What was wrong with the old-style school exams?

IT'S an intimidating sight which, even now, makes me shudder - those old style University of London "A level" and "O level" exam papers written in brusque English which shout at you: "Come on then, what do you know?!"

They're just pieces of paper (these exam papers above pre-date the ones I took in 1979 and 1981, yet the format remained the same), yet almost 40 years on they stir chilling memories of revision-weary students sat quietly behind lines of desks in the assembly hall scribbling away their answers; a Biro and a pack of Polo mints your only company for a defining moment when two years of solid and unremitting study rested on this particular next couple of hours.

This was it. It didn't matter whether you had hay fever, a headache, your budgie had died that morning or if it was your time of the month.

It didn't matter how well or even how bad you had fared in the mocks six months earlier, how diligent you'd been with the masses of homework (do kids still get the same daily two or three subjects' homework we used to receive?) or how much progression you'd made in that drudging diet of summer exams since the first year of secondary school.

The course wasn't broken down into units which we were tested knowing that if you failed one of the exams you could re-sit it with the best mark goimg forward to calculate an overall grade.

There was no teacher moderation, no intermediate exam marks counting towards your final grade, it all came down to this one no-nonsense exam. There were no life jackets, it really was sink or swim.

A pass at O level was A to C, and for A level grades A to E based on one or two exams. And if you weren't up to the mark to take an O level, then a CSE offered another option, with an A grade reckoned to be equivalent to a C mark in the O level. Simples!

Compare this with the current complicated exam system, and no wonder the grading is a mess: www.edexcel.com/i-am-a/student/results/Pages/results-gcse.aspx

As for the stern-faced teachers invigilating your exam, yes, of course they wanted you to pass, but their reputations or that of the school's didn't rest on how the latest exam quartile fared. The teachers had done their best, they taught the curriculum to the best of their ability, but those same teachers didn't coach you for the exam.

No, if you weren't good enough on the day that was your own silly look-out. Harsh, but fair, and everyone knew where they stood.

There were no league tables, there was no behind-the-scenes skulduggery with pupils advised not to sit an exam because they were destined for a certain low grade which would play havoc with those damned tables.

Actually, in the Goodbye Mr Chips era, it was all about the pupil. That was what mattered. It was all about provding a fully rounded education with a no holds barred exam at the end of it.

So I get enormously exasperated by the latest hue and cry over exam results and the perceived harsh the marking of GCSE English exams. "Many pupils who were expecting a crucial C grade were given a D as a result of the grade boundary changes. This has meant that many will be denied college places," said the BBC yesterday.

"Expecting a crucial C grade" - what is this, a maternity ward? Yes, Master Smith, your GCSE in applied needlework is looking healthy, I'm not expecting an early intervention, and if you look carefully at the scan you can see at full term it's going to be a crucial C grade. Isn't that wonderful - you and your parents will be very happy with the new arrival!

What rollocks!! When did pupils start expecting grades because of how they had performed in January? What arrogance? And now there is all sorts of legal action being threatened.

The irony is that the agitators; the very same teachers and the parents of the aggrieved children, most likely went through the same one chance exam system which we endured back in the days of slide rules and logarithm tables.

I write all this a week after my middle son achieved blinding GCSE results - 3 A*s, 6 As, 2 Bs and an A grade in AS level critical thinking. I'm so proud of him since my son has done his best according to the system. He is a very clever lad, cleverer than his dad, not just gifted in the classroom, but amazingly well read and intelligent generally. I have no doubt that had he sat those same exams in a one-off situation, with no course work or outside marks added to the tally, then he would have done equally as well.

Yet at his secondary school, in order to work the exams system to their statistical advantage and give those who had initially failed parts of their exams an extra year to re-sit, my son began sitting exams in the old style third year, aged just 14. What happened to a rounded education learning a varied curriculum? The focus is purely set on exams, with the mantra that nothing else shall get in the way.

Last summer, I accompanied my son to his school to collect his first batch of GCSE results made up of four pieces of paper with 20 different exam results from various boards for different modules, but what did it mean? It was so confusing. In the context of this summer's results, I'm still not sure of their value. However for my son he got what he wanted to secure his place at college to study for his A levels.

The cliche "if it ain't broke don't fix it" has become a bit trite in this modern day. Anyone who broaches the concept is snootily scowled upon for being a Luddite who won't move with the times and who doesn't want to see progression. Of course I want to raise standards and see progression. I want our youngsters to be better educated, but there is more to it than just passing exams. So what was wrong with the way we did it before? Truthfully, was the old exam system so bad? For starters we never had this annual wailing and gnashing of teeth about exam results.

I'm amazed when you read these awful stories, usually in the Daily Mail, at the ignorance of youngsters today with general knowledge, despite the access to the world wide web.

Surely that is partly the fault of what is being taught in the classroom by teachers whose sole interest is to condition their pupils to pass exams and to fulfil school targets. Children are like factory hens who, instead of laying eggs, are expected to deliver exam passes to order.

For the past 20 years especially, successive governments have tinkered with the curriculum and examination system in order, it says, to raise standards in the classroom. But has it achieved that laudable goal? It's doubtful.

Instead, it has crassly created a system where pupils are put on an infurtiating exam treadmill where it doesn't matter what you learn, just pass the damned exam. It's a bit like taking a driving test, eventually you'll pass one day so the school can claim another credit in its corporate tick box.

The pupil no longer matters. Now it is the teachers and the school who matter, so they have contrived a nonsensical egalitarian exam system where, just like sports day, even those who come last receive a medal.

As much as it would be lovely to create an egalitarian model for life, it just ain't so.

Life is all about taking your chances in that particular moment when the spotlight is turned on us.

Life is full of critical moments where you have to perform, where you have to think on your feet, and where often there are no second chances. If you fail then you have to pick yourself up from the floor and move on. It's a cruel discipline which sorts the chaff from the wheat.

Thirty years ago, we knew that all this came with the territory. We had to recite facts, learn texts parrot fashion, be able to know language tenses (perfect, imperfect, present, future and conditional), reel off periodic tables, mathematical formulae and key dates which we would reproduce in that crucial exam. Few multiple choice papers, just straight questions requiring straight answers which were rewarded, or not, by the markers.

Critics would say what relevance does that form of learning have today? The answer is that it's a disciplined form of learning, taking in facts, understanding and then applying them. I've not used Pythagoras theorem since leave school, but I know how to measure the sides of a triangle! It taught me the discipline of study in subjects I didn't particular like but to a standard which was high.

Life is about taking your opportunities, learning from your mistakes, and yes, dealing with failure. In fact, that's the best lesson youngsters today could learn; learn about failure, learn about rejection and see how strong you can bounce back?

When I took my O levels in 1979, I bombed them. I was gutted. Notably I got a D in French and yet I was among the top three in the class since we'd studied the language since primary school. But that didn't given me a divine right to an A, and I didn't witter on about the harsh marking.

What did I do? I studied for the whole year again, took extra classes out of school and 12 months later in a one-off exam I got the grade. I didn't re-take bits of the exam, it was a second chance for which there were no more chances after that one re-sit. And I learnt from that experience.

A close friend of mine at the same school year mucked up his A levels. What did he do? While we had left the sixth form to go on to college or university, he stayed on at school to repeat his final year, which must have been extremely tough and even humiliating. My friend got the grades, went to university and moved on.

Ultimately, the reason you don't succeed is because you weren't good enough on the day; whether you're an Olympic or Paralympic athlete who has trained religiously for four years for that one moment on the track, whether you are pitching to a client for new business against fierce competition, or sitting your exams in the loneliness of a school assembly hall.

Don't blame others, look at yourself. The courageous bounce back, the timid will always falter.