My boys are going through their GCSEs right now, and as their father I’m finding I’m quite anxious about how they’ll perform. Good performance means they’ll gain places in their sixth form / high school of choice. Poor performance means scrabbling for a place on other courses they may not have wanted to pursue.
As an L&Der for 20 years, and someone who’s been part of the world of work for more than 30 years now, I have never been tested on my rote memory of the work I’m involved in. Not. Once.
I’m not writing anything new or differently critical than many others will have written in this space.
The modern world of work is focused on outputs and outcomes that are much more about collaboration, product development, scientific experiments, presentation and good project management. In amongst that we require really good grounding in core subjects for sure. We need maths and english for most of our daily roles. But we also need team working, emotional intelligence and ethics just as much.
It is a very rare occasion you’re expected to recall things from memory in order to have a good performance review. You’re not tested on the models and theories that inform your work for performance at work, you’re measured on your productivity. You’re not expected to recall formulae and equations for creating reports, you’re expected to understand how to use a system for creating reports.
At the age of 16 we’re setting up our youngsters to perform against their rote memory – and the more we’re learning about neurodiversity the more we’re learning that rote memory is an incredibly poor measure of performance. Being smart and intelligent aren’t related only to exam outcomes and its highly unfair we tie those things together.
We haven’t matched at all how school exams are set up for what the world of work really is. My performance at work is more judged on quality of thinking, actions I take, collaborations I’m part of, personal and professional development. I’m not saying education isn’t important, I’m saying exams in the form of rote memory are the wrong measure to set a 16yr old up for success in life.
Thinking About Learning 
Hi Sukh. Would agree on the rote memory piece – the Gove reforms seemed to reinforce “knowing lots of stuff” as the core purpose of GCSEs. However, I would say they might remain useful in at least creating motivation to learn (for some), giving experience of the stress of timed worked (without being as high stakes as exams at 18), learning to work to (coursework) deadlines, etc. There are aspects that are useful but certainly agree they should be looked at again by any incoming government. However, change fatigue (and other priorities) will probably block that and you can already see the “AI will mean more in-person pen and paper exams” thinking in education to test knowledge not application.