[Wylug-discuss] MS cheating the system

[Steve King]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005, Anne Wilson wrote:
> My grandson got GCSE in IT from HHS last summer, and frankly I'm less than
> impressed.  He got to build a website, design a brochure and do various tasks
> in supplied software, but at the end of it all he knows nothing technical at
> all.  He doesn't even know enough to be able to properly maintain a clean
> computer for himself, and happily uses creating a new user profile as a
> lesser step before having to reinstall.  If this is education, I'm a monkey.

For my sins I'm a part time ICT teacher...  This sounds very much like a
short course AQA GCSE spec A.    It isn't a Computing GCSE, but an ICT one
which is basically a GCSE in using office programs.  The exam has some
slightly technical things in it, but not much to be honest.  Most of the
time for the coursework is actually spent doing paper work and not
actually doing the task, about a quarter of the marks are on the design,
about two fifths is for doing it, and the rest is for testing and
evaluation (off the top of my head)

The full course AQA gcse is the same as the short course, but with a one
year project where you have to design a "system" (still all using office
type programs mind)

I really would love to teach some technical stuff to all the kids, but
sadly it just isn't what the gov demand we teach with regards to
computers, and there's not much time to cram all the curriculum in as it
is ;(

Steve