Anger over New Exams

Schools have always assessed pupils, butteachers fear the new tests could be used for the wrong purposes.

The debate now raging among politicians, teachers and parents concerns a new system of assessing children at stages during their school careers. There is considerable anger among teachers, particularly about new English tests, which all 14- year-old children in state schools are supposed to sit this summer.

The three main teachers’ organizations, representing almost 400,000 teachers in England and Wales, have either voted already to boycott — to refuse to take part in — these tests, or they are asking their members to vote for a boycott.

The issue of testing schoolchildren has caused some of the fiercest arguments among educationalists since the second world war.

Education has always involved testing and assessment of one form or another. Most teachers would accept the need for measuring the progress of their pupils. Controversy comes over the types of tests and the purposes for which they are used.

Critics of the 11-plus — which was largely phased out in the 1970s — said that it was used to decide a child’s future too early and prevented many children from fulfilling their potential. Children who went to secondary-modern schools — the majority — often felt they had been branded as failures.

During the 1970s most education authorities scrapped the traditional, two-tier system of secondary education. New comprehensive schools took all pupils in their local areas, regardless of intellectual ability.

The whole system of school exams came under scrutiny. In particularO levels — which consisted largely of written exams — were felt to measure a narrow ability range. It was also felt that they did not take a proper account of the work which pupils did before the exam.

Many pupils were excluded from the system. Until the late 1970s a large number of pupils left school without any recognized measure of what they had achieved. In 1988, O levels and CSEs were replaced by a single exam, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Great emphasis was put on coursework (which had been a feature of CSEs), the assessment of pupils’ performance over the years leading up to the written exams.

At the same time the Government decided that all children in state schools should be assessed according to nationally defined standards at regular intervals throughout their school careers: at the ages of 7,11,14 and 16.

The new tests were linked to the national curriculum established in 1988. This defines the subjects which all state-school pupils from 5 to 16 must be taught. The tests, it is argued, enable teachers, parents and pupils themselves to assess their progress against national standards.

Children who under-perform can be identified by teachers and pulled up to scratch. Parents are supposed to gain a better idea of their children’s progress throughout their schooling and be able to compare schools with one another. The Government says that parents have previously not been given enough solid information about the quality of their children’s education.

These tests have stirred up unease among teachers. The new system is thought by many teachers to be too complicated in its procedures and confused in its aims.

Many teachers believe that they have always been able to measure individual children’s progress themselves much more quickly and simply. They believe that preparing for the national-curriculum tests takes up too much classroom time and squeezes out areas of subjects which the tests do not cover. The tests take on too much importance, they say, and risk becoming the goal of education rather than a helpful tool.

Teachers argue that there are far less disruptive ways of measuring national standards. For instance, small samples of children across the country could be assessed periodically.

Some teachers suspect that there is a hidden purpose in the chosen assessment system. In providing a method for comparing schools, it could mean the reintroduction of selection methods like the old 11-plus as the schools perceived by parents to be the best are inundated with applications. This could eventually restore a two-tier system in state education.

4.Complete the sentences:

1)The new system of assessing children at stages during their school careers causes…

2)Education is impossible without …

3)The 11-plus was phased out because…

4)Comprehensive schools take…

5)The General Certificate of Secondary Education replaced…

6)National standards were defined…

7)Parents should be given…

8)Individual children’s progress can be measured…

9)The new assessment system could mean…

5.In the texts find the words that mean the following:

the basic principles of a subject;

incomplete; only good in parts;

old and torn; imperfect;

covered with dirt;

to fill, close, block;

imperfect, weak, faulty;

to choose not to take part in something;

a specialist in education;

to mark, to give a lasting bad name to;

bringing into disorder.

III 1.Consider the following problem topics:

1)Should state school system be selective?

2)A “national curriculum”. Pros and cons.

3)Should schools be controlled by local authorities?

2.Speak on the problem of testing and assessment of pupils’ progress at school. What would you change in the present system of assessing pupils?

3.Additional tasks.

a)Act out the dialogue.

A new boy comes to school.

-What is your name? – asks the teacher.

-My name is William Hopkins, – answers the boy.

-Always say ’sir’ when you speak to a teacher.

-Excuse me, – says the boy, – my name is Sir William Hopkins.

b)What is a lie? Read the passage and answer the questions.

There was a chalk fight in a school classroom during break. John picked up the board rubber and threw it at his friend. He missed and broke a window. The teacher came in a few minutes later and asked, ’Who broke that window?’ John said nothing.

Was John a liar? Who was responsible for breaking the window? Have you ever been in this sort of situation? What happened?

Unit 3. University

Text 1. I Got My B.A. by Sheer Luck, or How Study Skills Saved the Student (by Walter Pauk)

I 1.Read and think about the title. What do you already know about the study skills?

2.Read the following: introduction, first paragraph, first sentence of each paragraph, last paragraph. On the basis of your preview, what does this text seem to be about?

II 1.As you read, make predictions about what the author is going to discuss next.