John Bald Ofsted and New Labour

Abolish SATs or reform them?

The Guardian,here, has a picture of Michael Rosen above an article campaigning for the abolition of SATS. There are two problems with SATs:

1. The marking of the English SATs is corrupt, with mark boundaries adjusted to meet political considerations at the QCA. The English SATs do not do what they should do, and in particular Level 4 does not mean Level 4. These SATs should be removed from the QCA, which is not competent to oversee them.

2. The maths SAT is fairly marked, but the language contains hidden obstacles which prevent pupils from seeing the nature of the question in some cases. This turns the maths SAT into something like an English SAT.

3. There is too much discretion in the amount of support offered in the science SAT, so that results are unreliable between schools.

Getting rid of SATs would leave no reliable check on performance at 11. This would suit the Left and Michael Rosen, who uses his position as Children's Laureate to promote left wing causes. Reliable SATs would show that the proportion of pupils achieving L4, genuinely, in English and maths is lower than the government would find politically acceptable. Taking the politics out of SATs can only be achieved by removing the political influence of left-leaning officials, and putting them under the control of genuinely independent examining boards.

Among the reforms needed in English are:

Remove the handwriting test and grade handwriting as part of writing.

Apply the spelling and punctuation criteria in the National Curriculum strictly.

Reform the grading system to give more credit for reading what is on the lines rather than what is between them, so that inference and deduction are removed from their predominant position. If necessary, the National Curriculum should be amended to make this explicit.

 A Civitas survey of teachers attitudes to A levels, here, contains the following views:

„C or D grade students are now achieving As. There is a real issue with the fact that 25 per cent of students are getting A grades – I find that really ridiculous. It‟s all about teaching to the test today – it‟s not a test of ability – you can do very well today without even being able to write properly.‟ Head of Sixth Form, South East 16

„That there is any teaching to think today is absolute nonsense, there‟s a formula to pass the exams. It‟s absolutely pathetic now. It‟s total nonsense that things have improved.‟ Head of Sixth Form, South East

„I would love to see exams where they gauge a true reflection of students‟ abilities rather than their preparation for the exams.‟ Head of A-levels, South West

  

„This is Mickey Mouse stuff – what they learn at A-level today is not sufficient for GCSE. The system is an absolute shambles, the standard of candidates is very low – it‟s a national disgrace.‟ Head of Sixth Form, East Midlands

 

„You could train a monkey to do the questions today!‟ Director of A-levels, North West

„The new specifications have dumbed it down definitely. The questions in the exams are very wishy washy – Year 8‟s can do some of the questions. It‟s not sufficiently challenging for academic A-levels.‟ Head of Sixth Form, South West

„In terms of languages it‟s definitely easier – the new AQA, the board we use, AS specification is easy! There is less of a jump from GCSE to A-level and it doesn‟t challenge the brightest pupils. We have to supplement the syllabus to stretch the brighter ones.‟ Head of Sixth Form, West Midlands

„They‟re definitely not challenging enough – but we don‟t want them any more difficult or our results would go down!‟ Head of Sixth Form, West Midlands

 

Teachers do not usually have a direct avenue for their views - whenever one is opened up, it is immediately dominated by vested interests - see the way the unions have have taken over seats on the GTC. So, this is unusual, and some comments are clearly born of frustration. I do not, for example, believe that a monkey could do A level, though Mickey Mouse probably could. 

 

The Telegraph report of the survey, here, includes a floundering response from a minister, one Vernon Noakes.

 

A personal PS. I took O level maths in 1966.  The trigonometry I did then is now in the A level syllabus.

Ken Boston, Lying Ministers and that nice man, Lord Sutherland.

Jack Grimston of The Sunday Times has this update on the lies surrounding last summer's exam fiasco. It is clear that Knight only admitted his lie to Lord Sutherland after someone else has found it out. Balls is no better. Why is lying to an official enquiry less serious than lying to the House? And why is Lord Sutherland so gullible as to believe anything officials and politicians say to him?

When he was chief inspector, he refused to believe that his officials were collaborating with local authorities to ensure that their hacks received preferential training as inspectors, for which my evidence was an internal memo from Derbyshire to its inspectors, pointing out how helpful Ofsted had been in arranging their training. He did right by my own application, which was kicked back three times because of my record in rocking the local authority boat, but only after three appeals. He just does not know the kind of person he is dealing with, and has now said that Knight's lying evidence was immaterial. No doubt that will facilitate his next appointment.

Ken Boston's evidence to the Select Committee is here.  The Times picked out the following:

Mr Knight gave evidence to the inquiry about a supposed meeting that he had with Dr Boston at which he claimed that the QCA head had referred all his questions to another official. The Schools Minister has now admitted that no such meeting took place. He contacted Lord Sutherland in February to correct the misunderstanding but Dr Boston was not informed of this until early yesterday.

Dr Boston told the committee: “It’s disgraceful — I was misrepresented by ministers in public and this is the first time I’ve been told. The Sutherland report is wrong. It reported that I advised ministers to extend the date of the test results. I did not.

For Knight to lie deliberately on a matter such as this makes him unfit to be an MP. But it is typical of NuLab, which resorts the truth only to reinforce a point it was going to make anyway. Such a fine, big lie, inventing a meeting that never took place, is worthy of a Secretary of State and not a junior minister. Knight can expect promotion. A misunderstanding, indeed. Lord Sutherland is, by his own admission as well as by general reputation, an honest man. But he is too easily taken in by dishonest politicians.

Warwick Mansell, a distinguished investigative journalist on the Times Educational Supplement, has started a new weblog to expose the goings-on in examination circles, here. 

Jack Grimston of The Sunday Times has this update on the lies surrounding last summer's exam fiasco. It is clear that Knight only admitted his lie to Lord Sutherland after someone else has found it out. Balls is no better. Why is lying to an official enquiry less serious than lying to the House? And why is Lord Sutherland so gullible as to believe anything officials and politicians say to him?

When he was chief inspector, he refused to believe that his officials were collaborating with local authorities to ensure that their hacks received preferential training as inspectors, for which my evidence was an internal memo from Derbyshire to its inspectors, pointing out how helpful Ofsted had been in arranging their training. He did right by my own application, which was kicked back three times because of my record in rocking the local authority boat, but only after three appeals. He just does not know the kind of person he is dealing with, and has now said that Knight's lying evidence was immaterial. No doubt that will facilitate his next appointment.

Ken Boston's evidence to the Select Committee is here.  The Times picked out the following:

Mr Knight gave evidence to the inquiry about a supposed meeting that he had with Dr Boston at which he claimed that the QCA head had referred all his questions to another official. The Schools Minister has now admitted that no such meeting took place. He contacted Lord Sutherland in February to correct the misunderstanding but Dr Boston was not informed of this until early yesterday.

Dr Boston told the committee: “It’s disgraceful — I was misrepresented by ministers in public and this is the first time I’ve been told. The Sutherland report is wrong. It reported that I advised ministers to extend the date of the test results. I did not.

For Knight to lie deliberately on a matter such as this makes him unfit to be an MP. But it is typical of NuLab, which resorts the truth only to reinforce a point it was going to make anyway. Such a fine, big lie, inventing a meeting that never took place, is worthy of a Secretary of State and not a junior minister. Knight can expect promotion. A misunderstanding, indeed. Lord Sutherland is, by his own admission as well as by general reputation, an honest man. But he is too easily taken in by dishonest politicians.

Warwick Mansell, a distinguished investigative journalist on the Times Educational Supplement, has started a new weblog to expose the goings-on in examination circles, here. 

A* and Cambridge

The Guardian weighs into Cambridge University for insisting on at least one A* from next year, on behalf of unnamed "State School Heads", who think it will favour private schools. What needs to be asked is how these same anonymous heads have allowed a situation to develop in which private schools are ahead of state schools academically. They are not ahead of grammar schools in the same way, so why should they be ahead of any others? Why should a child with first class talent be worse off in a comprehensive school than in a grammar school?  There is no answer to this, if comprehensives are genuinely comprehensive and not secondary modern schools for brighter pupils. Cambridge is right, and The Guardian is wrong.

Universities and Ignorance

Well done, Jack Grimston, for collecting more evidence on the dumbing down of degrees. For universities to become part of the ignocracy is particularly shameful, as they are supposed to be concerned with knowledge and understanding, one of the key goals of civilisation.

And of course, tame, ignorant spokespersons come up with the usual deny, deny, deny line to attack the whistleblowers. New Labour has been in power for a long time, and long enough to know that whoever controls the front door controls the backstairs. They have all but decapitated the education system, attempting to restrict thinking to those who are dedicated to their own peculiar view of what society should be. Thank goodness, they have not yet quite succeeded, and  probably won't, short of executing their opponents. Jack's article is here.  I am equally concerned with universities endorsing courses run by voluntary bodies offering teaching techniques on subjects such as dyslexia, for which there is no basis whatsoever in research. But then, a fee is a fee, and who does know anything, anyway?

Oh, and while you're on the Sunday Times site, do check out this little lesson on American corruption.

A* fraud

This time, it's the A^ grade at A level that's been brought in and then fudged, with the ignocracy telling universities to ignore it. We are governed by people whose views, as Ken Livingstone was kind enough to say recently on Radio 4, were formed in their late teens and early twenties, and who have spent their lives trying to mould the world to fit them. These viewe are not shared by most of the population, and as violence doesn't work, their approach has been based on systematic deceit - the elecorate votes for what they say, and they can then decide what they do. Blair himself was very clear about this in a reported conversation to one of the libdems' many leaders. Asked about the difference between being in opposition and in govt, he replied, "That's easy. I used to wonder what I was going to say each day. Now I wonder what I'm going to do."  The above link to the Sunday Times article has more intriguing evidence,including a headteacher who has found a GCSE English exam that does not require children to read a single book.

Select Committee, Lord Sutherland, and an aside on HMCI

Chairman:

He is rather an old-fashioned, honourable gentleman, is he not?

Lord Sutherland:

Yes, I have high regard for Ken Boston and what he has done.

Not everyone shares these views. For many, Ken Boston has done serious damage as the high priest of dumbing down, at the same time as he marketed the QCA as a standards watchdog. But then the first scandal of the day was that, having been sent on "gardening" or perhaps sailing leave, he was not available to answer questions. So, two key players not available. A clarification of a previous entry to this weblog soon emerged.  Lord Sutherland tried to obtain evidence from ETS, and it refused to give it. I've deleted the previous post in which I criticised Lord Sutherland for accepting that he would not be allowed to question ETS, but I'm surprised that this misconception was allowed to persist for months.

The committee was poorly attended, and no-one asked  why the problems were concentrated on the English tests rather than on maths and science. The answer is obvious. Marking science and maths is relatively straightforward. Marking English and getting the results the QCA requires is different, and has more to do with leftwing politics than assessing children's knowledge, skills and understanding. No-one can accuse the author of such a critical report of whitewash, but Lord Sutherland did not come near to asking the key question, and neither did anyone else. Not the committee at its best.

The aside was an alleged comment by HMCI that she would not have applied for the job if she were to be interviewed by the select committee. After her performance in December, this would have been a wise decision. The select committee would be likely to insist that a chief inspector was properly experienced and qualified for the work. The only chief inspector to date who would pass such a test is Sir Michael Tomlinson. All the others have been essentially political appointments (though Lord Sutherland succeeded by basing his work on the collective knowledge, skills and experience of HMI.)

And by way of a change...

Private schools are investigating an IB alternative at GCSE level.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/a_level_gcse_results/article5349142.ece

An interesting piece that includes this:

Pat Langham, head of Wakefield Girls’ School, believes that the answer is for independent schools to stick with GCSEs and A levels and to work to change the system from within.

“If the view is that the GCSE is not good enough for the independent sector, then it’s not good enough for state school pupils either,” she said.

Exactly.

Ken Boston

So, this pillar of the ignocracy has got his come-uppance. New Labour has never been able, or willing, to distinguish between intellect and elitism. The school system has been its battle ground, and everyone appointed to a senior position has been expected to act as its agent. This one came from a long way away, but with sweeteners to keep him from feeling homesick.

Hence our wrecked A levels and GCSEs, fraudulent SAT scores and mashed curriculum. An interesting touchstone of being on-side on A levels is, incidentally, what a person chooses to call them. The converted usually refer to A-2, so as to avoid saying the name of their adversary.  Stewart Sutherland, founding HMCI, has apparently condemned Mr Boston so strongly that he is to go back to Australia. John Dunsford, headteachers' leader, has described his departure as "a tragedy". This might more truly have been said of his appointment. How many ignocrats have been shielded by the gagging clauses that prevented ETS from giving evidence to the enquiry? The House select committee should line them up for questioning. More when the report is published.

Fischpanzer, handwriting and scribes

TES of 5th September has a pathetic plea by Edexel for pupils to be allowed more scribes in exams as examiners can't read their handwriting. Why does  Edexel not insist instead that pupils are taught to write properly? The rot starts with the QCA's English SATs, that allow pupils to be given L4 whether they can use joined writing or not. This is one of the most blatant pieces of manipulation ever on the part of the QCA, and is an example of unelected officials overruling the National Curriculum and, in effect, imposing ignorance on large numbers of schoolchildren. Edexel is just capitulating, as exam boards these days usually do. A sixteen year old should have a scribe only if he or she is physically incapable of writing, and not just because no-one has taught them. Fischpanzer appears to be an internet translation of fishtank into German. High marks, no doubt, for creativity.