I READ with dismay your front-page lead article (“Anger over exams system as thousands are left to fail”, The Herald, April 14). I am passionate about Independence, but I must say that, though still a member, I have gradually lost confidence in the SNP and in particular its approach to education. But, let us now concentrate on finding a solution, a solution that should involve the best minds from an all-party committee.
I was a maths teacher for 36 years, the last 20 being as a head of maths in a large comprehensive, so I can only offer some a suggestion on my own subject.
The problems with children being unable to cope with the pressures of National 5 stems back to the start of primary school.
We need to come away from the modern “active learning” concepts, which have proven not to work and concentrate instead on imparting basic skills from day one. Yes, children need to enjoy their primary years, but they need to be put under a bit of pressure early on if they are going to cope with life’s problems later. England is going down the line of encouraging whole-class teaching of one concept or strand at a time being mastered before moving on to the next. Of course, with whole-class teaching the teacher will still have to stretch the top pupils and offer support for those struggling at the bottom, but at least the whole class is being ensconced in each strand of the work.
We need to assess in primary schools. The Curriculum for Excellence did away with all meaningful testing, and whether it's national testing or diagnostic assessment, we must have a clearer picture of how children are progressing if we are to pick up on their weaknesses before it is too late.
In secondary schools, the worst thing that has happened has been the elimination of an external exam for National 4 pupils and this, more than anything, has been the cause of the disastrous results with National 5 pupils – the reason being fairly obvious. Children throughout primary and for the first four years of Secondary (if they are Nat 4 pupils) will never have to sit an exam. The major downside of that is that there is no pressure on them throughout the first 10 years of their education. Unlike the old Standard Grade system, children at the equivalent of Nat 4 were being geared up for the exams at the end of S4. Revision work, homework, past exam practice – these all made children more aware of what was being required of them, gave them self-responsibility and provided them with a recognisable award at the end of their school year, or, and this is the important bit, for those wishing to progress, it provided a strong basis for studying for the Nat 5 exam.
Let’s stop playing the blame game, and concentrate instead on getting back to an educational system we can be proud of. Let’s return to basics in primary school and reorganise secondary education, especially the exam system.
Tom Strang,
1 Gorse Drive, Barrhead.
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