8th February 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
If you asked my mother whether she thought the exams today were easier than when she took her O levels, she would probably say yes. Children today are expected to take three or four different A level subjects with more adding several further precious points to your CV or UCAS application. In order to bag a place at one of the top universities, pupils are expected to achieve straight A’s, something that was retained for the genius minds of my parents’ generation.
The pressure placed on students sitting examinations today is undoubtedly much greater than before. It is almost unheard of for a pupil to gain a university place at Oxbridge or one of the Russell Group universities without almost entirely straight A’s bar the odd B grade here and there. Not only that but children must have a Diploma in the flute or piano, have hiked Mount Everest (or similar) and run through a field of murderous cows to achieve a gold in Duke of Edinburgh, not to forget swimming the channel and attending a tennis camp organised by John McEnroe.
With all this on their pupils’ minds and precious little else, is it a crime that teachers and schools have taken the examination guidelines as tick boxes for their students to achieve those treasured A’s? Teaching syllabi now come complete with a list of Assessment Objectives that have to be included in written work in order to obtain the highest marks. To teach completely the texts, formulae and case studies, is it any wonder that teachers are sometimes forced to turn to the dreaded spoon-feeding?
We all know it doesn’t help at university when you’re on your own with a library filled floor to ceiling with books, but being told what to read and write is sometimes a necessary evil. So that students can achieve those straight A’s, it seems that spoon-feeding is ever the means to justify the end.