Pupils will be ranked nationally as part of the new O-level-style qualifications

I am still not sure how this would work, given that, in a country the size of England, if we look at exam scores there will have to be several hundred kids sharing 27th place or whatever, but I like the idea of knowing where a grade is in the overall distribution. I mean, if you got an A in Cuddling Small Animals, but so did 97 per cent of the cohort that took the subject, it’s worth much less than a B in another subject where you are in the first 20 per cent with it.

spool

Does it matter? If an employer wants someone to cuddle small animals (see below) they can choose someone with an A* in that subject. If they want an accountant they can use other criteria.

MickTravis

Where else in life is everyone at a particular age ranked against everyone else? These teachers who say pupils should be happy with ranking, how would they feel if every teacher in the country was ranked according to their ability?

pencho

I support this policy. For too long state school students have been scraping together A* grades and displacing our better private school students from Oxford and Cambridge. A ranking will put the state sector back in its place!

samantha2013

Another example of “Data rich, information poor”. Being ranked 856th, 7,324th or whatever is largely meaningless if you were the best in your school, county or similar.

Captain Obvious

Seeing as there can only be one top dog per pooling, a national pooling is going to make the position-conscious clever clogses in each school very miffed .

Eureka!

This sort of system has just been ditched by India. Perhaps they have sold it cheap to Michael Gove? It is designed to put every person in their place so that two children with an A know whether theirs is better than the other’s. This is patent nonsense.

MasafiTwo

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