In the News A Level results

[Pow-Lo]

Ever since 'they' did away with O Levels and replaced them with GCSEs, the grades of both these and A Levels have been rising year on year yet young people are seemingly inversely proportionately thicker, both in terms of academic intelligence and common sense.

I think the downgrading has taught the entitled little twats an invaluable lesson.

 

[derek kelly]

Young lass crying that none of the Universities she applied for will take her, blaming everybody but herself.

 

[Pow-Lo]

Young lass crying that none of the Universities she applied for will take her, blaming everybody but herself.

And that sums up my point. The vast majority of kids these days are selfish, entitled little shits that think the world owes them a living and that they're entitled to go to any faculty they choose on the basis of their mere existence.

Make no mistake, some of the kids effected will have been quite hard done by. It's not unusual for some of them to have abysmal marks in their mocks, take it as a wake-up call and then up their game for their proper exams. However, I have little sympathy for the majority.

 

[Squag1]

It was reported here last year that marks are "rationalised" to give approximately the same numbers of passes/fails each year.

I heard that a long time ago.

The grading system was "improved" last year, it seems failing isn't allowed any more.

Had serious arguments almost every year at exam time with people wanting to raise marks. If you can't make 40% in a subject..........

I used to annoy them when I said...
"Would you be happy with a brain surgeon who only got 40% in neurology"

 

[derek kelly]

When I was at school all I wanted to do was play football, I never really applied myself to any subjects, come the day of career talks I had no idea what I wanted to do, I really wanted to be a glass blower & had been offered a job at ICI in Harrogate but travelling costs outweighed the wage, I applied at Leeds uni but they had no vacancies, the careers adviser who was also one of the more astute teachers noticed that I had always stood up to bullies & protected the underdog, he pointed out my caring nature & advised me to apply for Nursing, I duly applied for Thomas Danby college & was invited to sit a test, after the test (before the results were counted) I had an interview with three board members (one was my sister in law’s father) I was rejected due to my school record.
My sister in law later informed me that 600 people throughout the country had sat this test & I came fourth over all, they worked out my iq was 164, I have never blamed anybody (including myself) for my failings, I am who I am, it wasn’t in me to pay attention in class, I have always hated exams & feel that it is wrong that people who are useless at their jobs can get promoted simply by passing exams, I believe that only those who have shown a good level of competence should be called to sit exams.

 

[andyBeaker]

And that sums up my point. The vast majority of kids these days are selfish, entitled little shits that think the world owes them a living and that they're entitled to go to any faculty they choose on the basis of their mere existence.

Make no mistake, some of the kids effected will have been quite hard done by. It's not unusual for some of them to have abysmal marks in their mocks, take it as a wake-up call and then up their game for their proper exams. However, I have little sympathy for the majority.

And the little darlings don't know how to spell.

Oh, 'affected', not 'effected' by the way.....

 

[Malone]

My brother in law left school at 15 (it may have been 14) with no qualifications, barely able to read and write. Worked all the hours given to him as a car painter repairer. He still can’t read a map to save himself getting lost. But with several houses, driving amongst others a DB9 and a Porsche Boxster and worth several millions he’s not done too shabbily.

 

[andyBeaker]

I left school at 16 as I hated it. Did A levels and then a degree in my own time while working.

I think I have done ok, but with hindsight I can see that if I had concentrated on eduction and gone to university it would have meant that I wouldn't have needed to work my way up the ladder doing rubbish jobs like talking to the unwashed and got to where I ended probably ten years quicker.

I am delighted that I am now in a position to fund the two grandkids through a private education if that's what their parents want. No qualms whatsoever about doing that.

 

[Lee337]

My brother in law left school at 15 (it may have been 14) with no qualifications, barely able to read and write. Worked all the hours given to him as a car painter repairer. He still can’t read a map to save himself getting lost. But with several houses, driving amongst others a DB9 and a Porsche Boxster and worth several millions he’s not done too shabbily.

The thing is he works for a living, rather than expects one.

I overheard a conversation in a coffee shop before lockdown (one of the reasons i enjoyed sitting with a coffee during my lunch hour) telling her mate she was going to take her ex-employer to court for constructive dismissal. She was taken on as an office administrator (whatever that is) but found out one of her colleagues was earning more. She approached her employer & demanded equal pay but they refused, so she just walked out.

Listening as the conversation developed, she was also unhappy that she had to attend a training course as she had a GCSE in administration that she got when she left school in 2019. This was also her 4th admin job so she considered herself experienced. She had been in the job for 3 weeks.

While there are going to be students out there who would likely do better in real exams than in their mocks (I was one of them), there are also likely to be many deluded ones who believe they should have done better than they are capable of.

It would be interesting to see the percentage of students who got what they expected or did better than they expected. I think we're only hearing from the minority which is being blown up by the press.

 

[Pow-Lo]

And the little darlings don't know how to spell.

Oh, 'affected', not 'effected' by the way.....

Affect is an action, effect is a result. The sentence in question refers to those that had been hard done by, thus a result and therefore effected.

I left school at 16 as I hated it. Did A levels and then a degree in my own time while working.

I think I have done ok, but with hindsight I can see that if I had concentrated on eduction and gone to university it would have meant that I wouldn't have needed to work my way up the ladder doing rubbish jobs like talking to the unwashed and got to where I ended probably ten years quicker.

I am delighted that I am now in a position to fund the two grandkids through a private education if that's what their parents want. No qualms whatsoever about doing that.

What possible good to you think concentration on eduction would have done you? Going to university, fine, I'm down with that but eduction?

 

[Jaws]

Ever since 'they' did away with O Levels and replaced them with GCSEs, the grades of both these and A Levels have been rising year on year yet young people are seemingly inversely proportionately thicker, both in terms of academic intelligence and common sense.

I think the downgrading has taught the entitled little twats an invaluable lesson.

Oddly I was mulling this over a while back
I gave some of the questions I had in my GCSE exams to one of the rand kids.. Could not get any of them bar a couple of basic ones
Had a poor grasp of maths, virtually zero geography and as for English lang or lit ! .. forget it !

 

[Pow-Lo]

I did shite at school and had to do a year in sixth form to re-take some O levels and try convert some CSEs to O Levels because I didn't pay attention. Whilst I got my shit together and gained an extra three O levels, it was still a waste of a year.

I then went to sea but didn't have the qualifications for an officer cadetship so I went as deck boy instead. I still managed to achieve my foreign-going unlimited Master Mariner's licence in ten years, but it wasn't easy. A lot of off-time at sea was spent studying and my own time at college was spent playing catch-up because of my abysmal school record; it held me back for a bit but it didn't stop me.

 

[Pow-Lo]

The thing is he works for a living, rather than expects one.

I overheard a conversation in a coffee shop before lockdown (one of the reasons i enjoyed sitting with a coffee during my lunch hour) telling her mate she was going to take her ex-employer to court for constructive dismissal. She was taken on as an office administrator (whatever that is) but found out one of her colleagues was earning more. She approached her employer & demanded equal pay but they refused, so she just walked out.

Listening as the conversation developed, she was also unhappy that she had to attend a training course as she had a GCSE in administration that she got when she left school in 2019. This was also her 4th admin job so she considered herself experienced. She had been in the job for 3 weeks.

While there are going to be students out there who would likely do better in real exams than in their mocks (I was one of them), there are also likely to be many deluded ones who believe they should have done better than they are capable of.

It would be interesting to see the percentage of students who got what they expected or did better than they expected. I think we're only hearing from the minority which is being blown up by the press.

Did she have big tits?

Aside from that, if she upped and walked out then she's fucked before she starts. Never, ever, just walk out.

I think you're right regarding hearing from the minority. It's always those twats that scream the loudest and cause the most fuss.

 

[Lee337]

Did she have big tits?

She wasn't unattractive until she opened her mouth, which was her 'biggest' asset - so no!

 

[Squag1]

Somebody I knew, as part of the census, did an employment survey. Much of it was in an "affluent" area of Dublin.

Whilst I wasn't given any details, vast majority had their own businesses but low levels of education. Go figure.

We do need graduates though.

It was an American study, but, the result was that after 3rd level the student's level of innovation/imagination, my words, was less on qualification than on admission.

I won't bore you, but I took the scenic route as well.

I did a year in science in uni, failed gloriously, after 5 years in a country boarding school, not posh, no local second level, I learned a lot about life, not a lot of science. I am surprised how much I recall at times of necessity.

 

[Squag1]

Intelligence, education, common sense.
As I said before, not always interlinked.

I seems a high percentage of people do not work in the area in which they qualified.

 

[Lee337]

I struggled with 4 CSE results , 2 three's and 2 two's up to the 5th year. Teachers couldn't work out why as it seemed I wasn't really trying. I still have some of my report cards which say as much, 'capable of much more if he put his mind to it', 'lacks drive', 'More time working & less time playing around' that sort of thing.. After many trips to child psychologists didn't improve results, they did an IQ test, not that high by all accounts but high enough to qualify for MENSA.

I had the school deputy head living on one side & a science teacher the other & during a New Year party, one of them noticed nearly all my books were science related text books. They worked out that most of the stuff being taught in my lessons, I already knew, so I just switched off. The only subjects I didn't know were the ones I did well at come exam time. They convinced my dad who was ready to throw me out at 16, to let me go to 6th form, which I did. I got 6 O levels all A's and B's (although I failed statistics miserably, just no interest in the subject), mostly in science related subjects as O levels were more challenging & actually taught me something I didn't know.

I've since gone on to get a couple of A levels in sciences and studied Cosmology & Planetary Sciences and Astronomy with the open University. I have a few work related diplomas as well.

I've often thought what would have happened if I'd actually worked at my education through years 1 - 5. Would I have done any better or worse. The truth is probably not as from when I left school at 17 until I was 27, I did as little as I could get away with, signing on most of the time, working a little here & there when I had to. The experiences I picked up at the 'University of Life' definitely helped me see things for what they are, something I feel is lacking in many people today.

If my exam results were based on my mocks, I would have got better grades and quite possibly been a different person to who I am now (no intervention from my neighbours & kicked out at 16), but getting lower than expected grades definitely wasn't the end of my life & it didn't ruin my future, it would have just been different.

 

[Martin L Batley]

You do have to feel for the lass who was downgraded by 3 grades in every one of her subjects despite her worst Mark up until then being a B.

 

[andyBeaker]

Just to disprove everything above, my son was a superstar in education, can't remember how many A* he got at GCSE level but it was something like ten or twelve with a 100% hit rate, 3 A* at A Level and a Bsc with Honours in economics.. He subsequently trained as a chartered account and is ACCA and also has a qualification in statistics.

Last year his income was approaching seven figures, he lives in an eff off house worth c£1.5m and the family cars are an M3 and Range Roger.

He is 33.

Who says education doesn't pay....

 

[derek kelly]

Martin Clark, one of the scruffiest people I’ve ever known was a lad in my year at school, he was always in bother for playing truant, he was up early every morning helping his older brother with his milk round, he would spend his truancy doing odd jobs for people, he deliberately missed the careers interview as for his last year in school he had been working in a garage, we officially left school in 1974, when I left the RN in 1980 I had a catch up with my old school muckers & we discussed the characters, I was informed at that time that Martin owned his own garage, had qualified as an MOT tester & was earning big money.