SCOTLAND'S English teachers received their joint report card yesterday from the SQA chief examiner and for some the bottom line was "Could do better".
This seems unfair. After all, over the years the percentage of pupils both passing Standard Grade and Higher English and passing them well has risen. Most pupils work hard and their labour is rewarded. They and their teachers are justified in feeling proud. However, there has long been a sneaking suspicion that one of the reasons for this upward trend has been that teachers have become increasingly adept at "teaching to the test".
The chief examiner's report seems to back this up. Commenting on the soon to be defunct Standard Grade English, he criticises the over-use of what he terms "scaffolding", resulting in uncannily similar exam scripts from particular schools, all based on the same template. Instead of "appropriate support", some schools are indulging in "overly prescriptive planning". There is a suggestion here that some pupils are simply regurgitating prepared responses.
In Higher English too there is a "disappointing sameness" to essays that are intended to offer personal reflections and increasing evidence at this level too of formulaic prepared answers based on past papers that pupils attempt to adapt to fit the questions asked in their own exam paper. Exaggerated spoonfeeding risks clipping the wings of the brightest most imaginative pupils, limiting their capacity to demonstrate flair and intellectual engagement, even if it enables teachers to drag less able pupils through exams they would otherwise have failed.
Teachers deserve some sympathy here. After all, they are judged by their own schools and by parents primarily on the exam results achieved by their classes. Nevertheless, one must question the wider educational value of a system that enables pupils to pass exams with prepared scripts and with little genuine engagement with the subject. Schools should not be mere exam factories. They should prepare pupils for the adult world and teach them to think independently, particularly at Higher level.
Of course, the Curriculum for Excellence has been designed with this in mind. The National 4 and National 5 examinations that will replace Standard Grade in two years' time are specifically designed to avoid over-reliance on formulaic approaches. Highers too are to be redesigned. But ultimately the success of the new system will rely on the ability of teachers to engage their pupils rather than simply drill them. Otherwise the whole ethos of the new curriculum will be undermined. There is more at stake than sets of exam results. An inspirational teacher can leave pupils with a lifelong passion for the written word.
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