We need to ensure total fairness in examination system

From: Colin Ella, Westgate Road, Belton, Doncaster.

ALL systems of examinations in the various subjects in our schools and colleges are open to abuse when such things as modules, continuous assessment, projects and the like come before a final test at the end of the course.

I was involved in teaching English during the early years of the CSE examination and I have to say that I felt somewhat peeved and aggrieved on witnessing instances where many pupils got away with extremely poor and scanty efforts regarding the part of the course known as the project. Michael Gove is right to reconsider once and for all, one-off examinations. These would get rid of all the anomalies, the regional variations, the district favouritisms and other abuses – at least to a large extent.

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To really ensure total fairness, all examination bodies need to put their houses in order and go for a workable agreed uniformity in their requirements. Yes – I know full well that many folk may see this as a backward move, but then many others may likely think that we have soft pedalled standards over a long period now.

It is the system on offer which has brought on the complaints about this year’s marking of English but are there not also grounds for schools and colleges to welcome this desire to at last recognise the real importance of English across the board? Is not a firm grasp of this subject the all-important impetus for the bulk of the educational package?

From: ME Wright, Grove Road, Harrogate.

THE recent GCSE and A-level results have produced the now inevitable responses (Yorkshire Post, August 29).

A few years back, my grand daughter was somewhat miffed by reading that her hard-won four A*s didn’t meant much. A lively discussion determined that grandad would sit 21st century English A-level to resolve the matter.

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I did so and, to my chastening vintage A* dismay, scraped a C.

In the wider context this doesn’t prove much; but I do suggest that the persistent knockers should do what I did before rushing into print.

From: Ros McMullen, principal, David Young Community Academy, Bishops Way, Seacroft, Leeds.

I HAVE been correctly quoted on page nine of your newspaper (Yorkshire Post, August 29). For 
the avoidance of confusion and in the interests of clarity, my quote is in the context of record A-level and GCSE results at the David Young Community Academy, which we feel unwilling to celebrate given the current situation for many schools and young people.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

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THOSE calling for a return of the traditional O-level rarely make mention of its younger sister, the CSE. But I have an old CSE certificate from 1978 which tells me that Grade One was equivalent to an O-level or GCE, with Grade Four what a person of average brightness might be expected to get.

Today, though half of all pupils are expected to get five GCSE passes at grades that would have got you an O-level pass.

Now I appreciate the hard 
work of today’s students, who are more exam orientated than we were. But how can the average student improve so much in a generation without their being a change in the validity of their exams?

From: Jeremy Kilner, Choppards Mill, Holmfirth.

WITH all the furore about rising – and falling – exam results, wouldn’t a simple solution be to award marks one to 100, where everyone would be listed from top to bottom, so that someone four fifths of the way up would score 80?

Even if the difficulty of exams changed, then participants should finish up with the same score.