Examiners Cheating on Behalf of their Students

A simulcast.

I was called by a journalist last week who wanted to discuss the way that Britain's GCSE examiners may be behaving. He was specifically worried that the examiners who are marking our children's examination scripts are providing private tuition and behind closed doors advice to teachers and students alike.

We had a useful discussion and you can see the fruits of that discussion on the Times Ediucations Supplement dated Friday 20th April 2007: there is a story on the front page, on page 18 and there's an editorial on the subject on page 24: that editorial has the headline, Examiners should stop cheeating.

I am happy to say that this is not the end of the matter: there is to be another article on the coming Friday by another journalist from the TES. I am delighted to say that I have been able to provide some detailed evidence that is being used for this forthcoming article and I am grateful to Chris Sivewright for providing the contact details that got me and journalist in contact with each other: she sits at the desk next to last week's journalist!

I have been campaigning against the practices to which these articles relate and I am keen to see them develop further and lead to the outlawing of these grossly immoral and unprofessional activities of these unscrupulous examiners.

In case you think these examiners are not being so badly behaved then answer this question: have YOU and/or your students/children benefitted from such presentations and meetings? The chances are that you and they haven't. That means that you have automatically been disadvantaged as a result.

The second major argument concerns the fact that once an examiner says, for example, just concentrate on these 42 questions and you know automatically that the quality of education and learning have suffered. Full stop. Idle Jack will do no more and even though s/he may pass the exam, s/he will still know nothing except the answer to 42 questions. If you are happy with that then you are happy to condense 11 years of education into nothing of value.

DW

My recent ramblings

The Jay

Trips away from home are always rich experiences. Perhaps the richest was seeing my first ever Jay: a common British bird that I saw at the back of my sister's house in Halifax on Sunday. Never seen one either? Take a look at a couple of images courtesy of the British Garden Birds site:

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/album/images/jay1.jpg
http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/album/images/jay6.jpg

The startling thing for me was its Magpie like tail: brother in law Neville, a bird spotter, tells me that Jays and Magpies are related. So no surprise there then!

MI5

This is a true story! As I was driving North on Friday they announced on the news on BBC Radio 4 that MI5 is to have a new boss, John Trympingtom Smythe Gore Blimey or some such. At the precise moment they said that (and I mean precisely, without a word of exaggeration) a Rolls Royce car with the registration number M15 DRW passed me ... spooky or a massive coincidence containing no significance whatsoever? You decide!! I didn't take a photo of it but a few weeks ago I saw a car in a car park with the registration number M15 BBC. Am I being followed? What do they want? Is it because I have just read SpyCatcher?

Scraps

I have opined on this topic before but I met a lady in Halifax and the topic turned, as surely it must, to scraps: those bits of fried batter that are a by product of the fish and chip trade. She told me that her daughter once went to their chip shop and returned with a huge bag ... fearing the worst, mother asked what daughter had done ... she'd been given the fish and chips they'd all wanted and she had been given a bonus big bag of scraps. none of this paying for them and none of this refusing to supply them! Bliss!! They call them bits in Halifax apparently. Still, a rose by any other name!

NHS Systems

This may make your hair curl. When pharmacy staff at a hospital I know of need to update the medicine records (I cannot bring myself to say medication!) because, for example, a patient is returning home or a medicine regime is being changed, the changes are entered into the computer based database and the relevant labels etc are printed off. The changes are saved as they should be and there you are. Well, actually, there you are NOT. Apparently, those changes are NOT being saved. So if there is an amendment to be made or more labels or records to be printed, the data have to be typed in again from the begnning.

What do you think about that? How much has this system cost and, more importantly now, how much are they going to cost in terms of inefficiencies and possible health consequences for the NHS's patients?

Just a few ramblings for your delight!

DW