It’s official! Our children are even cleverer than last year

Firstly, apologies for the paucity of posts lately. I’ve been away a while, and the back-up team seems to have gone AWOL as well.

Anyway, I popped home today for lunch and caught the local BBC News. The piece I saw was the usual short clip about how more A levels have been passed at higher grades than ever before (for the 28th consecutive year), accompanied by scenes of unbridled joy as pupils celebrated and looked forward to life at Uni. The BBC covers it all here.

Depressingly, the new A*, a typical NuLab response to accusations of dumbing down/slacker marking regimes and easier exams, was awarded to 8%, or 1 in 12, of pupils. Introduced this year, the A* was intended to stretch the brightest students and help universities differentiate between the best candidates. I’m not entirely sure that has been achieved…

Indeed,the BBC says that in order to get one, a student has to score an A overall, plus at least 90% in each paper in the second year of the course. 8% of candidates did that, which, frankly, belies the intent…

The BBC also says that the highest percentage of A*s was awarded in further maths at 29.9%. Maths! Isn’t that supposed to be the hardest ‘A’ Level?

All this in the context of Nick Clegg’s ridiculous posturing about middle class students pinching all the best places at University.

Today’s Telegraph is riddled with stories of excess:

Triple A star student rejected
Twins share seven A stars at A-level
Maths genius, 10, earns A-level
Top equestrian scores five top A-levels
Student ‘elated’ after securing place on country’s hardest course

All of this is depressingly familiar, and I really feel for these students. They’ve worked hard, studied, revised and passed, and all that happens is that they can’t get a place at Uni, and we old fogies tell them that they aren’t proper exams any more.

But, and it’s a big but, it’s as plain as a pike-staff that today’s children, although far better qualified than my generation, are more poorly-educated, less resilient, less motivated, and less able to continue learning. They are, in short, poorly-prepared for the real world, on every level.

Here’s a personal context: I passed my 11-plus about the time that they were killing off Grammar Schools. My intended school was one of those that converted to an Independent, and is now a minor Public School with good results, excellent facilities and an even more excellent headmaster. My 11-plus pass, which apparently was a good one, was commuted into some sort of hybrid scholarship, although I’m not sure of the specifics. However, the end result was that I received a good education, and got 9 ‘O’ Levels in the end. I didn’t bother with ‘A’ Levels, but went straight to work as one could in those days*. Many of my contemporaries did do ‘A’s though, and anyone else from that era will remember that anyone with 3 grade A ‘A’ Levels was on the front page of the local paper, such was the rarity of the event.

So, the inescapable conclusion is that either exams are a lot easier than they used to be, OR, pupils are a lot cleverer, AND/OR teaching methods and teachers are far better than they were. I know which I think it is…

I’ve nicked the following graphic from the BBC article linked above, which shows the percentage of pupils getting A grades at ‘A’ Level since 1965. It makes interesting viewing…

The excellent Old Holborn has gone off into one on this today, and very kindly given us some links to follow. I highly recommend that you take a look in the following order:

1968 11+ Maths Paper (taken at age 10)
1968 Maths ‘O’ Level – Paper I (Grammar School papers were harder)
GCSE Mathematics Module, November 2009

Hands up all those who gasped out loud at the first question, and by the end of the paper had their chins on their desk?

So which is it? Cleverer pupils? Better teachers? Or is it easier exams?

*Anyone else remember those signs in the street in the late 70s offering careers in IT after an aptitude test? I started in IT straight from school in 1973, but took one of those tests for fun as late as 1980. I still know people from those days, without any real qualifications, and they’ve forgotten more than today’s Computer Science graduates will ever know because they are suited to the job, motivated, and clever: selected by aptitude…