I'm sure you've heard the news: Mr Gove (bless 'im) has decided that resits will no longer count in league tables. For many schools, including Sidney Stringer Academy, this very well thought-out (pah!) policy will mean reconsidering their strategy with regards to when students will sit their maths exam.
As you may know, Sidney Stringer Academy is currently in the top 1% of schools nationally for progress in maths. We're not ashamed to admit that our students resit their maths GCSE. They all take it at the end of year 10, and then in year 11 they have a personalised timetable based on their maths and English grades. Some students will work towards a resit in November, some June, and some will take GCSE Statistics or Further Maths if they have already achieved a good grade. Some students have two hours a week of maths, some four, some even more. This personalised timetable is only available to our students because they take their maths and English GCSEs in year 10.
We could keep our strategy exactly the same. The students will continue to get great grades. However, our position in the league table would probably drop. Now there's a moral dilemma!
The other option of course, is to have all students take maths at the end of year eleven. Here are the disadvantages of this:
- Some students' attendance starts to get worse and worse during year eleven.
- Some students' behaviour, motivation, and engagement gets worse too.
- Our talented students may not get to study Further Maths GCSE, so our A level results may suffer.
- If Ramadan falls during the summer exam season (which it will soon), Muslim students (a huge percentage of the SSA population) may be disadvantaged due to dehydration, hunger, and disrupted sleep.
- The number of year 12 students resitting maths alongside doing BTECs or A levels could be huge. This may adversely affect students' BTEC/A level results.
I suppose what we have to do is look at individual groups of students and consider what's best for them.
What's your opinion on this new policy? How will you adapt your strategy?
This post was written by Emma Cooke, Sidney Stringer Academy, Coventry
There is also the issue around those 20-30% of students who on any particular exam would have a 50% chance of getting one of two grades. What I mean is, the student who could do exactly the same paper twice (even on the same day) and end up with two different results!
ReplyDeleteWhich one is the accurate assessment of their ability?
For these students, the opportunity to take an examination more than once is the fairest way of assessing exactly what level they are really capable of achieving.
Let us say that a school has 20 such students on the grade C/D borderline. Allowing students to take the test twice should result in maybe 15 of them passing. Giving them extra time may possibly help some of these (but quite probably wouldn't), but would probably only result in 12 passing at the first attempt. In the first scenario, the school figure gives 50%, but 75% of students got the grade. In the second scenario, the school figure is 60%, with 60% of students achieving the magic grade. What do you as a school leader decide is best? Does it matter which circumstances your school is in (if you're Outstanding, you may be able to afford to take the first option more than a school in Category, for example).
We do not say that whoever scores the first goal in a football match wins the game for their team no matter what happens after (of course, they could continue to play and any further goals they get count on their personal statistics, but not on their team's!).
We do not say that only the first attempt at taking a driving test counts (good job Mr. Gove!). Imagine what might happen if Driving schools were judged (and their pass rate figures published) by the first attempt of their students... and that they had sole discretion over who was allowed to take the test and when!
Why should we expect a student to take all of their exams at the same time? We wouldn't (as adults) buy a new house, submit a dissertation, get married, buy a new car, change jobs, .... all in the same month!!
We do things when it is appropriate and when we're ready.
Surely the same should apply to educating our children!?