Sandra Dick: Exam plans don't merit pass marks

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 09:49

IT was sometime in spring, and, sadly, it wasn't exactly yesterday. A nervous secondary school pupil – not the highest achiever but not the class numpty either – sat down to her French Higher paper and felt that horrible, gut-churning feeling, the one I suspect many teenagers have as they realise they are careering, headlong at great speed into total exam meltdown.

Oh yes, la merde, mes amies, was definitely hitting le ventilateur.

Still, some two hours later with a head full of Monsieur Lafayette, very irregular verbs and dodgy French grammar, I vaguely recall staggering from the exam hall into the playground, relieved that I hadn't actually expired halfway through. Okay, my fingernails were now reduced to bleeding stumps but – amazingly – I had survived my last high school exam without the need for oxygen!

At this point it might be best to skim over the fact that I didn't obtain an A pass for my sterling efforts (it was a C+ , since you ask, for which I blame Patti Smith, Joy Division and the P6 hunk for their distractions), but the point is I did it, it was hellish, but it didn't kill me and it didn't cause the world to tilt on its axis.

Back then it was general practice for pretty much every pupil to suffer exam hell of some kind – otherwise how would anyone in the big bad world ever be able to judge whether you could actually work out how many hours it would take five men to dig a hole six metres deep if one was on his tea break and the others were reading the Daily Star?

The O Grade and Higher system I endured was phased out in the Nineties, dismissed for simply judging pupils' ability in the pressure cooker of the exam hall while failing to take into account their classroom achievements.

Since then the exam system has been tickled and tinkered with, Higher Stills introduced, continual assessment and a confusing array of New Access and Intermediate exams brought in, the workings of which, frankly, you would need a degree in education to understand.

That such a messy system was in need of an overhaul is obvious – but at first glance the one unveiled last week by the Scottish Government doesn't quite achieve "pass" marks.

The plan is to introduce a new system of National exams which will streamline higher achieving pupils towards formal, external and independent testing to be known as National 5.

Others will be tested and assessed by their own teachers – but not given a grade – in a system known as National 4, the equivalent to today's independently assessed Standard Grade at general level.

But with 20 per cent of today's pupils leaving school at that stage, concerns are their successors will quit education at that point too, never having sat an independently judged formal exam, to arrive in a job market clutching vague classroom assessments that could mean little outside their particular school.

What chance then for employers to gauge their true ability? And what hope for them to prove their worth?

Lib Dem education spokeswoman Margaret Smith MSP summed it up when she said: "We live in a competitive market for both employment and further education opportunities. Leaving children without evidence of achievement could further reduce these chances."

No wonder many teachers – the ones who will find themselves hounded by parents demanding to know why their little darling isn't good enough for a high-flying exam class – are branding it all a potential disaster.

It gets worse when we learn that our woeful literacy and numeracy record will only be assessed with tests at S3, by which time children's failings are already deep-rooted.

The notion that we might test children at primary level – giving teachers and pupils a chance to improve prospects before the vital secondary years – just isn't on the agenda, presumably because no P7 pupil could possibly cope with the trauma of sitting down to read, write or add up.

It's all designed around the distinctly wobbly Curriculum for Excellence, an overhaul of the entire school system which is rapidly evolving into a Curriculum for Chaos.

I'm no education expert, simply an old-school parent which probably makes me the last person today's liberal minded professional educationalists care to hear from.

So here's an exam question for them.

Answer, preferably in plain English and without the gobbledegook, why on earth we can't have a clear and sensible system of regular teacher-led classroom assessment combined with independent exams for all? And if our children pass or fail, at least everyone knows exactly whether they have or haven't made the grade.

On your bike, Ramsay

DOESN'T Gordon Ramsay make you ashamed to be Scottish? What a vile, loud-mouthed, nasty person to fly the flag for our nation.

He probably thought he was being incredibly witty when he insulted one of Australia's television presenters, likening her to a pig. I'm sure it was rib-achingly funny to be told by a man who looks like his face needs a good iron that your breath smells of coffee.

His bullying smacks of a desperate need to be the centre of attention at other's expense.

Thank goodness, then, for Sir Chris Hoy – knighted this week and every bit as passionate as Ramsay yet cool, well- mannered and truly inspirational.

Both play a part as role models for our younger generation.

Let's all hope it's Sir Chris' example they opt to follow.