Having worked in a school within an affluent area, I have long believed that those schools assess their students with punishingly high standards.
These standards are much higher than those used by exam boards to assess students.
Their logic is that putting the fear of God into young people will make them study, study and study, and it makes their projections look good because they go from getting a C or D in their prelim to an A in the final.
I had only based that on my individual experience and the odd anecdote, but through conversations with parents of two separate students who I tutor in affluent areas, I have recently found out that one school is saying that all students doing National 5 and higher at this time of year are working at a low C level.
Monitoring, tracking and reporting is a vital aspect of teaching, because it’s evidence for the teacher that you’re taking the child’s individual needs into account, that you’re aware of the fact that you don’t have a bunch of clones in your classroom, and that they are all working at different levels and all have different needs.
That’s part of what makes the job difficult. It’s not flinging a textbook at a child and saying ‘just do that’. Think about individual needs. You never have two years the same.
