£120 fine for holiday absence

[JLH]

Originally Posted by Belle99

As a teacher this comment makes me so disappointed. I’ve taught maths for 30+ years and have seen many gifted and talented pupils struggle with this subject. We will be losing out on so many exceptionally gifted young men and women being able to excel in their gifted area if this ridiculous proposal goes ahead. I taught a now very famous fashion designer who would not have been able to attend art college if this were the situation. What a loss that would have been, it’s been an absolute joy to see that persons success and talent, and I’m sure there are countless other examples of this.

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my youngest son is quite bright but for some reason had a mental block with maths and panicked when it came to exams and 11 + with this subject. He coasted through GCSE exams and will admit to doing very little revision apart from Maths. He got good results A in couple of subjects , A* in one plus rest were B graded except for maths. He just about passed but all of us including him gave the biggest cheer with that result! Maths isn't easy now - I would not have a clue on some of the questions.

[CreakingStool]

Originally Posted by duchy

That’s why exams have changed a bit , back in the day (my day anyway) it was exactly that , nowadays marks are split between coursework over the year and the exam itself for many exams.

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My son has just sat his GCSEs and had only one subject with a coursework element.

He has sat 25 exams over 5 weeks for 10 GCSEs, 9 of them are purely exams.

I took GCSEs in 1993 and had much more coursework but it recent years you will find that GCSEs have become mostly exam focussed, luckily my son does well in exams but it's a very stressful time for pupils who struggle and personally I think there is too much testing of memory in subjects you wouldn't expect that to be the case.

[Belle99]

Originally Posted by JLH

my youngest son is quite bright but for some reason had a mental block with maths and panicked when it came to exams and 11 + with this subject. He coasted through GCSE exams and will admit to doing very little revision apart from Maths. He got good results A in couple of subjects , A* in one plus rest were B graded except for maths. He just about passed but all of us including him gave the biggest cheer with that result! Maths isn't easy now - I would not have a clue on some of the questions.

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Awesome result. No it certainly isn’t easy for many !

[Firstxmastrip]

Originally Posted by duchy

That’s why exams have changed a bit , back in the day (my day anyway) it was exactly that , nowadays marks are split between coursework over the year and the exam itself for many exams.

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thats not our experience of the last few years at all. a lot of 100% exam grades. my son only had coursework for one subject.