h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You'll be talking about the AQA Gen Studies, rather than the OCR where all the papers are in English. One paper is Science, one is Society and one is Culture. No, I'm not your teacher. *phew*

"..where I live we still have the 11+ Examination and Grammar Schools, in parallel with the Comprehensive system".
Same for my LEA, but the High Schools are the ones that run in parallel. There are comps too though. I teach in a Grammar School and all students take General Studies.

Many universities (about 50%) include Gen Studies in their offer. The ones that don't will consider it on results day (about 40% more) if the student has not quite made the grades for the offer. Universities are partly funded by the A level grades of their intake. Therefore, if they have a choice between 2 students for one place through clearing they will offer it to the one with Gen St or Key Skills because this student will attact more funding. So your head is right, the unis are differentiating, but it's differentiation based on potential funding.

The same for your school. The "General Studies for all" policy of your head makes sound economic sense because of the funding this attracts for the school. If that school is anything like mine, "Private Study Time" is when they burn toast, make Pot Noodles and listen to Radio 1 anyway.

"...the top Universities are already looking at the 'raw scores'"
From next year they all will be, not just the top ones.

#60
My apologies for jumping to conclusions.

Just been reading - in the Daily Mail again - thatin Edexcel GCSE Maths students had only to get 45% to qualify for an 'A' Grade. To achieve this "maths experts said that some pupils would have been able to achieve [this] withouthaving mastered key topics such as algebra"

"Edexcel said the thresholds had been lowered this year because some questions were harder".

Mhh. If thresholds have to be lowered this far, it smacks of incompetence to me!

Absolutely not. The best illustration of this is in science A-Levels. Physics exams are always marked very strictly, so there is a very low threshold, compared to Biology exams where this is a certain amount of leeway and you need to get a relatively high percentage for an A.

B

Yes, but the same article said that the marks needed for an 'A' in the AQA Maths exam was 61%. Thus there is obviously less scope for coming away with a good grade whilst missing out on key topics.

One would have thought that setters of exam papers would have enough experience by now to set questions at a level whereby one would need to obtain a reasonable number of marks (i.e in the area of 2/3 or even 3/4) to get the highest Grade)

Its better to have the harder exams though. You even have to think independently in some of the trickier maths exams.

*ahem*! You did all read my #43? The one where I talked about the 45% maths A grade and the way that boundaries are decided?
Pay attention at the back!

Extracts chalk from . sir. It's a bit difficult to keep track of Posts that are out of sight.

So if 45% gets an A grade - what was the highest mark anyone got? They'll be needing an A** grade soon!

Its not just getting 45% to get an A grade, you also have to be on the higher paper and get the grades in your coursework to get the 'A'

My daughter (who did get an A in maths) has been told she must do General Studies at AS, as well as Critical Thinking, which the school previously introduced instead of General Studies.

So now she's doing Maths, Physics, Psychology, Business Studies, Critical Thinking, and General Studies - plus key skills - which removes all free periods.

Well, if her General Studies is anything like mine was, she could quite easily skip all the classes and still come out top of the school.

B

My thought as well - so they've scheduled it between her Critical Thinking and Psychology - which makes it a little pointless to wander off.

re #68. Bigal, I aint no sir! But don't worry, you're not the first person to make that mistake. *glares at Master B* (and he's met me!)

I won't hear a word said against General Studies. It's what pays my mortgage.

coelacanth.

I've a feeling that my son is suppsoed to be doing general studies too - but it's not on his timetable. Mind you, they'd missed one of his major subjects off

In my defence, I was very drunk when I met you.

I stopped believing in General Studies when my exam (NEAB summer of 98) featured a question on - and I kid you not - shoelace tying.

B

Enquiring minds want to know, Master B, what grade did you get?

Shoelace tying?? Are you sure it was General Studies? Sounds more like Trivial Studies to me. All I got was politics and carbon dating or something or other.
In my Sixth Form a couple of people are doing the A2 component of Genseral STudies and don't have any lessons on their timetable: they basically just get a few practice exams then sit the actual thing at the end of the year. There's nothing specific you can teach unless you know exactly what the exams will be.

My son is NOT doing GS.

I remember teaching GS in the 70's.A whole afternoon in which the entire upper school became decimated by headaches,colds,sprains,appointments at family planning and more often than not no explanation at all.

The only time there was any full time attendance was when it was anything to do with sex except for the few who had already decided that the sex industry was their choice of profession mainly because it was a family run business.

I was however teaching in the roughest and only girls secondary school in Portsmouth at the time.

At the time we did have a sixth form in the school but not long after this it was decided by the authorities to set up sixth form colleges.A much better proposition for our brighter students at the time.

To my everlasting shame, I got the top mark in a 6th form college of some 1200 people.

B