Lunatics running the asylum? No, even more absurd - school children writing their own tests.
Pupils should mark their own classwork and decide what their school tests should cover, according to the Government's exams advisers.
Teachers should train secondary school children to set their own homework and devise marking schemes, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said.
Pupils should then assess the results, grading their own efforts and giving "feedback" to their classmates, the latest National Curriculum guidance said.
The QCA, which devised the new secondary curriculum, said such an approach helps children support each other and develop independent study skills. (The Telegraph)
What the hell? Let's read that again: "Pupils should mark their own classwork and decide what their school tests should cover". What? Why?Teachers should train secondary school children to set their own homework and devise marking schemes, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said.
Pupils should then assess the results, grading their own efforts and giving "feedback" to their classmates, the latest National Curriculum guidance said.
The QCA, which devised the new secondary curriculum, said such an approach helps children support each other and develop independent study skills. (The Telegraph)
This is quite possibly the most stupid thing I have ever read. Have they actually thought it through? Obviously not.
Our education system is in enough trouble as it is right now, which the dumbing down of GCSEs and A-levels to extent where more a than a quarter of A-levels are As, and nearly one in five GCSE grades are A or A*. SO this idea really isn't going to improve confidence in the education system at all. In fact, if it ever comes into practice we might as well just give everyone an A and get it over with.
Can the idiots who devised this even remember being at school or even in education at all? Have they completely forgotten the simple fact that all school children will do anything not to work - or at least work hard. If it is the pupils themselves who pick the exam questions, A-level maths will consist of questions on the level of 2 + 2 = ?.
The QCA report said that:
In order to improve learning, self-assessment must engage learners with the quality of their work and help them reflect on how to improve it.
That ignores the very simple fact I mentioned above - school children don't want to work. I always found this sort of "self-assessment" of work as pointless and certainly not constructive. It doesn't help to pretty much waste time going through old work - it is far more useful to get it marked and appropriate feedback written on it. The teacher then knows what areas need work. But trying to "engage learners with the quality of their work" like this is never going to work. Ever.The dumbing down of education needs to stop and be reversed - this is going in very much the wrong direction. It truly does take us to within one step of rubber-stamping all exam papers with an A.
Source: The Telegraph
