Do we put too much emphasis on Results Day?

[JCBrown]

As we enter into another cycle of students finding out the results they achieved from their exams, coursework, and apprenticeships, many young people will be finding out if the work and sacrifice they put in has paid off!

However this year more than most, grades will be determined by teachers, which to me seems a lot of pressure.

I wanted to find out what the communities thoughts were on about "Results Day".

Do we put too much emphasis on this day?

 

[IanSuth]

The emphasis is created by their being a "results day"

If results were sent when marked rather than all being saved for one day, when everyone finds out at once and you then have the mad rush for clearing (and also the attendant rush to do things like confirm uni accommodation). Alternatively, if University years started in January not the Autumn there would be time to get results before applying, or to do resits even.

The entire thing is a result of the short period between exams being taken (in a normal year) marked, moderated, standardised, reported and then university terms starting

 

[The Byre]

In all my years of employing people, I have never asked to see A-Levels, degree certificates, Ph.D. certificates, trade certificates or anything else come to that.

Some things require a degree, most things do not. As for the 1001 arty vocational degrees, in each field, there are usually only one or two courses in the UK worth attending. The rest are nearly always rip-offs.

 

[IanSuth]

In all my years of employing people, I have never asked to see A-Levels, degree certificates, Ph.D. certificates, trade certificates or anything else come to that.

Some things require a degree, most things do not. As for the 1001 arty vocational degrees, in each field, there are usually only one or two courses in the UK worth attending. The rest are nearly always rip-offs.

Totally agree with that but not just arty degrees

For example
Do Games Design at Surrey Uni and you have EA/Lionhead studios in Guildford so if you are decent you can get experience/a project tied in with them

Do Games Design at Bucks new university - you basically do 90% the same modules as the standard CS students, have to find your own work experience and when you finish nobody wants you for a normal IT job as they think you are only interested in games development.

There is a similar issue with people who do Automotive/Aeronautic Engineering - if you don't do well enough to get into a Auto/Aero company you have actually hampered your chances of getting a general engineering job

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I was a waste of space at school I have an O level
My kids have done well one has been to uni and another in her second year .
It is only in the last few years that I have considered education more important than anything else
So I now say that results day is very important.
Education is not about the job or business you do .There is more to it than that . It sets you up for life as a person

 

[gpietersz]

Yes, I have always told my kids not to worry too much about exams, and its unlikely that any one set of exams is going to determine their future.

On the other hand I am more than a little pleased by daughter got 3A*s and an A - it made me feel a lot more positive about results day!

 

[Jeff FV]

Of all the many things wrong with education, results day is nowhere near the top of the list.

A click bait-y thread that serves no purpose.

 

[alan1302]

Of all the many things wrong with education, results day is nowhere near the top of the list.

A click bait-y thread that serves no purpose.

How is it click baity? Not sure you know what it means. The thread title matched exactly what the post was about.

 

[japancool]

Bring back the 11+!

 

[Jeff FV]

How is it click baity? Not sure you know what it means. The thread title matched exactly what the post was about.

ok, perhaps not the best turn of phrase, but a thread trying generate comment out of nothing.

By all means, discuss whether this was a fair way to assign grades this year. Discuss the impact of grade inflation. Or even discuss why our esteemed education secretary can’t even remember what he got for his A levels. But to discuss whether we need a day when we give students their results? I just can’t see the point of discussing that unless it is to whip up some sort of faux outrage. UKBF should be better than that.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Don't know about Results Days but I'm meeting and hearing of a good number of people, like our Sainsburys delivery man yesterday, or the Forklift driver at the festival barrier suppliers on Friday who have been forced by redundancy to take a step down from city jobs and have never been happier.

 

[JCBrown]

In all my years of employing people, I have never asked to see A-Levels, degree certificates, Ph.D. certificates, trade certificates or anything else come to that.

Some things require a degree, most things do not. As for the 1001 arty vocational degrees, in each field, there are usually only one or two courses in the UK worth attending. The rest are nearly always rip-offs.

This is absolutely it! I did a Master's course a few years back because I was advised that It was the right thing to do.

It was a "Media practice" MA course and I was paying thousands to do things an entry-level student in college could probably do in their sleep.

It really did not do anything for me but it rather pushed me to stand on my own two feet afterwards.

 

[JCBrown]

I was a waste of space at school I have an O level
My kids have done well one has been to uni and another in her second year .
It is only in the last few years that I have considered education more important than anything else
So I now say that results day is very important.
Education is not about the job or business you do .There is more to it than that . It sets you up for life as a person

I agree with you here Jeremy. There's certainly a level of discipline that it can bring. I have seen the discipline and diligence its built-in my sisters and these are of course major the benefits that studying installs from a young age

 

[Mark T Jones]

Personally I put no emphasis at all on it.

But seriously, from memory and younger relatives, it's actually quite a big deal.

It's a culmination of your years of work - whatever others think of your qualifications, the big 'day" is actually rather exciting

 

[JCBrown]

Yes, I have always told my kids not to worry too much about exams, and its unlikely that any one set of exams is going to determine their future.

On the other hand I am more than a little pleased by daughter got 3A*s and an A - it made me feel a lot more positive about results day!

Well Congratulations to you Sir! My Sister also managed to get grades that she was extremely proud of.

She wants to study a course which requires you to have certain qualifications to do so for her personally it was a great day of achievement

 

[JCBrown]

Personally I put no emphasis at all on it.

But seriously, from memory and younger relatives, it's actually quite a big deal.

It's a culmination of your years of work - whatever others think of your qualifications, the big 'day" is actually rather exciting

As a younger person, It's a massive deal!

I just wish they helped to manage the disappointment the day can also bring a bit better

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Personally I put no emphasis at all on it.

But seriously, from memory and younger relatives, it's actually quite a big deal.

It's a culmination of your years of work - whatever others think of your qualifications, the big 'day" is actually rather exciting

I would say it was different for people in our age group . Many jobs that you could land back then with little education now require a degree

 

[Mark T Jones]

As a younger person, It's a massive deal!

I just wish they helped to manage the disappointment the day can also bring a bit better

It's a life lesson - often the first of adult life

 

[Mark T Jones]

I would say it was different for people in our age group . Many jobs that you could land back then with little education now require a degree

On the other hand, a number of bigger companies are scrapping the " graduate" part of their management training

 

[fisicx]

Results day is only important to the media. They make a big song and dance about it (along with the old 'exams are getting easier' trope) and by the following day it's all forgotten.

The individual students don't care about the actaul day. All they want to know is if they have passed or not.

But I agree with @Jeff FV - this feels like a click-bait type thread. Not sure it has any relevance to a business forum.

 

[JCBrown]

Results day is only important to the media. They make a big song and dance about it (along with the old 'exams are getting easier' trope) and by the following day it's all forgotten.

The individual students don't care about the actaul day. All they want to know is if they have passed or not.

But I agree with @Jeff FV - this feels like a click-bait type thread. Not sure it has any relevance to a business forum.

We have heard of successful businessmen and women who dropped out of university and before to pursue projects wholeheartedly and have gone on to do great things.

As a community of business owners, the question was posed to hear views not just on "Results day" but as people of experience in business, how did education determine or shape your careers.

So it's far from Click-bait.

It's a conversation. Hence why its in the time out section of the forum

 

[gpietersz]

I would say it was different for people in our age group . Many jobs that you could land back then with little education now require a degree

That is because of the expansion of higher education. If almost half the population has a degree it becomes a minimum requirement very easilt. That, together with education or training being compulsory up to 18, has increased pressure to get good grades.

A better educated population is a good thing, but increasing the number of people going to university at 18 to three year degrees is not the right way to do it. Adult education, apprenticeships and vocational qualification, distance learning and part time degrees etc. would achieve more and be cheaper.

 

[fisicx]

We have heard of successful businessmen and women who dropped out of university and before to pursue projects wholeheartedly and have gone on to do great things.

Yes, but that’s not what you asked. The question was very specific.

A wider discussion on the value and merits of qualifications is very business relevant. But you didn’t ask about that.

 

[gpietersz]

Of all the many things wrong with education, results day is nowhere near the top of the list.

True, but it think it is symptomatic of the problems, such as the obsession with grades.

Education is not about the job or business you do .There is more to it than that . It sets you up for life as a person

Absolutely! The biggest problem with the current system is that it is too focused on the vocational. The costs mean most students feel they need to do a degree that will pay - its a financial investment, not an opportunity for personal development.

That in turn is based on entirely misleading figures that claim to show a degree increases your income. Correlation does not imply causation! The details also tell a different story. Some universities.

We have heard of successful businessmen and women who dropped out of university and before to pursue projects wholeheartedly and have gone on to do great things.

Survivorship bias and self-serving PR.

Most people who drop out of univeristy have not become billionaires or whatever the high profile examples are. Most of us find we end up needing similar qualifications anyway.

 

[JCBrown]

Yes, but that’s not what you asked. The question was very specific.

A wider discussion on the value and merits of qualifications is very business relevant. But you didn’t ask about that.

Granted.

Conversations have a starting point that gradually expand once our minds are engaged.

This was ultimately where I wanted to go with this, but I guess I have to be clearer next time ey!

 

[AllUpHere]

Of all the many things wrong with education, results day is nowhere near the top of the list.

A click bait-y thread that serves no purpose.

It's not click bait, the OP's job is to post on this forum to get us discussing this stuff and that's what he's doing. He's not a natural writer / communicator as you can see by his posts, but he is getting us discussing stuff.

My opinion was that the OP was just generating content for the sake of content (and to hell with any sort of quality) but rest assured, there is method in the madness.

 

[The Byre]

If you look at a list of successful actors, it is the college grads who are the exceptions.

If you look at a list of successful business people, it seems that from Branson to Turner, from Gates to Jobs, that did not finish university.

These people do however employ graduates. Being a graduate seems to be a great way to become a wage earner!

 

[Mark T Jones]

I
If you look at a list of successful business people, it seems that from Branson to Turner, from Gates to Jobs, that did not finish university.

If you look deeper, you'll find that many of them did indeed finish university, but have conveniently forgotten, and accidentally replaced it with 'flunked out of college, teacher said I'd amount to nothing'.

Amongst the self-righteous dross on LinkedIn on the topic was this gem:

Funny how all the self-made, Bentley driving billionaires send their kids to private school.

 

[gpietersz]

If you look at a list of successful business people, it seems that from Branson to Turner, from Gates to Jobs, that did not finish university.

That is a cherry-picked selection. take a random sample of people who did the same and what do you get? Its like providing a list of lottery winners as evidence that playing the lottery is a great way to become rich. They took huge risks that paid off.

Even from that selection, off the top of my head, Branson would have been brankrupted early in his career if his familly had not raised the money to pay for a tax evasion settlement (for the evasion that made his record business "profitable" in the first place) and Gate's success was built on family contacts and being able to take risks because he could fall back to going back to Harvard or just being a treust fund kid. These are not options most people have.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I think that the media promotion of A level day forgets the pupils who fail. The toll on our country of the army of uneducated, unqualified, often illiterate people is serious. They don't all become rich and famous.

 

[gpietersz]

Some universities.

I left the sentence unfinished.

People attending some universities, or doing some courses (even some at quite good universities) actually earn less than non-graduates.

At the other extreme are people who go to Oxbridge who earn far more than the average non-graduate - however I would put that down more to possession of the talent and drive that got them in despite the immense level of comeptition rather than the benefit of the degree.

 

[The Byre]

Funny how all the self-made, Bentley driving billionaires send their kids to private school.

We have a billionaire at each end of our little one-mile-long lane and neither drives a Bentley. At one end, it's helicopters and jets only and at the other end, she drives a Range Rover. She's so small that when she drives that thing, it looks as if the car has no driver!

These are not options most people have.

That is totally true - the very rich do usually come from the moneyed middle-class. Even those who fell on hard times or came to the West as refugees. It is I believe a case of expectations and education in the broader sense - what you are surrounded by at home. If the table-talk is all football and TV soaps, then the chances of a kid growing up and becoming successful are slim indeed.

If solving maths problems and playing chess, discussing economics and politics is on the menu, a child has different thoughts and therefore different horizons.

The great exception is Oprah Winfrey.

I think that the media promotion of A level day forgets the pupils who fail. The toll on our country of the army of uneducated, unqualified, often illiterate people is serious. They don't all become rich and famous.

This and more!

Everybody is good at something. Just because someone 'failed' at performing those mirror and very boring clerical tasks that we call classroom learning, does not mean that they are incapable. It just means that the child did not want to sit in a classroom and learn that a-plus-b-all-squared is a-squared, plus b-squared, plus 2ab. And I can't say that I blame them!

For many people, the worst thing you can be is good at school. That is because minor and possibly pointless academic achievement may cover up a real ability such as dance or painting, acting or singing.

But we waste kids' time by trying to teach them silly puzzles like a-plus-b-all-squared equals a-squared, plus b-squared, plus 2ab and insisting that they read Shakespeare and Schiller and that ridiculous nonsense, Pilgrim's Progress.

 

[NickGrogan]

My youngest got his standard grade (Scottish GCSE equivalent) results letter yesterday.

He couldn't care less, to the point that he hasn't opened the letter.

They know the grades the teachers are going to give them and it's unlikely the exam board will have changed them significantly, so why bother?

 

[Deleted member 59730]

It is I believe a case of expectations and education in the broader sense - what you are surrounded by at home. If the table-talk is all football and TV soaps, then the chances of a kid growing up and becoming successful are slim indeed.

If solving maths problems and playing chess, discussing economics and politics is on the menu, a child has different thoughts and therefore different horizons.

Its one of the main reasons why the children of actors, writers, lawyers and accountants take up those professions.

In my fifteenth year we lived in a rented house opposite a church. Thursday was bell practice which was noisy so we always went to the theatre on those nights. The New Theatre in Oxford had some amazing touring plays either just before the West End or just after. Cost 2 shillings in the gods. My mother worked some late shifts as a nurse and I would drop into a cinema on the way home from school, mostly foreign films. cost 1/3d.

Why aren't I a famous actor?

 

[IanSuth]

True, but it think it is symptomatic of the problems, such as the obsession with grades.



Absolutely! The biggest problem with the current system is that it is too focused on the vocational. The costs mean most students feel they need to do a degree that will pay - its a financial investment, not an opportunity for personal development.

That in turn is based on entirely misleading figures that claim to show a degree increases your income. Correlation does not imply causation! The details also tell a different story. Some universities.



Survivorship bias and self-serving PR.

Most people who drop out of univeristy have not become billionaires or whatever the high profile examples are. Most of us find we end up needing similar qualifications anyway.

It is worse than that - if you actually look at the research to show what value a degree has in salary terms, most of it is based on looking at the lifetime income of people who went to uni in the 50's and 60's and how they did in life compared to their peers.

In that period <5% attended uni and most went into the professions. it is not applicable to vast amount of the nr 50% of people now attending uni as it is apples and oranges

 

[Newchodge]

Its one of the main reasons why the children of actors, writers, lawyers and accountants take up those professions.

In my fifteenth year we lived in a rented house opposite a church. Thursday was bell practice which was noisy so we always went to the theatre on those nights. The New Theatre in Oxford had some amazing touring plays either just before the West End or just after. Cost 2 shillings in the gods. My mother worked some late shifts as a nurse and I would drop into a cinema on the way home from school, mostly foreign films. cost 1/3d.

Why aren't I a famous actor?

Surely, on that basis, you should be a famous spectator?

 

[The Byre]

Why aren't I a famous actor?

Because you didn't WANT to be a famous actor!

Speaking as one who has had to watch about 100 showreels and leaf through 1,000 agency pics of pretty young girls yesterday, the one thing one notices is those kids who WANT to be actors. Not just would like to do it, but WANT to do it. MUST do it. MUST do it with every fibre of their being!

You'd be surprised just how few people WANT success. They would like to have success, but work day and night for that success? "Meh . . . Sounds strenuous and would cut into my free time!"

There's more to acting than just acting. You have to get out there and walk the boards, put together a showreel, go to auditions, fly coach to stupid film shoots for two days of work for next-to-nothing, learn scripts in your own time. And above all, you have to hear the word No! more often than not.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Because you didn't WANT to be a famous actor!

Byre, it was written in jest!

 

[The Byre]

Byre, it was written in jest!

I realised that! But having sat through all those pics and reels, I was surprised at how little effort most people make that claim that they want to become this, that, or the other.

Most wannabe actors do not even have a bloody showreel. They trot out CVs with all their accomplishments but can't be arsed to put a showreel together (as if they were Brad Pitt and didn't need to jump through those hoops).

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Don't worry, I've been through those casting headaches too. Having gone through every black model in London for a Heineken of Nigeria calendar, at least 6 and sometimes 14 models needed for each page/month I know the problems. For a competing Nigerian beer we decided that shooting in Jamaica would be easier. The problem then was that while in Nigeria all men were clean shaven in Jamaica they were all growing beards. We then discovered that Jamaican policemen were clean shaven and scoured the police stations for models!