If you are going to have standards, then you set them and people either achieve them or they do not. The whole point of standards is right there in the word “standard”. What you do not to is have separate standards for different candidates, because then it isn’t a standard.
Summer-born children should have their exam marks boosted to compensate for being almost a year younger when they sit tests, a report argues.
In England, pupils born in August are less likely to get good GCSEs or go to university than those born in September, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.
Some may even drop out of school.
The age-adjusted scores should be used to calculate school league table positions, the authors argue.
So, a future employer, looking upon your exam grades and your date of birth will know full well that you got lower grades than your contemporary who was born a few months earlier. Yup, that’s well thought out – I mean, no one would ever think that, would they? If this is really a problem – and I am sceptical, frankly – then have exams in the autumn for the younger cohorts, not give them an easier ride, because that would be cheating and it would cheat them because they would not have achieved their grades by the same score as their classmates and everyone would know it.
Frankly, this is without doubt, one of the stupidest ideas I’ve seen mooted for a while and it is up against some pretty stiff competition.
“Our research shows that children who are relatively young in their year have lower self-confidence, lower belief in their academic ability, and are more likely to start smoking younger than their relatively older peers,” said co-author Claire Crawford.
Fuck me! They even manage to squeeze smoking into it. Jeebus! Smoking makes you thick, eh?
I’m all for it. Not bragging, like, but it’d put my early-August-born lad on a level with Stephen Hawking. 😆
Most intelligent lad in my year at school was the youngest, the least bright the oldest, ah anecdotal evidence they cry! Don’t these useless sods have anything better to do?
The world of education has always been good at changing the meaning of words. I cringe whenever I hear talk of ‘raising standards’. Doesn’t that mean that the exams should get harder with each passing year rather than the pass rate increasing year-on-year?
I would have thought that ‘kids are kids’ and unless teaching methods do improve, (doubtful), the outcome each year should be much the same. Indeed in ‘my day’ that is exactly how it worked, the ‘pass’ mark moved to fit the distribution of the exam results, only one or at most two ‘first class honours’ degrees were awarded each year. Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.
Who decides it’s a good idea to study this crap? And why haven’t they run out of ideas yet?
I was born in June, my brother in July and my youngest brother in August. We’ve all got good GCSE’s, A levels and been to University. Should our academic balance sheets be revised upwards then? It strikes me more as an excuse for crappy teachers to blame their pupils for weak performance.
And the comment about smoking really reveals the quality of thought which these people posess. They must all have been born in August…
When I took the 11 plus i was 10 years and 10 months old. My brother, who was born in September (three years later, that is) was 11 years and 10 months old when he took it. It probably matters less as one gets older but at that time of life that is a ten per cent (roughly) difference in lifespan.
How to make it fairer? Bring back the 11+ (please) but have examinations every three months taken by those attaining the age of 11 during the current period.
And Starship Fighter, on behalf of those born in August, I resent your comment!
My situation was a bit odd. Born in September 1958, I was allowed to start primary school when I was not quite five. I went through primary school as one of the youngest in my class. When it came to moving up to the local comprensive, It was noticed that I wasn’t quite old enough, so all my classmates moved up while I did my final year at primary school again. Since the subsequent first year at the Comprehensive was spent consolidating stuff that I already knew, I basically spent about two years just marking time. Apart from when I was very young, I didn’t really notice any difference between being the youngest and being the oldest in my class.
As a January child, I must object. The Autumn crew get the advantages of being older, the summer crew get their grades puffed up… what about me? I demand that I be generously compensated for this injustice.