Upper Secondary Forms ‘Dominated By Exams’

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 12

Upper Secondary Forms ‘Dominated By Exams’

It was prejudical to education that the time of sixth and seventh-formers was dominated by examinations, said the chairman of the Shirley Boys’ High School board of governors (Professor C. J. Wilkins) at a meeting of the board last evening. . Professor Wilkins was commenting on the likely increase in the number of boys taking science and mathematics at the school next year. “The boys’ time in the upper forms is dominated by the bursary and scholarship examinations in five subjects,” he said.

Such a situation was described by the principal (Mr H. K. Denholm) as “quite unrealistic.”

“The universities will only allow four subjects to be attempted in any one year—a lot of these problems arise from the mistaken impression that adding another subject to the course (in sixth and seventh forms) broadens it This is wrong; it only narrows it,” Mr Denholm said.

There was a good deal of waste in education at the upper secondary level, Mr Denholm said. There was duplication sometimes of the work done in the seventh form and that which took place in the first year at university. “There is a need for better links at this stage,”-he said. He said that there was a lot of investigation at present into problems at this level, with a view to making the work of the upper secondary classes more effective.