Sky Blue Pete
Well-Known Member
Looks like it’s 20,000 infections a day and 3-500 deaths for now then. Suppose that’s ok is it?
Coronavirus Thread (Off Topic, Politics) (121 Viewers)
- Thread starter BackRoomRummermill
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Grendel
Well-Known Member
I don’t suppose so but Italy are forecasting 10,000 deaths next month, France are up to 60,000 infections a day and Spain’s health service has collapsed so relatively speaking it’s par for the course
Belgium now having locked down admit they have totally lost control and infection rate is spiralling to be the worst per head in Europe
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Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
If it's letting rip anyway then may as well open it all up
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Germany continue to do rather well. The rest of Europe whatever restrictions imposed do not.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
Glad to see there is some sense left somewhere. Only a matter of time until England follows suit IMO.
Welsh move to cancel GCSE and A-level exams puts pressure on No 10
No plans to follow Wales, says Johnson spokesman, as unions say England is ‘lagging behind’www.theguardian.com
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
If they can do exams in a classroom why can’t they do them in a hall?
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
They haven’t released the details but I am hoping these will be graduated assessments of some sorts covering specific aspects so they will account for loss of learning over the last 10 months.
It's to allow for unequal delivery I think.
Bound to vary across the region and individual school's.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I have heard a rumour that these ‘assessments’ will be put together by the exam boards themselves and that the ones in England are doing the same behind closed doors.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Right, but some places will cheat, sorry but you just know that.
Sky Blue Pete
Well-Known Member
Yep saw that about Belgium
Sky Blue Pete
Well-Known Member
Yep very sensible
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
Yes - and this is why HMI/OFSTED have to be front and centre of the scrutiny process.
shepardo01
Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
They never were for coursework. Sorry, if they can do external assessments with a teacher in the room they can do the proper ones invigilated.
They could but it won't be an even playing Field , that seems to be the rationale.
Due to varying impact across regions and individual school's affected by this thing .
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
Smaller, focused assessments would make it easier for a subject like Maths where you could have an area focus (Number, Algebra or Geometry for example) rather than the 3 paper absolute lottery you get right now.
To be honest - until there is definitive detail we are pissing in the wind and guessing at everything. I am all for it if the structure is clear and student get as much equity as possible.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Education doesn't have an even playing field to begin with. Makes me think there's not much point in having busted my arse off this year.
robbiekeane
Well-Known Member
A ray of sunshine as ever
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
A sarcastic twat as ever
robbiekeane
Well-Known Member
At least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel now with the vaccine. Should make everyone at least have an end in sight
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Right but going sarcy on the stressed is a bit of a dick move when you don’t know my personal circumstances.
D
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Covid-19: Universities to oversee student exodus for Christmas
They are being asked to travel in the seven days after the national lockdown in England ends.
www.bbc.co.uk
Of course if they'd moved it online during lockdown, this would have been so much easier, and less of a risk.
robbiekeane
Well-Known Member
I dunno man, it was tongue in cheek because you were being very negative about something that was quite a positive move. When someone suggested it was to perhaps account for the playing field being made less even your response was “the playing field in education isn’t level anyway”. In a world where there’s very little positive news not sure you need to just slag everything off when it’s clearly good intentioned.
Anyway, not getting sucked into an argument, sounds like you have some stuff going on and I’m sorry to hear that. Feel free to PM if you ever want to rant!
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Is the exam system outdated, irrelevant and poor at capturing much beyond socioeconomic circumstances and cultural norms? Does a target based approach to education fundamentally misunderstand the process and distort the outcome? Does this country place entirely too much importance on a few hours at 16?
No, no, it’s the cheating teachers who are wrong.
Ah man, we were *this close* to transitioning to a sensible assessment model for secondary education.
No, no, it’s the cheating teachers who are wrong.
Ah man, we were *this close* to transitioning to a sensible assessment model for secondary education.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Some schools did cheat at coursework though shmmeee, it was an open secret.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
But that is a symptom of something else isn't it?
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Which is what?
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Sorry, really it's a symptom of the same thing which is exam results holding disproportionate sway, not that it would necessarily be much different with teacher assessment.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
The whole reason there was a big shift from coursework was because of cheating. I don’t see how they address it.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
They did. I saw it with my own eyes.
But equally rich people game the exam system and it rewards a certain personality type that aligns well with academia but not the economy. Schools cheat the system by dropping subjects outside the measures and drilling kids with exam prep for months at a time and doing constant resits and picking the easy exam boards and excluding kids and so on and so on.
The sausage factory method of education helps no one but those able to game it thanks to socioeconomic factors. It rewards a certain narrow type of teaching and politicians only and I’d like to see it gone.
Do holistic assessment of schools and bringing a portfolio and letter of recommendation alongside some basic numeracy and literacy tests. The rest is mostly nonsense that all measures the same thing.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
League tables would be the principal contributor.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
The problem is politics. Always said this. Twenty years plus system with multiple aims and multiple influences that they want a nice number they can put on their campaign leaflets every five years.
We’ve added testing out the wazoo to our education system over the last thirty years and we haven’t significantly raised standards compared to the rest of the world. Weighing a pig doesn’t make it fatter, time to go back to trying to educate kids instead of gaming excel spreadsheets IMO.
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Ian1779
Well-Known Member
You only have to look at some of the bizarre decisions made about students on an individual level in an effort to ‘meet the criteria’ required for government measures.
Just one example that I find really detrimental for some students is when we put students that have low literacy levels (due to factors such as moderate learning difficulties or maybe English not being a first language) through subjects that require a reading level beyond their ability to access - the rationale is ‘they need to hit their 8 subjects’ or ‘we need an Ebacc subject’. They are being set up to fail, and actually in doing so we are destroying any chance of nurturing the engagement of learning, impact on their results not just at 16 but in future years as they’ve had such a poor experience.
It something that is so archaic that it is beyond logical reasoning, but so many people have a compete blind spot to it. It’s stopped being about what’s best for the student - now just wants the best for the schools performance criteria.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Despite adding in my twopenneth on these discussions I've never wanted to get involved in politics or political parties because that's the bit that prevents good policy and governance. It's just a shitshow aimed at getting one over the other rather than doing what's best and i can't be bothered with that shit.
Of all the crap Trump did the one thing I think he may be onto is using social media to get policies out there and debated. You could spend years trying to get the political machines to recognise and implement an idea and get nowhere. Or you can put it out on twitter and potentially have the entire world read it and debate/improve it and call for it to be implemented.
Of course it does mean that a lot of shit and horrific ideas get banded about too, as we've seen with Trump himself, but it's far more effective than traditional routes.