• Three-hour written finals over, exams chief says
• Software developed for widespread e-assessment
For generations, hundreds of thousands of pupils have spent the end of the school year in gymnasiums scrawling answers to the sound of the ticking clock. And every summer they have endured a nerve-wracking two-month wait for their results.
Exams have been a rite of passage for millions, but within a decade they could be consigned to history, according to one of the most senior figures in the system.
Simon Lebus, chief executive of Cambridge Assessment, said that traditional examinations are likely to disappear within 10 to 15 years, to be replaced by computerised testing.
Instead of three-hour written exams, there will be continual e-assessment throughout pupils' courses. Exam boards are investing millions of pounds in developing the technology – and, Lebus claimed, it's not "science fiction".
He said: "The likelihood is that in the next 10 to 15 years it will change almost out of recognition in that by the end of that period of time you'll be able to do exams more or less on demand, on screen.
"You can make the learning more valid and the technology can enhance the way people engage in the subject. It's very expensive, complex stuff to do. But it is achievable. It's not a vision based on a sort of science-fiction type fantasy."
Lebus, a former investment banker, has since 2002 headed Cambridge Assessment – a department of Cambridge University and the umbrella organisation for international exam boards including OCR, one of the three operating in England.
He said that traditional-style exams would still be available for those who preferred them, but the new system would benefit students who are exam-phobic. "There are some people obviously who get very frightened by exams or couldn't for other reasons do them well. They would be well suited to an environment where there were no exams."
Originally A-levels were assessed in one set of exams at the end of a two-year course. Nine years ago Curriculum 2000 was introduced, when pupils were allowed to "cash in" their courses as AS levels at the end of the first year. In September GCSEs will follow this model, with pupils allowed to retake courses to improve their marks.
The computerised world that Lebus envisions would go further down that route, allowing pupils to take tests when they are ready. As they complete tasks online their progress would be monitored and tracked without them having to take tests. It could involve "adaptive" testing, which would generate harder questions when a pupil gets an answer right or easier ones when they are wrong. Such tests are thought to be more accurate at diagnosing a pupil's level of skill.
OCR has piloted a fully e-assessed GCSE in environmental and land-based science since 2007. This summer 1,800 candidates at 80 schools and colleges will take it.
The moves are part of a global shift towards computerised assessments. The US is leading the way with multiple choice and computer marking, while South Korea is rapidly developing new e-assessment models. Denmark is piloting the use of the internet during some essay-based exams, seen as the equivalent of the move to allow calculators in maths exams.
Some academics warn against the shift. Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: "Making judgments about performance isn't easy. The best way of doing it is dispassionate assessment of students tackling the same tasks under the same conditions."
Dylan Wiliam, a leading exam expert at the Institute of Education, University of London, said: "There is no doubt that you could have a completely wired-up classroom where every keystroke will count towards an assessment. But that is too horrible to contemplate, the idea that students are under pressure all the time. We need a culture where kids can make mistakes without being penalised."
But John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Too many people believe that the only legitimate examinations are the ones they took at school many years earlier. The world moves on and assessment should move on too."
The 'Nadia effect'
Eleven years ago Nadia Clarke's parents had to fight to win her a place in a mainstream school. Her achievements since then have been remarkable. Martin Wainwright reports
In 1998, the Guardian told the story of Nadia Clarke, whose family moved across the country to find their bright but severely disabled daughter a place in mainstream education.
It was an admirable but depressing saga of the problems, and sometimes prejudice, that led the six-year-old's parents to give up jobs, uproot their three other children and travel 100 miles from a sought-after village to a town with an iffy reputation for schooling.
"The headlines about Halifax at the time were all to do with trouble at the Ridings school," says Katie Clarke, Nadia's mother, while her daughter nips upstairs in her wheelchair lift in a teenage hunt for make-up. "But it wasn't too long before Calderdale council was getting better stories in the papers. They were about Nadia."
They deserved to be good, because the gamble that left readers in 1998 rooting for a brave spirit locked in cerebral palsy combined with deafness, has paid off, and handsomely. Nadia, now 17, comes downstairs again to talk about her GCSEs, her coming place at Calderdale college, election victory as the local youth parliament's delegate to Calderdale council, and a conference she is about to address in Birmingham, on inclusion and the value of direct payments that allow families to construct their own package of support.
It is quite some package in the case of the Clarkes, who now have six children plus assorted pets, overflowing their home in a Halifax sidestreet, even when Clarke is out directing the charity she runs, and her husband, Andy, is at work as a psychologist. Nadia has eight support workers and a pace of communicating, through signing and an electronic voicebox fitted to her pink and purple wheelchair, that demands time and patience.
Inputting her GCSE work involved hours for her helpers, as did scribing her answers. Simply answering a question about her feelings on first going to Savile Park primary school, which had its own difficulties at the time in terms of Sats and league tables, takes a couple of minutes; but it also introduces the "Nadia effect" which, her family and helpers have no doubt, makes inclusion of any child in this position rewarding for everyone.
"Nothing is simple," says Katie, whose turbo-charged character has been inherited by all her children, larking about in photographs that wallpaper the loo and kitchen, which show Nadia embraced and beaming with the others. "It's a rocky road at times, but it can be travelled."
Back in Northumberland in 1998, where there was talk of some parents sending their children to private school if Nadia went to the village primary and gobbled up time and resources - as they saw it - the family dreamed of a school where their child could tackle the same life as everyone else, just as she did at home.
It took two years to find, starting when Nadia was only four. Katie and Andy sent every primary in the family's part of Northumberland a letter, making no bones about their child's complex needs but underlining the positive, rewarding side. None felt that they could cope, and the county council's option was a 50-minute taxi ride to a special school. So moving entered the agenda.
Nadia's brother Sean, a year older and currently in the US on a pre-college stint at Camp America, was up for it, and her small sisters Nicky and Reay were young enough to cope. But where to? "Middlesbrough was lovely about Nadia," says Katie, but there were logistical problems with a house and jobs. Leeds said come, but we can't assess Nadia until you're here, which was a gamble too far.
"Then I discovered that Calderdale had signed the Salamanca agreement, committing to wholly inclusive schooling, along with Newham down in London," says Katie. "I'll never forget when Andy and I went to see Bob Hayfield, the head of special needs. He just said: 'We need to find the best mainstream school for you so Nadia can go to the same school as her brothers and sisters. It was like hearing a symphony orchestra playing in your head."
The key to Calderdale's decision to resource children such as Nadia is recognising that everyone benefits from having a Nadia at the same table in the primary school, or at the secondary school's next desk. When she turned 12, her family found exactly the same welcome from Ian Adam, the headteacher at Ryburn high school, who said: "We haven't done this before and we'll make mistakes, but we want it to work."
The council held that attitude universally. Officers had looked at events in Spain that led to Unesco's Salamanca initiative in 1994. They established two resource centres for deaf children at primaries, one at Savile Park, where the emphasis was on welcoming everyone.
Attitudes like that are the key, says Katie, rather than logistical challenges such as the Victorian stone stairs at the primary (since rebuilt), which joined the list of obstacles that Nadia had to overcome. "It isn't just attitude, but the real sense that Nadia has people around her who share her, and our, very high expectations. People saying well done, keep on."
Nadia chips in at this point, after getting new batteries fixed in her voicebox - running out of power just as we met was a typical small glitch. "I was excited about meeting new friends at Savile Park," she says. Although her movements are restricted by the cerebral palsy, you can see the recall in her wide grin and expressive eyes.
"Now I'm off to college and then after that uni, I hope, maybe travel the world for a year, and then go on to my dream of working in healthcare." Inputting that sentence takes a couple of minutes, and Nadia's support worker Adele Kneen helps me with the robotic American voice's struggles over "Savile" and "uni". But as with celebrated fellow victims of paralysis such as Professor Stephen Hawking, you soon think: "So what? Tell me more."
"It's really good fun being with Nadia," says Kneen, who is helping the transition to Calderdale college, where the pair have spent the morning inventing and overcoming possible problems on a risk assessment. Like most teenagers, Nadia goes into town with friends and they come back for sleepovers.
"Is it true that you have arguments with your sisters sometimes?" I ask. "I like my brothers," she quips back through the voicebox, supplemented by the small movements which - a Herculean task - she has mastered to use as British Sign Language.
Nadia's story, which certainly has many chapters to come, is now one of a series of similar case studies highlighted by the Alliance for Inclusive Education and Parents for Inclusion. They have plenty of possible conferences lined up, beyond the two that she is currently working on, feeding her speeches into the voicebox with Kneen, so that her argument will come out at a normal - if American robotic - pace.
There's the fight to get disabled people equal access to training in the apprenticeships, skills, learning and children's bill, now being considered by the House of Lords; the same campaigning over the equality bill, recently published, and demands that the government consult the disabled more widely before ratifying a new United Nations convention. "All hands to the pump," says Simone Aspis, campaigns and policy co-ordinator for the alliance. Don't doubt that Nadia will be there.
Mainstream or special
In 1979, a committee led by Baroness Warnock reported that wherever possible, children with special needs or disabilities should be educated in mainstream schools, and that has been the policy of governments ever since.
In 1986 there were 1,405 maintained special schools; by 2008 there were 993. While some new special schools have been built, there has been a net reduction of 178.
But some parents still have difficulty in getting a place for their child at mainstream school and some special needs campaigners worry that the tide may be turning.
In 2005, Warnock seemed to do a U-turn, stating in a pamphlet that wholesale inclusion was failing to meet the needs of a significant proportion of children with special needs, and that moving children out of special schools had left a "disastrous legacy". Warnock said pressure to include pupils with special needs in mainstream schools had caused "confusion, of which children are the casualties".
In April this year, the NASUWT teaching union argued that children with SEN sometimes learn very little and suffer from loneliness in mainstream schools, and that a "postcode lottery" had developed because many special schools had closed.
The issue was taken up by the Conservative leader, David Cameron, who called for the closure of special schools to be reversed, and challenged the policy of inclusion .
A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the current policy is to let parents choose which sort of school is best for their child, but parents in some areas now find they don't have a choice because special schools have closed "due to falling rolls". It is much easier these days for mainstream schools to claim extra funding for special needs even if the child has no statement, he said.
Could mental toughness training boost grades?
Could schools struggling to improve GCSE scores help their students with 'mental toughness' training?
Fay and Ajay, two pupils at All Saints Catholic high school in Knowsley, Merseyside, are locked in concentration.
The 13-year-olds are competing to control a ball using nothing more than their powers of concentration. They are wearing headsets that chart on a nearby computer how focused and relaxed their brains are. The pupil who concentrates the most finds the ball move to the opposite side of the table.
"It's proper hard," says Fay, wrinkling her forehead. "You think you are concentrating, but it turns out you aren't that much." Ajay says when the ball comes his way, it puts him off. "I have to think really hard to make it go in the right direction," he says.
Here in Knowsley, the proportion of pupils who obtain five A*-C grades at GCSE including maths and English is well under the national average. Just 30% of pupils achieved A*-Cs last year, making the local authority the 2nd worst performer in England. The national average for a local authority is 47.2%.
It's not that these pupils aren't every bit as clever as their peers in other parts of the country, says All Saints' headteacher, Peter Bradley. It's that their powers of concentration, resilience and confidence may need a bit of boosting, he argues. "Even where teaching is good and extra lessons are given, learners haven't been progressing at the same speed as they have elsewhere.
"Their mental toughness has a lot to do with why they are not achieving as much as they should be," he says.
Knowsley thinks it has found the answer in Peter Clough, a psychology lecturer at the University of Hull.
Clough believes he can boost pupils' grades by bolstering their mental toughness. By this he means their confidence, ability to control their minds, and their openness to challenges and commitments.
The psychologist has devised a psychometric test to gauge how mentally tough pupils are. Those who perform poorly participate in games that train them to concentrate, focus and develop confidence. One of these is Mindball, which Fay and Ajay are playing.
Clough's approach is hands-off. He only visits Knowsley's secondary schools occasionally, preferring to train teachers in his techniques.
Raising grades
Knowsley, the first local authority Clough has worked with, hopes schools that have used his method over the last year will raise their proportion of pupils who obtain A*-C grades at GCSE this year by six percentage points.
For Clough, though, it's not just about grades. "People who are mentally tough perform better in school and in life," he says. "They take the opportunities that life offers them."
He recognises that several neighbourhoods in Knowsley are very poor and that it's patronising and unreasonable to ask pupils to just "develop a positive attitude".
"It's not about training yourself to be happy, it's about controlling your thoughts," he says. "It's particularly important here, because these children may be presented with fewer opportunities than others."
He recognises, too, that a positive outlook won't get someone wherever they want to be. "No matter how positive I am, I'm not going to ever be able to put on a tutu and be a good ballet dancer. But working on your psychological state will help," he says.
Children are less resilient now than in the past, Clough argues. Their fear of failure is huge. "We live in a society that is stress-averse, but everything that is worth having is stressful. We seem to have demonised stress for some reason and to have accepted that life in 2009 is more stressful than in the past," he says. "We seem to panic more as a society."
His psychometric test, which is being produced and sold across the country by the firm AQR, asks children how strongly they agree or disagree with 48 statements.
These include: I generally feel that I am a worthwhile person; I usually speak my mind when I have something to say; and I can usually adapt myself to challenges that come my way.
The pupils in Knowsley who have taken the test receive a breakdown of how they scored and a few pointers to help them, such as tips on relaxing and goal-setting.
Fay and Ajay's class achieved scores that were bottom of the average for their age.
"Close your eyes," Clough tells the class. "Can you think of five things that are really positive about yourself? Those who can't, put up your hand."
After a couple of minutes, at least six or seven out of this class of 18 raise a hand.
"Don't forget, you control the way you think. If you learn how to control your brain, you can get on really well," he says. "Did you know that Rugby League players write down their best attributes and put them in their socks before a game?" Clough tells the pupils.
In one of his activities, children cover themselves in electrodes and a computer monitors their stress levels. If they are anxious, they see a caterpillar on the screen. Once they've breathed deeply, tried to imagine a "happy place" and relaxed, the caterpillar turns into a butterfly. In another, pupils shoot down canisters that are placed around the classroom with a toy gun. What they don't know is that some of the canisters can't be shot down. Clough examines how they cope with not being able to shoot them down.
All Saints now has a team of teachers to bolster its pupils' mental toughness, particularly at exam time. Clough says he expects a "dramatic improvement in exam performance and positive behaviour" as activities to bolster mental toughness are integrated into classrooms.
Bradley believes the techniques can "transform educational standards by making our youngsters more confident and able to meet challenges".
At exam time, all eyes will be on Knowsley. Let's hope the teachers, as well as the pupils, are mentally tough enough to cope well with such pressure.
Shortfall of nearly 50,000 university places
10% surge in applications fuelled by rising numbers of older people applying to do a degree in the recession
University applicants were yesterday told of an unprecedented squeeze on degree places with nearly 50,000 too few spaces available for this autumn, triggering warnings that Labour's decade-long drive to make higher education less elitist will be undermined unless more money is found to expand universities.
Applications to universities surged by nearly 10% in the past year, fuelled partly by rising numbers of older people applying to do a degree in the recession. There are 52,000 extra people attempting to get a full-time place at university this year but only 3,000 extra spaces in English institutions, after the government capped the number to avoid a cash crisis.
Ministers are now working on emergency plans to increase places by 10,000 to ease the looming crisis, but universities could veto the moves after they were told they may not get extra government funding for the students. Student leaders, vice-chancellors and the government's watchdog charged with ensuring fair access to universities all warned that some students could miss out in the squeeze this year.
The universities admissions service, Ucas, yesterday confirmed that there has been an increase in applications of 9.7% compared with the same point in the applications cycle last year. So far this year, 592,312 people have applied to universities to start courses this autumn, compared with 540,108 in July last year. The rate of growth in applications is higher among mature students than school leavers, with a 14.9% increase in the proportion of applicants aged 21 to 24, and an 18.8% increase from applicants over the age of 25.
There have been disproportionately high increases in applications to study nursing, hospitality, engineering and courses combining sciences and languages, indicating that students are now looking to gain hard skills at university. Applications to economics courses also increased by 13.8%.
Most university places will be filled when A-level results are announced, leaving very few places left for students to get through clearing, the system for allocating leftover places. Some universities are now warning there will be just 16,000 places in clearing, compared with 43,000 last year.
The cap on numbers was introduced to help ease a £200m black hole in the university budget discovered at the end of last year. Vice-chancellors were also told they face fines if they over-recruit. There are now concerns that admissions offices have been conservative in their offers to avoid incurring the fines, meaning they could in fact end up inadvertently under-recruiting, so even more would-be students miss out.
There are also fears that the competition could force out students from the poorest areas of the country, the very ones the government is trying to attract.
Sir Martin Harris, director of the Office for Fair Access (Offa), said: "It will be very important to ensure that applications from lower income families and other under-represented groups are not disproportionately affected by the increased demand for places this autumn."
He said the rise in applications resulted from the efforts of universities to encourage applications from lower income families, adding: "It would be an enormous waste if these efforts were set back just when they are starting to bear real fruit."
Wes Streeting, the NUS president, called on the government to fund more places. "We understand the current pressures on public finances, but the government must also make the right long-term decisions. It is surely better to bear the cost of increasing opportunities in education and training now than to shoulder the burden of long-term unemployment later."
David Lammy, the higher education minister, said: "There are record numbers of students currently in higher education – 300,000 more than in 1997. And this year we expect that there will be 40,000 more accepted applicants than just three years ago.
"Students who get the grades to meet their offer will secure a place at university this summer, but we will continue to work with the sector to support those who do not, and to manage increased demand."
Most popular subjects
(% increase since last year)
Journalism 27.20%
Nursing 24.00%
Mechanical engineering 19.10%
American studies 18.00%
Hospitality, leisure, tourism and transport 17.40%
Philosophy 16.70%
Politics 16.70%
Economics 13.80%
General Engineering 12.60%
Marketing 11.70%
University of California Makes Cuts After Reduction in State Financing
The university will mandate furloughs, defer hiring and cut some academic programs in an effort to make up for a large reduction in state financing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment