A thread for us GCSE students

[rv13uk]

I'm quite new here but ive noticed a fair few members are around 15/16 so I thought I'd start this thread about those luverly last 2 years of manditory education. Feel free 2 post anythin here, A-level choices, GCSE choices and does anyone see any point in GCSE I.C.T or A - Level I.C.T. Guess I mite as well start so for GCSE I took:
(Manditory Maths, English, Science, R.S short course and language French), Art, I.C.T and finally Business Studies. Not finalised my A-level choices yet but thinking of going with:
Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and Physics, toying with doing Computing instead of Chemistry but I don't see why I can't learn programming in my spare time. Good luck for people (think defo for people in the UK) currently doing exams and at time of writing role on 28th June, last day of exams :giddy: :bounce: (for me anyway). Mite as well add this, if anyones brave enough (hehe ) why not post your Mock results, see what sort of thing people are aiming for, not really computer related but this is the general section after all.

 

[Finchy]

Personnally, I think they should ditch ICT and go for a more rounded 'Computer Studies' course, which has more lessons, but deals with system building, basic troubleshooting, common problems, programming in various applications and software (which you study now). Most people coming out of an ICT course who aren't massively into computers will know the basics of software, but nothing else. It could save billions in industry. There could also be more specialised after-school sessions (optional) which set you stuff like designing software, manual troubleshooting and specialised programs.

 

[rv13uk]

couldnt agree with you more (and just as I thought this thread was a waste of time ), although teaching computer building may be hard 2 practice, due to limited parts - but they could show the techniques or something, id have found that really useful as well, GCSE IT just seems to reinforce basic techniques that anyone can pick up with 10 minutes of spare time, and as far as I can tell A-Level does essentially the same but with a few additional techniques, hardly worth 2 years of studying.

 

[Finchy]

The thing I most hate about ICT in school, although it may just be my school, is Microsoft Excell. They gave us about two lessons on the signs and expect us to know them all by heart. last time I used it I had to look up an online table for them. All someone needs to do is release a USB keypad with the math signs(as most/all only have + and -) and for Microsoft to program them into Excell, along with the usual signs.

 

[rv13uk]

Actually, its the complete opposite in our school, we got countless lessons on 'If commands' and similar things, when all they take is a bit of common sense, plus, we had a teacher who, if someone needed help with a particular thing, however small, she made a little note of it...the next week we would all have to endure a lesson on the same thing, no matter our ability. God that p****d me off. Im not genius at excel, i can make basic user forms and such, but countless lessons, sometimes as basic as autosum, put me off IT completely. I think what they need to do is have, if they cant go with basic maintainence, set ability classes, top band teach them basic programming so they can deal with the visual basic side of excel, and macros...how simple are they??? I picked them up after 2 minutes looking in an A-Level text book, but they must be faaaaaaar to complex for us little GCSE students. The only things I learnt over two years of work, was from a text book that my mum happened to have, and those skills i picked up in 10 minutes of reading, in the end i did fairly well (95/100 for my own project), but i didnt get any marks for the things i did learn (which my head of IT kindly pointed out as I finished), due to them not being on they syllabus...those techniques exist, surely we should be graded for them, it shows were going beyond the limits of the boundaries. And (finally ), the board set assignment is the most stupid, limiting thing that anyone could possibly hope for. In my opinion it doesnt allow people to develop skills on the used programs needed for the tasks, publisher for a leaflet, access for query's, Word for mail merge, all Year 8 and Year 9, even Year 7 techniques...not GCSE. So you know I only got 77/100 for this. which is minorly ironic due to my distaste at the ease of the tasks set, but I feel it was down to the constraints that the syllabus set, not allowing me to differentiate from other canditates. Aah well, may sound like ive been ranting on, and to be honest I have, but I got really p****d off at this course, and the annoying thing is theres nothing I could do to change it, just had to stick with the daily tedium that is GCSE IT, oh and my teacher wasnt even qualified for GCSE teaching, only up to Year 9...at one point I asked her a question, she looked at me as though I was asking the impossible, I explained that I managed it on my PC and then she just walked of saying something about how I wouldnt need to achieve this anyway. Right, ive finished, think ive complained about IT to my full extent, and as I said theres no way im doing it next year, after looking over the course (my mum's an IT teacher, hence the books - shes good at software Ill give her that, but Ive been called down to explain how to work the printer, replacing an ink cartridge that is, hopeless...although my head of IT is very good, maybe my opinion would have been a lot different if Id had him...) Ive realised anything done over two more years work would be a repeat, so id only get frustrated.

 

[Finchy]

I too get annoyed at useless teachers, at the moment, the one i've got for maths is useless. When your stuck her version on help is stuff that rarely makes sense or is different to exactly what she'd explained earlier, which was what I didn't understand in the first place. She messes up simple calculator sums, lets slip answers, and threatens us with 1 minute detensions. I've learned more from by from my friend sat next to me than from her. Personnally, I don't see why you always have to do useless stuff. About a third of the stuff i've learned in IT is stuff that has no real use, and another third is just going over stuff we've already learned. We occasionally do new stuff, but we only do a few lessons on it then move on, and the information just fades out of my head. They expect you to remember stuff you haven't done for almost a year. Maybe it's just that I'm incapable of remembering stuff, but I agree that the sylabus should be changed.

 

[rv13uk]

Maybe they should let us students specify the syllabus

 

[Finchy]

I agree completly, but only the sensible students, so we don't end up doing dot-to-dots all year.