Maths coursework is to be axed. And all other coursework will be done in supervised conditions. I suppose I should be happy. As an educationalist, I'm reasonably happy. But as a human being with a partner and a life, I am just washed with a tremendous sense of weariness and dread. The exam results will not be allowed to dip - the great statistical God will demand that we find ways of keeping the grades just as high when the stays are tightened on coursework. It will be us who have to work harder, devise more and more ingenious ways of ensuring our students succeed.
I know I haven't commented on the survey... I'm building up to it. And waiting for a few more of you to comment. Although I'm in education, so I should probably take the small smattering of data and turn it into a league table.
PS Blogger's spell checker suggests corkscrews for coursework. The Internet is positively urging me to have a glass of wine...
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2 comments:
Re your link to the article about the end of maths coursework, which includes the statement "Coursework is generally popular with teachers". Who says so? Which teacher has ever praised coursework?
I hate coursework.
Every GCSE pupil I teach generates (an extremely reluctant) 5 pieces of coursework. Multiply this by perhaps three re-drafts, and a single class has me marking between three and five hundred GCSE standard (ish) essays.
Of course, for practical subjects such as art, PE and cookery, it may be necessary.
Maybe.
For the rest of us, coursework is the professional equivalent of pushing wet sand up a hill.
Worst of all, it reduces the time we could otherwise spend preparing real lessons, you know the ones, where we actually teach stuff.
Interesting comment - I agree that coursework is a pain, and rife not so much with plagiarism (although it happens) but tedious laziness and the (correct) assumption that we will not let them fail if we can possibly help it. Where do the press get statements like that? Or is it the case that most teachers are in favour of the Platonic Ideal of coursework, which would help students suceed even if they weren't good at exams? But the working out of that ideal in the modern English education system, with its obsession with statistics and tendancy to place all responsibility for the student's success on the back of the teacher, is a joke?
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