1976 School Magazine

Ou,t of anl these critiersrns eomes the question of ra,laat stloulid nepnaee i!'ais unBneasant aaad uttenn5; !p= adequate systena.l? lLt seelns tha{, beeause the period of Radford experamerrt laas failed thene is only onc soluation: for the fl1o'noiemt, at leasli, we eound recurm to ttae prevlous Senior exanx systern. nt ra'as eritieiscd f'or the anaoLlflt of sta'a.in it appareart3y imdueed in stru- dents but it is ohvioLls that tlae strain of eontimurous assessi$ent is far greater, Even if the nna"jor examls nike Semior and "trunior were traumlatlc fbn some, tnrey did nLot produce the n:resent weektry tnaumas sinee tXaey onny eanne a[ tnee end of'two years of'study" Fen- haps a soXution coulnd be tound ila a eornbination of botla tlae Senior exana and a small an'lount of selaool assessnnennt. Anlied with tlae pressure on students is thc telribtre pressure on the teachers wilo laave eocntimuous marle- ing Soad together wittra fnequemt maoderatiom meet- ings. T"o naost stuldents tlaese appear to he eompnctely useless. T'here is now inereasing criticisna of the Radford systexn as it treeomaes apparent to more and more people that it is produeing a generation of students with bareXy any solid basic hnownedge on wlaieh to base funther edueation. tsult in these eritieislns onc reads fue tlee press it is always a teacher or a pnof,essoa" wlao is voicing Xris opireion. Sttadents trave beem asked to neake comments on the seheme, but only in the form of Yes/No answers to a ready-made qulestionnaire. We would like to nnake our own conmfients. Feople realy seen'l to listen to students' oplnrons. We sXrould not wait to he asked. We shouXd uy to voice our opinions through the newspaper$ at least. As students, we slaould not sit hack apathetically and let tlais .joyless systern contimue to spoil the edueation of tlae younger students who will follow us. Somaething nxust be done before it is too [ate. Wnro was it who said "fufy edtaeation was ireterrupted by my sehooning?" This has sadXy becoraae no joke! Saitry-Jane &funrc, (This is a personal opinian and dres nof necessaritry rffiect tl'aat of tke IdeMmistress and stffi

EE}TTSRJA"L, X"he first of the Radford guinea. pigs ar-e flrow eorn- ilag off the production line. ,Already, naany of thenil have laeaded for tertialy il'istittatioras. Some of us are now beginning to feel that not all of these students ane fulXy prepared for the eourses they rnay wish to axadertake. The eal.lse of this problern can be traced back, quite eorrectly, to the ftadford systerm of con- tinuouls assessrnent. Under tiais system students are required to con- eentrate on a particullar anea of, say, History, for almut five weeks. At the end of those five weehs the studesrt is suhjeeted to a test in whieh she usuatrly re- 'produrces all that she Xras lean'ned in that tirne. Wtrai often tiappens is that tlae student has a fair idea of the guestion and rhen proceeds to concentrate only on that qurestion and on no other aspect of that topic. Thc nesunt, of coul'se, is that -the student knows nothing of the topic as a whole and a year or even a rnontle later does not even nemember it any- way. This is no way to gain the basic knownedge tkrat is required before one embanks om any forrn of tenti. ary educationr. The Radford system is such tirat aln of us must work uneeasingtry arad witlaout relief throughout each sernester to keep up with the pace of testing and assignrnents. Om top of this we ffiust even work dur- ing the holidays sinee they are still geaned to the old ttrree terne system and not to the Sernester systema. As our school is independent of Goverrunemt .juris- diction, sulnely we could teke the initiatlve in chang- ing this situation. The result of our leaving to work incessantiy for tests is that we have lit-tie or no tirne to get to like a subjeet or to enter into extra- curricular activities. We rarely even teave ihe tirne to bury ourselves in a good book. Eecause the R.adford systenn is so test oniented, the emphasis is ail the timre on marks and not on learning for its own sake. trt is quite obvior.ls that the originators ofthe systern forgot or did not know that the basic purpose of education is to increase knowl- edge and not to gain marks. I wonder how rnany of them had ever been teachers?

H}ITORIAL STAFT'

Editor: Sally-.Iane Munro Literary Sub-Editors: $gSeW Gehrmann, Shetrley Wilson Art Editor: Linden Seale Art Sub-Editor: Jo-anne Feeney

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