GCSE reforms

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24759476
The Beeb's take

TELEGRAPH ARTICLES
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11046160/GCSE-reforms-explained.html
H

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11284656/Ofsted-warns-state-schools-are-failing-their-brightest-pupils.html
A

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11283442/Ofsted-170000-pupils-taught-in-poor-secondary-schools.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11276497/Ofsted-chief-in-fresh-attack-on-weak-secondary-schools.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11285915/We-dont-need-education-reform-we-need-a-whole-new-system.html
A

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11280473/Schools-need-stability-to-implement-reforms.html
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11288932/The-Blob-gobbled-up-Michael-Gove-now-its-coming-for-David-Cameron.html
 


 
GUARDIAN ARTICLES
Phil Beadle, espec on cwk but also Thatcher's concerns at GCSE + later cwk intro.
We were told that a CSE grade 1 was the equivalent of an O-level grade C. None of us believed it, but it didn’t matter whether we did or not, as no one ever got CSE grade 1. It was class-based apartheid. If you were “good with your hands” you did CSEs; if you were going to work in an office, you did O-levels.
mystifyingly, the superficial change came with an absurd structural flaw that continues to this day which meant, in reality, the apartheid continued to function, but with a different name. It was decided to have two (or sometimes three) tiers of entry to the GCSE, so that students who had not achieved as well as they might by the age of 14 were entered for a qualification that topped their possible achievement at a grade C.
There was little perceivable logic to this, aside from a bigoted idea about what some children from backgrounds other than those of the legislators would ever be able to achieve, and it acted directly against the move towards equality of opportunity.
The most prevalent [school of thought] is that the rightwing were right: that coursework was a partial debacle, open to cheating, and that relying solely on the great leveller of the terminal exam is more likely to contribute to what are called “standards”.

The other belief, which is rarely ever heard in the hubbub, is that the construction of a series of essays, or longer-term assessments, that are redrafted after the teacher has commented on them, is a spectacularly effective way of teaching students how to perform complex learning tasks while, at the same time, receiving expert guidance as to how they might improve. Furthermore, the process of writing involves going over it, redrafting, editing; and in asking students to take their work though three drafts on a high stakes assignment, we are really modelling for them how the professionals do things.
This narrative is no longer told, as it has suited the current administration to believe the partial truth that the gaming of coursework to improve results has caused a lowering of standards that adversely affects the right of children in elite institutions to be seen as intellectually superior to their state school counterparts. Gove has cancelled any coursework component from GCSEs in the near future, and had Nick Clegg not said it would be “over his dead body”, would have been inclined to scrap the GCSE entirely. The results of this will be large-scale collapses in grades in all kinds of institutions, children learning less, being less skilled writers and mathematicians and thousands of perfectly decent and competent teachers and managers finding their livelihoods at risk. It has a lot to be said for it, coursework.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/15/57-varieties-of-gcse-performance
Letters discussing normative v criterion-based assessment; capping in advance grade numbers v those who achieve get the grade.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/shortcuts/2014/sep/14/new-gcse-super-grade-9
Irreverent but useful look at the new 1-9 scale

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/07/government-bows-christian-pressure-religious-education
Just another example of the risks inherent in a top-down system? Then again, without central dictat, would RE have evolved to become so multi-faith and analytical?

http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2014/nov/03/gcse-drama-curriculum
Its not just grade bands, coursework, content ... and assessment being shaken up, a number of subjects are being culled.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/02/headteachers-criticise-government-chaotic-a-level-reform-delays