- The pass mark in the national English test for 11-year-olds
has been lowered for the third consecutive year.
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- Children who took the reading-and-writing paper in May
will be judged to have reached the standard expected of their age group
if they get just 41 marks out of 100.
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- Last year the pass mark was 44, a five-mark fall on the
previous year, when it was 49.
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- The latest change means that the English pass mark has
fallen by 16 percentage points since 1996. When Labour came to power the
following year students needed more than 57 per cent to make the grade.
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- Examiners marking the papers of 600,000 children were
ordered last week to lower the boundary by the Government's exam watchdog,
the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
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- The decision has led once again to accusations that results
are being manipulated in an attempt to prove that standards are rising.
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- Tim Collins, the shadow education secretary, said: "Watering
down pass marks damages the credibility of the tests, insults the intelligence
of parents and lets down our children.
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- "If Labour are doing this to massage the figures
before a general election, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves."
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- Pressure is mounting on ministers to show an improvement
in the primary test pass rate which has stalled for the past three years
at 75 per cent of children.
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- Despite spending more than £200 million on giving
pupils a daily literacy hour as well as booster and catch-up classes, the
English results have refused to budge.
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- The 2002 target of 80 per cent of pupils achieving the
pass rate in English was missed, making it virtually impossible for schools
to hit this year's original target of 85 per cent. Ministers have shifted
this milestone to 2006. If significant gains are not made this year, however,
it is highly unlikely that the target will be achieved even then.
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- Nick Seaton, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Education,
said: "The fact that the pass mark has been lowered for three consecutive
years is a clear indication that standards are falling.
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- "Most parents and employers will be seriously worried
that children can now get most of the test wrong and still be judged by
the QCA to have reached the required standard."
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- The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority justified
the lowering of the pass mark last year by insisting that changes to the
tests meant that children were unfamiliar with the format. No significant
changes have been made to the 2004 tests, however.
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- An authority spokesman said that the pass mark was adjusted
according to how difficult the paper was and pointed out that the pass
mark in the maths test this year had gone up.
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- He said: "We have no doubt that the 2004 thresholds
are in the right place to maintain standards. Students, parents and teachers
should have confidence in the results."
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- Many teachers have criticised the 2004 English paper,
however, claiming that it was "uninspiring" and was deliberately
designed to boost poorer writing scores, particularly among boys.
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- One marker described the test as "a do-it-yourself
lobotomy". He added: "The pieces of writing were like police
statements. There was no room in the test for children's imagination and
no requirement to show higher order writing skills."
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- A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills
said: "The QCA are responsible for the tests and they are independently
run. There is no question of there being a fall in standards - we have
full confidence that standards have been maintained."
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