Currently, the educational world has been drowning with the commencement of the epidemic that is the new courses and the marking systems in A levels and GCSE. Being an unfortunate victim of this myself, I've had several days cursing my age.
Suffering through a new specification in almost all of my subjects has led to very limited resources available, for example there are simply not enough specimen materials to practice or test yourself on for the new exam questions.
Now this influenza has really affected my personal way of learning. As I learn best through answering and re-answering questions in order to master exam techniques as well as to learn the best way to present contextual knowledge which you can learn more about in my upcoming article.
This new specification has undeniably made GCSEs a newfound challenge which I believe is moderately better than old spec. for aspiring students. To me, it seems this new spec is not only challenging the higher achieving students, it is also pushing forward students of perhaps lower abilities to aim higher and achieve better than what they are expected to do so.
For example, from my personal experience I have discovered that perhaps there is a link between the harder spec and the extracurricular opportunities provided from the school. As for me this year has led to more academic opportunities for extracurricular devotees like myself than any other of my years here at my school. I have found myself seeing significant additions to my school's extracurricular activities, from work placements in hospitals to engineering scholarships programs running.
