No doubt we'll get all the usual bolox in the media today.

Record pass levels.

People saying that exams are getting easier.

Others saying that the exams are really hard but the pupils are all geniuses due to the wonderful level of teaching that they receive.

What's the best way to tell which is correct?

I have supposedly educated people working for me who can't spell, have terrible grammar and are incapable of adding up without the aid of a calculator.

I also read somewhere the other day that since the turn of this century there was one year when 16% got you a grade C for GCSE maths.

And I've been told by a friend of a dyslexic primary school teacher who teaches kids how to spell! Now even for you lefties surely that is PC gone totally loopy?

Well to be able to read, write and add up would be a start.

the Yanks have high education standards, because they know that is what keeps their country at the top of the international pile. Places like India already produces a high number of very well educated people, and it's not difficult to envisage thet in our lifetime we will start lagging behind many countries such as them.
I'll bet the French and German educational standards won't drop, so they'll continue to produce world class engineers, doctors etc.
This country only seems to produce people who form part of "think tanks."

Our kid has just gone off for her results, so it's bated breath time.
From our experience, some subjects are easier, others, such as GCSE biology, include stuff that used to be in the old A-level syllabus. So it's a mixed bag.
I think the reason more kids are getting A grades is that so many subjects have been reduced to set pieces. Broadly speaking, if you can learn to reproduce stuff in a certain format, you can get very high marks, regardless of anything else. For instance (an extreme case, admittedly) our Alex once got no marks for a very good essay, because she'd forgotten to follow the school rules about margins and what sort of gaps to leave between paragraphs.

I could go on......

Well she must have sorted out the paragraphs at last....it's all A and A*.

We live just about opposite the school so half the prospective 6th form is now cavorting about on the grass outside our house

Congratulations to her.

But can she actually read, write and add up?

Which school is it you live by?

Well done to Chip Junior too.

But can she read, write and add up?

I don't know, but her dad can make chips.

I like chips.

Especially home made ones.

Many thanks...will pass it on to Alex. And lots of congratulations to Miss Chip.

Mr Ripper, we live near the Durham Johnston School

(and I agree with Chip...I think if anything they had to work TOO hard)

Never heard of it.

Is it in Durham by any chance?

Good thinking and quite right...you're half way to being congratulated

WELL DONE MISSY CHIP
I KNOW HOW MUCH THE DAUGHTER PUT IN FOR HER RESULTS IT WAS BLOODY HARD WORK

aye you still have to graft for them

also does it not also show that teachers are doing a decent job as well - do not shoot me for that - i know no teachers (well 2 but i dont really see em) - (well three now i think about it)

well i have G.C.S.E's and when i went to college i was amazed at how little people knew apart from their chosen subject, some of them didnt even know were wales was for christ sake, education beGINs at home and if you dont learn a grasp of knowledge from every were you look like an idiot, i give you two examples both at uni.

during my first degree we were on a field trip and i was talking about people being frozen etc when they die i also said "oh lennin is elmbalmed in the kremlin, people though i ment john lennon 99% of the class didnt even know who karl markz was and what the kremlin was.

during my masters we were playing trivial persuit and this lad who got a first in biomedical sciences from Durham didnt know what the fourth planet from the sun was, who was the american president in the second world war and who shot JFK.

both times i got the reply well how do you know all this stuff, its easy i pick up a book someone hasnt told me to read and just widen my knowledge. you cant blame the kids they just do what is put in front of them they need a more rounded education and a drive from home to make then look at the wider world not just the inner pro's of to kill a mocking bird,

however i do understand that kids do work hard and the teachers as well they are only doing what they are being told to teach

Horse and Hound?

What the fk is Horse and Hound?

can i just say that that i dont agree with this having 3 cousins all with degrees who live in new york i lived there in a summer before uni for 4 months and just for a laugh went round my cousins "high school" or our equivelent sixth form she is one years older than me and in chemistry was learning about things i did in that year before i left, i know this isnt a true representation but just my two penny worth in, also they are all thick as pig $hit, that might have something to do with them being blonde. at least they understand sarcasm as theIR folks are both english

Sounds like there are some proud parents on this board

however




Maybe my humour is dry but I find that it's quite obvious you dont understand the meaning of dyslexic.

A dyslexic can spell just as well as someone who is not dyslexic, it just takes longer and is alot more difficult for them to remember how to spell that word - their brain works in a different way.

With the right teaching a dyslexic child will find that the gap between their spelling ability and that of a child who is not dyslexic - but of similar intelligence - is very small and perhaps insignificant.


Although there are different levels of dyslexia, which complicates things. As does the lazy bum who blames his dyslexia when he can not spell, when in fact he did not bother to go to school, or even try to learn to spell.

A dyslexic primary teacher teaching spellings is not as far fetched as it may sound, given the fact that the majority of words they learn are fairly simple.

Thank you.

i totally agree i am dyslexic and i know loads of people who tried to make it an excuse i have done ok with mine all be it i have a low case of it, its wEIrd you know a word but it wont come out and or spell it and usually its the little insignificant words i used to have no problem spelling or writing scientific literature at uni

We at Brinkburn Grammar LEATHERED Durham Johnstons at rugby 63-3 two days before the County teams were announced. Result?? NO-ONE from our school, EIGHT from Durham Johnston and a 36-0 loss to Gloucestershire.

Snob school.

But congratulations to everyone with their results today and prosperity in the future.

My mate's wife has given birth to a 7lb 2oz boy tonight called Sam. I have celebrated from afar.

Hic.

On that One Show tonight they were comparing O levels to GCSEs and you are just about right there.

One of them got something like 30% at O level and a grade F but got 23% at GCSE and got a C grade. Another got 74% at O level which was a B I think and then got 57% at GCSE which was an A grade.

The results were something like that anyway

I know for fact that the students from today have to and do work very hard for their GCSE and A level exams.

Iam the Vice Chair of Governors at Manor College of Technology. SoIget to see it from teh other side you could say

A very very big well done to every child who came out of today with the grades they needed to do what they want to do..

Frank.

PS This is a far cry from my day when I walked out of Elwick Road Secondary Modern School at 15 and into the Army with not one test result to my name ...

Frank.

We at Brinkburn Grammar LEATHERED Durham Johnstons at rugby 63-3 two days before the County teams were announced. Result?? NO-ONE from our school, EIGHT from Durham Johnston and a 36-0 loss to Gloucestershire.

Snob school.

quote]

There may be a bit of missing but crucial information here. For instance, how many times, previous to this, did DJ thrash Brinkburn ?rolfl

By the way, Johnston is a non-selective comprehensive and so, yes, very snobbish indeed!
Dear me , Kev, scraping the barrel a bit

The US education system is not as good as ours until you get to doctorate level. An American degree is worth about 3 UK A levels, yet for some reason their doctorates are of a much higher standard.

I think what keeps America at the top of the international pile is keeping a massive proportion of their populace ignorant. And being aggressive bastads who hoy their weight around as much as they can.

What will keep the UK standards up is the amount of immigrants who want to better themselves. In about 20 years times the kids getting all the top GCSE grades will be from Eastern European or Asian families.

Never, never, never ever, never.

Irony, come on in.........I'm talking about 1971. Put your hackles down.

Durham School itself was far more of a culprit 5 years later when we were a victim of much the same thing - all the training was held there, the trials were held there, the coach - Nick W....... - was the Durham School coach ....

By that time we could play for Cleveland Schools though - though the much hoped for Durham v Cleveland never happened