Well - we didknow that it happened

One of the sad facts about the current education security is he has tendency to view with suspicion everything that was not around when he was at school. And so he argues that modular exams, multiple boards, GCSE's all of it, must go, and the clock must firmly be set back fourty years or so, for as Dickens himself said (in the mouth of Simon Tappit)  'it is only in going back we truly go forward'..
 Now it is no that my do not think the current system is problematic. The  endless retakes at A level are a problem, but att GCSE, I think not-  they simply show working hard has its rewards. I have had many pupils who have really tried in a system where they can see themselves improve, and would be lost in the single exam system - which ironically rewards the flyby nights idols individuals who are good at exams (of which there are very many). To change the system is therefore to privileges the idle over the workers....
Likewise the problem of grade poker related to schools swapping boards, is a problem, But its cause in not the exam, but rather the way schools are assessed. Unless we going to abolish (and it might take that) Ofsted, and rework how we understand what schools do, and how we (as a nation) ask them to endless do they do better, we are always going to get the distortions of grade poker (which the driver of grade inflation, not the exams themselves). Grade poker is then the creation of education ministers who want to prove they are doing something, and has little do to with schools themselves. That is why is is such a despicable game!
But in the hubbub of reform something wonderful will be certainly lost-  namely the Brand New maths GCSE. This GCSE is maths as it has never been taught before - for it is the maths we live by and use every day of lives. Maths made real, edgy, difficult, a maths that does not need 'right' answer, only estimates, a maths that allows us to actually understand the world we live in. The radicalness of this approach, and its ability to change pupils lives (once they get the hang of it) is very hard to appreciate. It is no exaggeration to say that for the first time in twenty of teaching I feel like I am teaching something worthwhile, useful and even good. And this will now be swept aside in the name a reform which will set the clock back thirty years or so, and back to a system of examining and thinking about maths that seemed to delight in making it obscure, tricky, abstract, and about as far from everyday life as it is possible to go. Its loss will be heavy.
  But then perhaps it is hypocritical of me to really mind. For one thing is certain, the old system with its sudden death exam was very good for maths tutors. If they reforms go ahead, my business will boom, as it always does when the system does not suit the pupils very well. But I am for at least big hearted enough to see beyond my greed. I just politicians were the same...