On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote:
On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news
wrote:

On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote:

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Apparently British children now score way down the international
league table... I bet DIYers do better ;-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...our-maths.html


I came across the same thing about PISA maths tests for 15 year olds on
the BBC news website a few hours ago and had a go at them. It astonishes
me that any 15 year old couldn't get 100% on such a simple set of
questions but then I have little knowledge of current education
standards.

Like you I have little direct knowledge of current education standards -
all I have to go on are the annual examination results which, we have
been told for at least the last 20 years show that education standards
have been improving year by year.......

I do have direct experience of current education standards having been
a school governor and having children at school. My experience is
limited to good state schools.

The kind of easy maths/english tests that get posted on the media do
not look familiar to me. My kids have often brought home challenging
maths/science problems which can sometimes baffle well-educated
adults. I can say that my kids benefit from a better education that I
did.

GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier
(more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned
tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE).

I think that is one of the problems.

However any exam that such high proportions get an A or A* is useless as
it can't differentiate.

The intelligence of pupils as a group will be pretty much identical from
year to year and what we need to identify is which are the brighter/more
motivated ones in that year. That doesn't call for fixed mark boundaries
and associated efforts to "ensure" that the exam is equally challenging
each year. It calls for marking as a number and then moving the mark
boundaries so that the top 5% of scores are rewarded with a A, the next
7% a B, 10% a C, etc. (figures plucked at random). After all, in
applications for work or for higher education, they will be competing
against each other, not against an exam.

If the exam is easier one year, the marks will be higher, but the same
percentage of pupils will score and A, a B, etc. As an extreme example,
the top mark one year could be 100% and the next 75%, but still 5% of
pupils would get an A, etc. I'm sure this was how it was done years ago,
but it was dropped when some years produced very narrow grade bands and
that was considered "unfair" in some way.

That would retain the easily understood grade system, allowing employers
to compare applicants in the same way, but discriminate clearly between
abilities/effort.

SteveW