This year, I was accountable for our results. It does change things. It was, as I am sure, many experienced Head teachers will attest, an anxious and exciting time. It was also necessary to find a balance. Balance between my role as Head teacher and that of husband and father (it just so happened to…
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I am not rushing to the defence of the exam boards, the perennial “results day” articles* rarely fail to direct some meagre attack or critique towards them. This year, the exam boards have put forward their own infomercials, here and here, to reassurance their various audiences. Furthermore, this year the spectre of yet more reform looms as Nick Gibb’s criticisms echo down the…
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A few months back I asked all the exam boards if they could share the most common exam mistakes made by candidates, common exam blind spots or pot holes. I did ask for trade secrets, nor what was going to be in the Geology GCSE paper, nor how to out fox the wily examiner through stealth and cunning.…
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Confidence, reassurance, familiarity (with the environment, with exam rubrics and with questions), reading skills (decoding questions, responding to command words, identifying keywords) writing/responding skills, myth busting, what ever the benefit, walking pupils through an exam paper has benefit. This years vogue (2015), the “walking, talking mock,” (WTM). In fact the blog post stats would suggest it is going to be…
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MCQs get a mention in Glenys Stacey’s speech at the recent Westminster Education Forum A Level Reform event. We also found differences in assessment [comparable international qualifications], for example, the more prevalent use of sophisticated multiple choice items in assessment elsewhere. Here we find multiple choice less attractive, and associate it with lower demand –…
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It has been a very busy two days. Presentations, meetings, department time, emergencies, emails, data preparation and a serious sprinkle of reality, reviewing our students reading abilities. To be “functionally” literate you need to have a reading age of 11. This lead me to explore the reading age of GCSE exam paper, 15 years and…
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