Exam resits

With this year’s exams and the attendant trauma now over, until the re-sits at least, I was interested to hear the re-hashing of what would appear to be an old debate.

In early 2011 students were told, according to the headlines, ‘keep studying maths and English until you pass’. Nothing new there then. However, it does beg the question, why are we still on the same merry-go-round, going nowhere?

With results for teenagers gaining GCSEs at grade C or above in English and maths remaining well below the standard we should all aspire to, I fail to understand why, despite all the discussion, nothing seems to have been achieved so far.

Education advisers declare that no young person should start work without a good grade in core subjects, and that teenagers in England should be forced to study maths and English until they have a good standard in both subjects.

It does make me wonder, have they ever had experience in forcing a teenager to do anything?

Colleges offering vocational subjects, often of dubious quality because they attract good levels of funding, are held to blame. This trend towards offering non-academic subjects has only helped to fuel the downward spiral of academic achievement in the core subjects.

At the same time, Education Secretary Michael Gove stated that he planned to accept the recommendations of an independent review which meant that for about 300,000 pupils a year it was to be compulsory to carry on studying the key subjects, at least until the age of 18.

This despite the fact that proven rates of success for re-sits remains dismally low. Whilst I agree that a good basic standard of education is vital, no matter what career path you choose to follow, I would argue that to wait until the youngster reaches the age of 15 or so, is just too late. Once again we are seeing a situation where bluster and rhetoric is the rule of the day, but little of any consequence is achieved. To my mind, positive intervention at the earliest opportunity, before leaving primary school, is the only solution. If you grow up in a house with no books, where your parents have achieved little, and the TV reigns supreme, what hope is there? All children need to be inspired, to want to learn, not to be branded failures and have their dreams destroyed. I see no reason why, in order to reach the required standard, they shouldn’t be able to integrate their learning with something they are interested in, whether it be sport or music, or art. The problem is that they see their heroes and heroines reach the pinnacle of fame with little or no education, and don’t see why they should be any different. My own mantra has always been try, try and try again, but not if by forcing them to continue studying it feels like bashing their heads against a brick wall, until they become numb and it no longer hurts. By all means support them to achieve, that is the least we can do, but not without identifying and addressing the underlying causes.