EXAM RESULTS DAY...
Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 11:31AM Today is the day that many British schoolchidren get their GCSE results. Amongst them was my daughter. I have been with her all morning as she went to school to collect her results. To her delight she got a brace of A stars, and the rest were A's. She was stunned to have scored over 90 marks for both her Maths papers, given that she says she does not "get" Maths and would have been happy to get a B!
I sat outside the school and waited for her. One of the things I noticed was that the girls went in as groups, and came out squealing with delight, in groups. By contrast the boys mostly went in alone and came out alone. Interesting behavioral difference - girls so much more demonstrative than boys.
I see the news is that there has been the biggest annual rise since 1990 in the proportion of GCSE exam entries awarded the best grades. This year 65.7% of the exams taken were awarded A* to C grades, a rise of 2.4 percentage points from 63.3% last year, the exam boards reported. As hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their results, the pass rate rose again, to 98.4%. We get closer and closer to having an exam that everyone passes.
My daughter and her friends were all pleased at their results although even they suspect something odd about the marking. For example, she did not answer a few question in one paper and still got 94%. How is that possible she wondered? Her friends quoted similar stories. Curious.
At the end of the day, I congratulate ALL the students who have done well today and I commisserate with those who have perhaps failed to get what they want. 16 is a tender age to deal with triumph and failure and you have to feel sorry for the few who fail the almost unfailable..
Students can only answer what they are asked. I am convinced the dumbing down continues apace and that children are being cheated by being awarded false grades. This is done for political reasons, of course. However that does not detract from the hard work they put in, and I am certain that whilst the grade inflation is rampant the work that is put in is as great as it was in my time. Here endeth the lesson.
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Reader Comments (4)
Ugh, talk of school in the summer! Even after all the years away I can still feel the tense pull of September.
Many congratulations to her, well done. Exams are never easy...always tense so the girl did good.
That's wonderful news! Y'all must be so proud of her, David.
She done good! It is interesting that she and her friends are questioning their grade - given that several questions were left unanswered on the test. Even our tender youth see something amiss on that one.