Examination results bring huge pressure for the students,
but in today’s accountable society, it brings pressure for teachers, head
teachers, LEAs, Examination Boards and Governments! By being transparent on
examination results the Government brings a stick to beat itself up with, to
beat Examination Boards up with and everyone all the way down the food chain to
the lowly teacher, with the teacher being the whipping boy for poor results
(what is the opposite of a whipping boy?). Praise being given to those teachers
achieving great things for their pupils –Definition of Great Things: moving a
child from a Grade D to a Grade C. Where is the praise for moving a child from
a Grade E to a Grade D?
It is no wonder that teachers constantly look for ways to
beat the system, in most cases, honestly. And there are many ways to play the
system. A Grade C is the Holy Grail for every school. These Grade C boundary
pupils become the focus of every department resulting in an uneven distribution
of the mathematics department’s resources. Typical tactics being, but not
limited to: changing Examination Board, putting the best teachers to teach the
sets which target these grade boundaries, extra lessons, early entries, withdrawal for
targeted pupil one-to-one work etc.
For years I have advocated that if maths standards are to be
upheld through the GCSE system then the Examination Board is key to this. The
Examination Board cannot be in a competitive environment. The Examination
Boards have little option but to erode grade boundaries as savvy Heads of
Department tactically switch Boards dependent on the previous year’s Grade
boundaries and pass rates. This erosion led to the introduction of the A* as too
many achieved As to distinguish between them. Pressure on Examination Boards has led to a second
successive year of a fall in the proportion of pupils achieving an A*-C grade.
For maths this year the fall was by 0.8%.
When SATs where introduced, no one blinked twice at one
Examination Board administering the process and controlling the grade
boundaries. This is what has to be done for each subject at CGSE, with the
Examination Board’s remit in upholding the standards, and if the standards
drops, so does the pass rate. At least some of this is being addressed.
But what of the bigger picture? In 1998 the Bank of England
was given operational independence over monetary policy and given sole
responsibility for setting interest rates to meet Government inflation targets.
Government setting interest rates was a headache and an election loser, so
outsourcing this way was a win-win. It wasn't the Government’s fault if the
interest rate was high/low (different people want different things!) and
experts – yes people who knew what they were doing - were in charge! As
Governments come and go there is an uninterfered constant.
So what has that to do with anything? A body of experts running
independent of the Government helping to achieve National goals. Could that be
transferable? A body of people that run education with no affiliation to
Government, that sets the National goals, hence the curriculum and maintains
the integrity of standards through the examination system. Real maths teacher
working with academics towards a common goal without political interference.
What about the current committees, we do have them..after all if Carol
Vordermann can add and multiply she surely knows how to advise the Government
on how to teach our children, just as George Clooney should be helping out the
Health Department – he did appear in many episodes of ER.
So the make-up of this autonomous, apolitical Bank of
Education. Why not just academics in this body? By the definition they are very
clever people..and that is the problem, they need grounding. How does a
successful curriculum work? I have addressed that before but in a nutshell it
has to be deliverable. There are many elements to this, but academics have to
be realistic about what can be achieved, (and realistic about what the country
needs in a workforce) hence achieving a balance with long serving teachers. It
would deliver a constant through the changing political world.
Politicians flit between different departments, becoming
instant experts in a wide range of areas. If only we mere mortals could become
experts in our fields so easily. The current Education incumbent seems
determined to mold education in his own image. Possibly the Bank of Education
needs to have stern words with him.
Ian Fisher, Managing Director of 10ticks
