Talkers Are No Good

- Clearly the media will jump on two main aspects: a - Boys are ‘failing’ (or schools are ‘failing’ boys, depending on the slant) b - that EBac subjects have poor uptake/results.  Oh not forgetting that its all getting easier because 1/4 of entries got an A/A*.

- Some of the more local reporting will be better - it will want to reflect the local area in a more positive light and contextualise the stories (e.g. Tottenham school’s GCSE results ‘positive news’ after riots)

- The gender gap headlines will present male failure with a broad stroke, or female success similarly (e.g. the Daily Mail’s “March of the Girls” headline).  What is interesting is the confession of ‘headscratching’ at AQA headquatres about this gap.  It can be expected that research will suggest that girls are reaching a more optimum performance level at 15-16 and because all learning is achieved through communication (be it communication of ideas, written expression or whatever) that girls have an inbuild advantage.  As access to education has widened and more girls are technologically savvy younger, its clear that modern girls do feel like they can turn their hand to anything.  The 80% male majority in the A Level Physics data last week looks to be a figure under threat.  But boys are not taking on the ‘female subjects’ at quite the same rate.  What am I getting at? Well, I simply don’t think its fair that boys get portrayed as ‘thick’. Bottom line.

- Quick reminder about the Ebac.  This is Gove’s crazy insentive to get schooling back to a traditional approach.  It benchmarks pupils and schools against each other in selected subjects i.e. English, Maths, MFL/Classical, Science and History/Geography.  Because of the timing, Ebac results will be published with league tables in 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 (the expected next election year).  But schools are only steering their pupils towarsd these options THIS year.  That means that the data will slump in 2010 (which it did), 2011 (which it has, look again at the headlines about MFL and humanities) and 2012.  A ‘reversal of performance in core subjects’ will occur in 2013 and increase again in 2014. Perfect timing, wouldn’t you say? Meanwhile its the kids who will suffer from lack of choise and lack of access (its is already evident that this has widened the attainment gap by economic background). Moreover, the arts have been hung out to dry.  I actually believe being an Ebac subject will become a curse for subject leaders and that the arts are better off out of it.  That said, it will effect the validity of the arts higher up in the educational tiers and in the economy as a whole.  Loose-loose situation? 

-And there will be those human stories too - and I for one am a big fan!  It was sad to read of the family of Dale Fleckner, 16, from Tranmere who picked up his results after they were issued posthumously.  He died in July after being electrocuted on a railway line.

JK

•The GCSE pass rate has gone up for the 23rd year running.

•Nearly one in four (23.2%) of entries scored at least an A grade this year, up from 22.6% in 2010.

•Nearly seven in 10 entries (69.8%) were awarded a C or above, according to figures published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ).

• Once again boys are failing to close the gap with girls, particularly in top grades. More than one in four (26.5%) of girls’ entries were awarded an A or A* , compared to 19.8% of boys’ exams - the widest the gap has been since the A* grade was introduced in 1994. Boys are also not achieving as good A-C grades as girls: 66% of boys’ exams gained at least a C compared to 73.5% of girls, a difference of 7.5 percentage points.

•The numbers of pupils taking modern foreign languages continues to fall.

• Fewer pupils are taking history and geography, with history entries down around 2,700, and geography entries slumping dramatically by 13,800 in one year.

Looking over the data, it seems there are huge spikes in take-up this year in Religious Education and Physics.  This is great news!