everyone could get the top grade if they scored highly enough.
I think today's system makes it very distinguish between the very top achievers. Lots of people seem to get straight As now while very few managed it years ago.
Quote from: clarshack on August 25, 2018, 12:43:19 AM
Thought Dungannon Academy had a lot of poor/boring teachers back in the day. No idea what's it like now. Looking back a good few of them were definitely going through the motions.
In fairness so were a lot of kids, it's easier to teach kids who want to learn
Quote from: RedHand88 on August 25, 2018, 12:05:20 AM
Quote from: screenexile on August 24, 2018, 11:08:46 AM
Went to St. Mary's in Magherafelt . . . It would be considered one of the better schools in the area (3 times as good as St Pats) and we had some absolute dungbags as teachers.
Don't get me wrong there were some excellent ones as well but it still surprises me how many teachers back then could be functioning alcoholics/stupid/totally not cut out for being a teacher.
I would hope that things have changed in that regard!
I can tell you from ones I know that it hasn't.
St Pius had a few tubes also. McIver and big Brendan Convery were great though. Tough but fair.
Quote from: clarshack on August 25, 2018, 12:43:19 AM
Thought Dungannon Academy had a lot of poor/boring teachers back in the day. No idea what's it like now. Looking back a good few of them were definitely going through the motions.
It seems very hip and modern now. Full of teachers under 40. Alot of the old guard moved on after the amalgamation.
Quote from: Keyser soze on August 24, 2018, 10:46:53 AM
I saw a GCSE Maths paper one time, no comparison to the level of difficulty of the O level exam I did back in the day as far as I recall. Don't suppose anyone could throw up a couple of past O and GCSE papers for comparison?
Apples and Oranges. O level was normative reference assessment and GCSE is criteria referenced assessment.
In Maths it didn't matter how hard or easy the paper as the same percentage of every grade was awarded every year, hence, O level maths pass was often achieved with 25 to 30% mark in exam.
GCSE has to have fewer topics and easier ones to allow pupils to achieve rather than to catch them out as in O levels.
Much of the hard topics in O level maths were moved to A level. Calculus (differentiation and integration) and Logs are examples of A level maths that we all did for O level, same for much of the trigonometry and algebra.
Far, far easier now than O levels, particularly Maths. I recently saw a CSE paper from the early 80s, where some of the content is now deemed too difficult for GCSE.
Quote from: ONeill on August 23, 2018, 11:02:24 PM
Would you say teaching has improved?
In general teaching is better but in a specific way. Teachers have developed their skills in beating the current assessment system.
GCSEs and A levels are now modular. In the 'good old days' it was all on the day with long exams for the two year course of and O level or old A level. Exams now are sprints.
It is easier to break the subject down, take several exams over the two year period and also complete some controlled assessment in the classroom or practical work.
Teachers have developed the best methods to excel at these modern exams, they know how to work the system, which modular exams to repeat, how best to prepare for controlled assessment and to complete the practical assessments.
In the old days it didn't matter how poor the teachers were so long as every school had the same quality of teachers because the O levels and old A levels were norm referenced which meant that you had to do better than all the others taking the same exam to get the top grades, e.g. every year 69% of students at A level got grade E or better, can't remember the percentages for other grades. Grades were given out by putting everyone taking the exam in rank order and dividing them into bands by same fixed percentages each year
GCSEs and new A levels require the pupils to compete against themselves, how well each one can do across the modules and controlled assessment, so they do better than before. Grades are given by reaching clearly pre-defined criteria in terms of what they know and can do.
Fair play to all taking the modern exams in doing so well and their teachers for beating the system and playing the modern assessment game.
Quote from: Champion The Wonder Horse on August 25, 2018, 08:20:22 PM
Far, far easier now than O levels, particularly Maths. I recently saw a CSE paper from the early 80s, where some of the content is now deemed too difficult for GCSE.
Again you can't compare apples and oranges. CSEs were also norm referenced in assigning the grades unlike the criteria referenced GCSEs.
Quote from: Owen Brannigan on August 25, 2018, 08:31:07 PM
Quote from: Champion The Wonder Horse on August 25, 2018, 08:20:22 PM
Far, far easier now than O levels, particularly Maths. I recently saw a CSE paper from the early 80s, where some of the content is now deemed too difficult for GCSE.
Again you can't compare apples and oranges. CSEs were also norm referenced in assigning the grades unlike the criteria referenced GCSEs.
My point was that the content of GCSEs, particularly Maths, is much easier than the content of O Levels or indeed CSEs. That's easy enough to compare.
Quote from: Champion The Wonder Horse on August 25, 2018, 08:56:42 PM
Quote from: Owen Brannigan on August 25, 2018, 08:31:07 PM
Quote from: Champion The Wonder Horse on August 25, 2018, 08:20:22 PM
Far, far easier now than O levels, particularly Maths. I recently saw a CSE paper from the early 80s, where some of the content is now deemed too difficult for GCSE.
Again you can't compare apples and oranges. CSEs were also norm referenced in assigning the grades unlike the criteria referenced GCSEs.
My point was that the content of GCSEs, particularly Maths, is much easier than the content of O Levels or indeed CSEs. That's easy enough to compare.
Correct, GCSEs have to be more accessible to allow criteria referenced assessment to work. Everyone who takes a GCSE must be able to achieve. Therefore, the content of CSEs and O levels had to be reduced to ensure that the topics being assessed were easier for everyone to achieve a grade.
Quote from: Keyser soze on August 24, 2018, 10:46:53 AM
I saw a GCSE Maths paper one time, no comparison to the level of difficulty of the O level exam I did back in the day as far as I recall. Don't suppose anyone could throw up a couple of past O and GCSE papers for comparison?
https://telescoper.wordpress.com/tag/o-level-mathematics-1979/
https://revisionmaths.com/gcse-maths/gcse-maths-past-papers/edexcel-gcse-maths-past-papers