OECD Countries Case Study

Department for Education. (2016). Level 2 and 3 attainment in England: Attainment by age 19 in 2015. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/514296/SFR12_2016.pdf. Last accessed 20/04/2016.

Underachievement in schools can be heavily linked to factors that are internalised within the school. Both internal and external factors can contribute to the underachievement of pupils who belong to a working class background, and they may be equally as effectual on the underachievement of the pupil.

David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell’s study (2001) adopts a different approach and instead shows how the school uses the belief of the teachers to decide which pupils have the ability to achieve the 5 A*- c grades at GCSE’s. Working class and black pupils are perceived to lack the required ability therefore ending up being entered in lower tier GCSE’s. This denies them the knowledge and opportunity to gain good grades as even if they get 100% of the test right they will still only achieve a C in lower tier exams.

The government’s expectation for teachers to achieve outstanding has been slowly increasing and has been placing educators under more stress for their pupils to succeed. The delivering of the curriculum should be the most important aspect of a child’s school vocation as this provides them with the foundation of knowledge they will need to gain employment in the future. The expectation from the government on schools within the United Kingdom is to consistently be providing respectable exam results annually and this is how they are being judged by such departments as Ofsted. Should the teachers be continuing to stay within the guidelines of the curriculum? Or should more emphasis be put out there to question whither effective primary teaching is all about just delivering the curriculum to children or based on annual exam results that are collected each year to critic the educational setting. This essay will critically discuss what effective primary teaching is and cover if teaching and learning is really all about results rather than nurturing the child to be prepared for life.

NAPLAN, the assessment program launched almost 9 years ago and already a subject of criticism and controversy, is becoming increasing intertwined with education in NSW. The NSW Education Standards Authority has attempted to address what they call “falling standards” in the NSW education system, implementing harsher standards that mean preventing students failing to receive a Band 8 from receiving a HSC. These “minimum standards”, backed by former minister for education Adrian Piccoli, have already garnered considerable attention and criticism. Already many parents believe that their children will no longer be able to obtain a HSC, and they will do anything to try and “push up” their child’s result- adding to the environment of already competitive pressure which we see in schools throughout NSW, and further fuelled by so-called “NAPLAN practice books” and aggressive private tutoring.

An estimated number of 100,000 children take this exam annually. There is a 1 on 6 probability that the child will qualify due to there being a mere 15000 to 20000 seats. Since these schools have a favourable reputation, the demand for these schools is high. They belong to the top-notch schools in the UK.

A study conducted in 2003 by Ofsted that involved England, Denmark and Finland, showed England’s national curriculum compared to the other two countries was:

According to the OECD, only a quarter of students complete their degree after six years, and only forty-six percent of all United States

In recent years, the UK has seen many major changes in the Higher Education which has affected the graduate labour market in many ways (Wilton, 2010). In 2013 there were 12 million graduates in the UK; a ‘graduate’ is classified as a person who has left education with qualifications above an A-Level standard, such as a university degree. In April to June 2013 there were 31 million people in the UK who were not enrolled on any educational course (ONS, 2013).

There are many micro and macro benefits associated with raising graduation rates. The following an overview of these benefits:

The article also discusses how the country’s highest achievers are increasing their performance in reading while the country’s lowest achievers are preforming at record lows. A survey produced by US News showed that only thirty-seven percent of high school seniors are scoring proficient or higher in reading. However, just twenty-five percent of the students score high enough in math. The survey also showed that the students in the lower performing percentile dropped four points in math and six points in reading when compared to the previous year. This survey and this article as a whole stand to prove that most high school students are becoming lesser prepared as the years’ tack on. As the survey supported, high school seniors are not performing proficiently enough to keep up with college coursework. If high school seniors are not performing proficiently enough, then they will not be able to make the transition from high school to college. Over time, this could possibly eliminate the high school students who do not perform efficiently from furthering their education at all. This can all be related to the high schools not preparing students for college. This is a very good argument and article because it proves that most high school seniors are not capable of succeeding in college because they are not adequately

One could speculate many reasons for the vast difference in the PISA 2015 score between Japan and the U.S. The evidence concludes that Japan captures the motivation from students from the ages of 15 to 19 based on the enrolment rate (OECD, n.d.). Age 15 is critical to Japan and to PISA, therefore the timing is evident. Introducing those who are in the next age bracket, 20-29, is difficult to guide them toward educational ventures. [add?]

A highly significant change to the national curriculum made at the 2014 update for KS3 is the introduction of assessment without levels (Department for Education, 2014). The system by which children were assigned a numerical level based on their attainment was ceased on the commencement of the new curriculum in September 2014 for all subjects, including science (Department for Education, 2013). This action was implemented based on a report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review, which suggested that due to changes made to the curriculum over various reassessments, the concept of attainment targets, on which level descriptors were based, had been clouded, making levels difficult to understand and apply (Department for Education, 2015). This meant that level descriptors were no longer clear and should be removed to allow assessment to focus more closely on an individuals’ specific strengths and weaknesses on the content within the curriculum, rather than simply focus on ensuring that a child achieved a certain arbitrary level (Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review, 2011). The abolition of levels has given schools more freedom to design their own assessment framework and address the perceived issue that emphasis of levels as a tool for measuring school performance had led to negative influence on the way individual pupils were assessed (Department for Education, 2015). Bell (2014) suggests that the introduction of assessment without levels is a

United States and England Comparative Study Education is a perpetual work- in-progress throughout the world. While England maintains a consistency of local school quality when compared with its United States counterparts, American boarding schools provide a more finely tuned education. Indeed, both systems produce well-educated students. England Educational System The education system of England has been the model for common wealth countries in general, but not without faults and inherent problems. The schools are usually classified according to how they receive their funding. The first level of education is known as primary education. At the age of five, or four in some parts of the country children start at primary school. Nursery provision exists prior to this in other areas. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, the government is committed to provide a pre-school education and compulsory education for children between eleven and sixteen. Curriculum A unique overview of curriculum, assessment and qualifications across the whole of education and training from pre-school to higher vocational levels, in England shows that it still requires major changes. The changes made in year 2000, need to be updated Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) is a guardian of standards in education and training who work with others to maintain and develop the school curriculum and associated assessments, and accredit and monitor qualifications in schools and colleges. The revised

There have been a lot off recent statistics that are from the U.S. Department of Education that show that there is a vital rise increase in high school completion rates. Of course, that would have been great news had this went on some 40 years ago, when that was time where a high school diploma was really either a ticket to a middle-class existence or expressive groundwork for postsecondary education(Gibbs, B.