Skills rather than facts emphasised

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 35

Skills rather than facts emphasised

One in five of the School Certificate grades released this month was based on partial or full internal assessment. The traditional view has been that School Certificate exams give the curriculum a sense of purpose by setting the goals for the year’s work. The curriculum in many subjects, however, can be narrowed if the focus is on an external exam. In striving to score exam marks, factual learning can be emphasised at the expense of wider skills. Written work can dominate classroom activities because exams are pen and paper tests. Teachers may also be reluctant to spend time on what won’t be in the exam. Students may resist worth-while extensions or refuse to take them seriously. Many of the skills that students and the labour market require simply cannot be assessed in a written three hour exam. There is a saying that “education is what is left once you forget everything that you learned.” Facts like the mean annual rainfall of Calcutta are easily forgotten. The skills — the ability to interpret and analyse facts — are what remain. Once upon a time it might have been' valued that a student could recite by heart the kings and queens of England. Schools today, however, train students to use facts to develop skills. Facts are still important but are not an end in themselves. The skills are what matter. Workshop Technology is a rapidly expanding School Certificate subject. It is internally assessed. This growth has been at the expense of woodwork and engineering shopwork. Both of these are assessed in written, end-of-year exams. In Workshop Technology students work mainly in wood or metal, but also in plastic, concrete, cer-

amics, fabrics and leather. The emphasis is on the skills involved in actually working with these materials, rather than on learning set content. During the year students take on between three and five projects. In each project they solve design and manufacturing problems. Project items can be as diverse as garden furniture, cocktail cabinets, turned salad bowls and servers, chess sets, garlic crushers, lathes and gocarts. At the end of the year they present their completed, crafted items as solutions to their design briefs. Students also present evidence of their design work, along with studies on tools, materials, the workplace, and the effects of technology. Teams of moderators visit schools to bring schools’ assessments into line with national standards. They discuss the students’ work with the teachers. Internal assessment gives a sense of purpose to a whole year’s programme which can include a full range of technology skills. In external exams the one paper is sat by all candidates. The questions have to be fair to all. Many aspects of an exam can, however, offer little challenge to very able students. Equally, less able students can be demoralised by impossible challenges. Learning can end up being a distasteful experience that is better avoided. In School Certificate English schools can elect whether to enter their students for internal or external assessment. The number of internal assessment schools is increasing every year. Students in the internal assessment schools sit a “reference test” in June. It gives a profile of each school group’s range of language abilities. That profile sets the pattern of

the English marks that each school can award. It maintains standards between schools. Internal assessment schools still teach the basic content of the School Certificate English prescription. But during the year appropriate challenges can be set to motivate different groups of students. A very bright class of students might, for example, undertake a study of serialised soap operas. They might compare Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist” (which originally appeared in

serial form) with the television soapie of their choice. The comparison could involve close examination of structures, characterisation and social settings, as well as a comparison of written and film media. Students might work in groups, each group taking a common soapie. They might present their findings to the class using the written and spoken word along with drama or some visual display. The social skills that are essential in group work or in any workplace are not neglected.

Students, in addition, might have a number of individual pieces of work to produce. The substance is there, as is the motivation. Students being prepared for the external exam could undertake the same assignment. But for brighter students the predictability of exam questions could be a disincentive to full commitment to the assignment. Students generally learn far more than they can communicate in a single assessment.