None of the above
As background for an article complaining about falling standards in education, The Times scanned and posted the 2006 Edexcel GCSE Science: Physics P1b exam paper. This is a multiple choice paper covering topics of waves, electromagnetic radiation, astronomy, cosmology, and seismology.
I don’t necessarily concur with the judgment of the article ( ( Read more... )
http://www.rewardinglearning.org.uk/qualifications/results.aspx?g=2&t=4&s=75&v=0&d=r
which is 65 pages long. So far I have found that while a student is expected to be conversant with the Big Bang model, that model is not further defined in the spec. And there's no requirement to know anything about dark matter. SO the fault is with the astronomy question setter, rather than with Edexcel.
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I find it slightly sad how many of the syllabus requirements are in the form "recall..." and "describe..." rather than "explain..." and "calculate...". But it is GCSE, and it's supposed to be applicable to the full range of ability levels, not just to the ablest 25% like O-levels were twenty years ago.
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Which is progress, I think.
The Times article quotes Dr. Sinclair, head of Joint Council for Qualifications:
Dr Sinclair added that the changes would help to stop children being “turned off” by science. “Part of the desire is that the student can come out of the exam with a feeling of success that they have actually tackled a significant proportion of the questions, and achieved the best grade expected,” he said. “The vast majority of candidates taking this exam are going to achieve grades D to G, and they deserve a positive experience of science. “They can only have that by being allowed to attempt questions which are at their level . . . It is making exams accessible to candidates.”
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I am musing now, what checking mechanisms there are in education to ensure that teachers are teaching what is currently perceived as Truth, and where this Truth is defined.
I'd expect to find it in the National Curriculum (http://www.nc.uk.net), but on the vexed subject of astronomy, this is all it dictates:
The Earth and beyond
4) Students should be taught: The solar system and the wider universe
1. the relative positions and sizes of planets, stars and other bodies in the universe [for example, comets, meteors, galaxies, black holes]
2. that gravity acts as a force throughout the universe
3. how stars evolve over a long timescale
4. about some ideas used to explain the origin and evolution of the universe
5. about the search for evidence of life elsewhere in the universe.
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I think it is the teacher who chooses what to teach. The government sets a national curriculum but does not (yet) approve textbooks or lesson plans. I guess it's the department within the school that chooses which textbooks to buy, subject to budget and so on.
Checking that the teacher is teaching the truth: well, pupils don't take very kindly to being misled. There's other teachers within the department and school. There's feedback from parents directly and via the Parent-Teacher Association. There are the league tables of examination results. And there's Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools.
And there really isn't any need to define these things. Everyone in the field agrees on the relative positions and sizes of the planets, so there's no need for the curriculum to repeat this information; you can find it in any textbook.
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Exam accountability works by teachers inspecting papers as they are issued and appealing if the questions are unsound.
And I think there is still a need to ensure that topics are defined correctly. For example quite recently the Germans revamped significant rules on spelling and hyphenation, and there was dissension and revision over a number of years. So there must have been mechanisms to ensure that MFL teachers, textbooks and examiners were all up to scratch on the latest "Truth".
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