one of the classes of 2014 … you’re the top, you’re the top banannas ….. apology cole porter
on 08/15/2014 at 08:27 AM
Poor George! If only he lived here in hillbilly land. Or in Essex, or so I hear.
Now explain to us dum Yanks what the heck an A-level or an A*-level is. We use this archaic system over here called “grades”, where a letter A to D corresponds to a percentage of an overall subject achievement rate. Once you get to college that make things a bit trickier, changing A to D to 4.0 to 1.0, but demanding a 2.0 (a C) or better to count towards your degree.
I looked into the UK grading/scholastic thing once and came away highly confused. We have “years”. You have “forms”. Our schools are broken up by ages; the older kids 13-18 go to a thing we call “high school”, and with luck they graduate at 18 with a B+ or better average. Your kids stay in the same school from infancy and seem to get done at 16? And then there is/was this thing called a C-level?
Well, I’m informed that an A* is even higher than a normal A and I have some scribbled notes someplace here from stuff my wife told me some time ago. I asked LyndonB to come in on this as he would be best qualified to answer your question.
Oh man this could take a while. When I went to school in the 60’s and 70’s there were three school levels much like there are in the US. The Kindergarten equivalent was called Primary School, then we had Junior School (Middle School) and finally Secondary school (High School). We started Primary at age four or five and did three years there. We then did four years at Junior school and finally five years at Secondary. At age 11 in the area I lived in we sat an IQ test called an 11+ the kids that passed went to Grammar Schools, the ones that didn’t went to Comprehensives.
There are also “public schools” which are actually private and you have to pay for them but we will skip over that.
In the 1970’s the socialists were in power and socialists abhor elitism (unless it is for themselves) under a certain hag by the name of Shirley Williams the Labour Party did their level best to abolish grammar schools as they didn’t like the idea that some kids were winners and others were losers. The grammar schools took about 10% of the population and gave working class kids like me the chance to go to University, but the socialists know best naturally.
Anyway back to exams. At Secondary school there were two exams sat at age 16. In the non grammar school they were called CSE Certificate of Secondary Education. Much like a High School diploma. They were graded from one to six I think with grade one being equivalent to an O level. You normally would have English and Maths plus maybe five other subjects. At grammar schools we sat “O” level exams or Ordinary Levels. These were graded from A to F with A to C being considered a pass. We sat these exams at the end of the fifth year in Secondary school (aged 16) At my school we sat seven O level subjects and from that if you got good enough grades you could stay on a further two years in the “sixth form” to study for A or Advanced levels. Usually three of these. You sat these in June as well (aged 18) and the results if good enough would allow you to go on to University.
In 1997 the socialists got back into power under Bliar and they combined the O level and CSE into the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) they also started a process of dumbing down the grades so that year on year more kids got good A level grades and more and more went to University, even though they were thick as pigshit in many cases. Many had to sit remedial classes at University as their basic skills were not good enough. The A* was just a more difficult A level to help Universities distinguish who was good enough due to the above dumbing down. An A level now is probably equivalent to an O level in 1971 (I am not joking here the O levels I sat in the 70’s are more like today’s A levels)
Recently Cameron the Prime Minister had Michael Gove as the Minister for Education and he incurred the wrath of the hard left teachers when he made exams harder and brought in legislation to sack incompetent teachers, but because he upset the teachers Cameron has now sacked him (well moved him to a different role) and put a bed wetter in charge.
So to summarise as it stands kids in the UK site GCSE exams at age 16 and can leave school at that point, or if they are more academic can sit A levels and leave school/college at age 18 or go on to University at that point. That’s as best as I can explain it. The bottom line is that the pass rate was lower this year for teh first tie in as long as I can remember thanks to Gove making the exams more challenging to try and weed out the deadwood.
Lyndon, so if I understand this, at 16 they give the kids a test, and if they fail it, it’s “well, here’s your bit of paper, have a nice life, we’re not spending any more on you” and it’s out the door with them. Whereas over here we have voluntary drop outs at 16.
And even before that, at 11, there’s another make or break exam, and the failures go on to Comprehensive. Which is what, remedial stuff, or “vo tech” trade school?
It’s an interesting philosophy. These days is your old 11+ exam now called the SAT that I hear they give the younger kids? Somebody linked me on Facebook to a really soppy letter some headmaster sent out to the kiddies getting their grades from this SAT ... no news article, just a low-res copy of the letter. I didn’t realize it was a UK school, I had no idea it was for 3rd or 4th graders, so I was a bit offended at the Head’s molly coddling and said so; I’d expect something firmer for dealing with 17 year olds, which is your typical American kid taking the SATs. Man, did I get my head handed to me. OTOH, next time don’t send out a grainy picture of a letter and ask for opinions if you don’t want them, beyotch.
Drew that’s pretty much it. The school leaving age is 16, but they are trying to change it so that kids cant just leave at 16 and start collecting welfare. They now have to be in some kind of training until 18. The 11+ exam doesn’t necessarily dictate the school. It depends where you live. In my area they retained grammar schools so yes depending on how you did at the 11+ would dictate your secondary school. In areas where they abolished grammar schools the kids would all go to the same school, but they have different streams I think within the school. That way you don’t have all the wasters dragging the more able kids down to their level. To be honest I don’t have kids so I don’t really follow the latest fashion in education, but I do know the Tories have tried to roll back some of the “all must have prizes” philosophy that the socialists introduced from 1997 to 2010.
08/15/2014 at 10:38 AM
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