Juxtabook

The Oxbridge Formula by Paarul Shah, Jessica Grindlay and Chris Parker - review

 

It has been a while since I posted on education and most children (and their parents!) are missing the support of school at the moment so this is excellent timing for the publication of The Oxbridge Formula by Paarul Shah, Jessica Grindlay and Chris Parker.

If you have a child in years 11 or 12 likely to do well/ or having done well in their GCSEs then this book is well worth your time. Although principally aimed at those planing on studying sciences and the more mathematical subjects such as economics there is much good advice here for any student in lower 6th (year 12).

Applying to Oxford or Cambridge brings challenges that applications to other universities do not - the entrance exams and admissions interviews. These can be daunting to point of putting students off even considering an application, and can also be a minefield to navigate even if they do decide to go for it. Here, then, is your answer, clearly organised and full of sound good sense.

It is a much weightier tome than you might think but is well designed for dipping in an out of the relevant sections to you. Courses are explained with "what it's like to study x" sections and explanations of how the subject differs between school and university, or what a day or week in the life of a student of that subject is like. It also summarises what you need to apply for the courses at Oxford or Cambridge in terms of A level results, or specific A level subjects. The various different entrance exams are explained - this is something of a sea of acronyms but that's hardly the authors' fault. There is plenty of depth of detail with styles of questions and the nature of the different papers discussed and QR code links for more information, sample or past papers, and free guides. I am also impressed by how many joint honours courses or courses that more interdisciplinary are considered: PPE, or Economic History for example.

The book adds to its strengths with really useful annotated sample personal statements and candidate interviews transcripts, as well as spot the successful candidate sections which compare different approaches to preparing for the exam and interview. The former show what is good to include, and how to display your experiences and interests to your advantage. Although the letters are subject specific the advice could easily be applied to any subject and would make useful reading if you're stuck on writing your personal statement (or advising your son or daughter) for any Russell Group university not just Oxford and Cambridge.

The interview transcripts show how the tutors are looking for teachability and an informed, enquiring mind. The amount of backtracking and "uming and erring" in the transcripts show how good candidates think on their feet and engage with what the tutor is asking them, but should also help nervous future applicants realise that they don't have to get everything right first time to be successful. I also like the focused sub-sections such as what a candidate without an Economics A level might get asked in an interview to study for a degree in Economics for example.

The third significant feature, the candidate profiles, are just brilliant. You can see immediately (perhaps more so if you're the parent) what are the useful ways for you (or your young person) to be spending time in the run up to the entrance exams and then the interviews. Clear differences are shown between targeted useful preparation, ill-thought out preparation or over-confidence or over-ambition, and candidates that work very hard but in the wrong way mis-directing their energies in someway, or applying for the wrong courses for their talents and interests. I think this feature as much as the more academic parts of the book is the real social leveller: it invites all candidates, whatever their background, to the world of what used to be called middle-class know-how.

Lastly there is much recommended further reading to help you prepare for the exams and most importantly for the interviews. These are potted reviews of the books not just lists. There is even recommended reading for you once you have an offer, to help you keep up to speed for your first year at university (again useful for students applying elsewhere). This latter is particularly useful if you are taking a gap year. With maths and science where so much knowledge is cumulative, you will slip back a little in your year-out and this advice will keep you on track.

As an arts graduate I asked myself was there enough here to help me understand the differences in the application systems if I was supporting a child to apply for science, medicine or maths (ie a subject far removed from mine), and there was. You can see the pathway if even if you don't understand the subject!

After closely reading the bonus chapter on studying philosophy (something I did read as an undergraduate!) I thought it balanced and informative. The suggested reading was demanding but very much in line with what I might expect to be recommended to a bright 6th former.The interview sample was thought provoking and you could see the way the student was thinking their way around the problems posed and what the tutor was trying to get out of it.

As for criticisms my biggest gripe is the sample letters are a bit London/private school-centric. Debating societies and work experience in Parliament for example are in one letter, though to its credit the notes explain that the key thing is to mention how the work experience fits with your subject choice which could apply to a much great range of life experiences. Another mentions spending a gap year working for a publicly listed software company when applying to study computer science, again unlikely to be available to you if you live in, say, rural Wales. I would like to have seen more of how a student whose background is a comprehensive school in a deprived area or a rural area, and whose out-of-school experiences might have been looking after younger siblings or working on a supermarket till might make the most of those experiences in their statement. It is fairly easy to see how working in parliament can be made to apply to the PPE course but more imaginative examples here and there would have been good. Equally though the same letter mentions doing an Open Yale course - providing ideas of something the reader could do to add to their CV with enough notice.

Overall, this is a five star guide with much to recommend it to a broad range of students. You can read more on their website here. You may also find the Russell Group website regarding the best choices for A level subjects here.

Notes:

PPE is Philosophy, Politics and Economics. A degree much beloved by future politicians, city workers and journalists.

The Russell Group is a group of 24 leading research universities (which means they prioritise academic research as well as teaching). There are many well respected universities outside of this group but it would be foolish to pretend other than that attending one of these does help graduates in the jobs market for some employers/industries.

They don't make them like this anymore ...

For the last four or five years I've helped been teaching a group of 'gifted and talented' children at a primary school. These year 6 and 7 children are amazingly talented readers and as a former secondary school teacher I go in once a week to deliver literature enrichment lessons.

One of the pleasures of this kind of teaching is that every week these children knock me off my complacent perch as they reveal exactly what they can do with a piece of poetry or prose; they are a continual surprise and delight.

One of the depressing things about this kind of teaching is the poor quality of modern children's non-fiction: all super-glossy, illustration rich, and full of snippets of facts in little boxes. High on graphic design and low on continuous prose. It always reminds me of Irwin's "gobbets" that Hector was so sniffy about in Alan Bennett's The History Boys.

When I start teaching this group each year I remind them of the Ladybird non-fiction books. They will have seen them, and some may have one or two passed down by their parents, but they associate them with younger readers and think they've moved on. I point out to them how little they as 9, 10 and 11 year olds see non-fiction just written in paragraphs and extending to 26 pages (all Ladybird books have 52 pages and half are full page illustrations). I commend the Adventures from History series to them.

Not only does the Adventures from History series cover the popular heroes you would expect (Alfred the Great, Robert the Bruce, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth I, etc) but amongst the 49 titles are some real surprises. What modern publisher would bring out a children's biography of Warwick the Kingmaker, John Wesley or Elizabeth Fry? There is even one of Elizabeth Gaskell.

 

 

I read these books with great pleasure in the 70s and 80s and they were a large motivating factor in my love of history. They have their faults certainly, and no doubt they are a bit over-certain or narrative in style for historians' tastes, but for getting kids interested you can't beat them. Most children don't get the chance to do this kind of reading however.

Another aspect of the teaching I do with this group is on the history of the English language. How English is such a borrower of words and how interesting etymology can be. They look at maps and gradually realise that one local area is full of Norse place names and another a few miles away of Anglo-Saxon ones. They realise that they can see the footprints of the invaders in an OS map. This is one of the most popular parts of the course that I teach. They love it and the National Curriculum hardly goes near it.

Most of you will know of the Ladybird series but if you are looking for children's non-fiction there are others. Ginn did a great little series in the 60s in colour coded shelves for different eras. I've a smashing little book from their 'Blue shelf' in stock at the moment on the history of Books and Writing (again, what publisher would produce this now?).

 

 

It covers the development of paper and writing: papyrus, book rolls, books with leaves, runes, Roman letters, Anglo-Saxon poetry (all riddles and heroes), and the writing culture of the monasteries and St Bede... all in a tiny staple bound little paperback.

 

 

I've a similarly interesting volume called Elizabethan Houses from Ginn's 'Yellow Shelf'. If you have a child or grandchild that likes the Horrible Histories then maybe see if you can interest them in these more detailed books. Apart from improving their history it will challenge their reading no end compared with what is in the school library on the non-fiction shelves.

 

Cross posted on the blog Gifted by Juxtabook.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton

I had absolutely no idea that I wanted to read Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. I'd watched various adaptations of course (Robert Donat (my Nan's favourite!) and Martin Clunes) and they're a pleasant, if undemanding way to spend the time, but nothing to make you rush out and buy a copy of the novella. For the tiny number of people who have not seen Goodbye, Mr. Chips in any form, it is the slightly sentimental story of a teacher in a minor British public school (public in the sense that you pay a fee to attend and board there) from the mid-Victorian period until he comes out of retirement to save the educational day during WWI. It was written in the 1930s by James Hilton who later won an Oscar for his adaptation of Jan Struther's Mrs Miniver, so he certainly knew a thing or two about selling British Values to the British Masses.

In that pleasant way of bookselling though, I fell in with a copy. There it was. There I was. Not feeling like tackling a new 'proper' read late one evening I picked it up and an hour later I was still reading. And do you know, it was much better than anticipated. Nothing earth shattering of course, and the adaptations are pretty close to the book so you're not ging to be surprised by the plot (I'm assuming this is one of those books where you're bound to see it before you read it), but it really was a lively and interesting read of its time.

Before becoming a bookseller I taught for five years. The schools I taught in were as far removed from Brookfield as it is possible to get and yet I recognised quite a lot: much of the teaching rang true, as did the relationships between the teacher and student (master and pupil!) and the way that a merely adequate teacher can evolve over years, with a careful and thoughtful approach, into the best asset the school has. Even now most schools have a teacher or two like this in the staffroom. I was also taken with a lovely exchange with a new headmaster where Chips defends his subject (Classics of course!) from the idiocy of edicts from above on how to teach it. Great scene, and great social history. Education as political football is clearly nothing new.

Another pleasant aside of living with one's work as a bookseller is the editions one comes across. My unassuming little grey volume (an early reprint) has some rather good Art Deco illustrations by Bip Pares. I was particularly taken by this image of Chips and Mrs Chips from the days when a teacher (or a vicar or a doctor) was employed by the institution which got his wife's talents for free in a sort of marital employment BOGOF.

 

"Tendering her advice in any little problem that arose..."

If you're interested in Bip Pares you can read more here. No doubt Pares also did the dust wrapper but my copy is without. (Yes, Wikipedia suggests she did - see panel)

One could, of course, subject Goodbye, Mr. Chips to some kind rigorous Marxist / post-colonial analysis and mock it to bits, but I think at heart it really is better than that and deserves more. It is not a book to change anyone's life but if it can reflect just a little of my experience as a teacher (in a state school in a seriously deprived Lancashire cotton town over 60 years after the book was written and over 100 years after it was set) then it's got something and I'm glad I read it.

New College of the Humanities: First Thoughts

There's a lot wrong with a lot of undergraduate courses in English Literature and plenty of room for new standards to be set so I looked with interest at the New College of the Humanities just launched with much fanfare by Prof A. C. Grayling and Co. The New College of the Humanities is a new, private university designed to rival the education offered by Oxbridge and the Russell Group (and Durham which oddly is not in the Russell Group).

You can read the English prospectus here.

What I like: there appears at first glance to be a good overview on offer with courses from the year dot to the present day. I am not a great believer in sectioning off literature for an entire undergraduate course as some places do e.g. just doing twentieth century literature for three years. I think when you're an undergrad you need the breadth and depth of a good "middle ages to the present" syllabus. Literature is a conversation: you can't effectively participate when you join in near the end.

What I don't like:

1. There is no major language component. I know it is billed as an English Literature degree not Literature and Language but language is still pretty crucial. There's "Varieties of language in conversation and literature" but that appears to be it, and that is optional. There's no suggestion that they'll be studying Anglo-Saxon literature in the original; surely you'd need a separate Anglo-Saxon language module before you could do that. I am not so traditional as to think it vital that you do Anglo-Saxon texts in the original but to have no history of the development of the language course as an alternative seems remiss.

2. There is no overt literary theory. There's an Approaches to Text module which might be a language course or might be a theory course but seems rather more a simple critical techniques course seeing as the set books are called things like Literary Studies in Action and Ways of Reading rather than something like Literature in the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents (I don't think I've ever seen a prospectus for undergraduates, and that's first year undergraduates, that doesn't make Walder or one of the alternative anthologies compulsory reading). Lots of people don't like literary theory but you cannot put genies back in their bottles very easily. Literary theory exists and can't be ignored. A good degree should have an overt introduction to the subject and the option to study one or more theories from a purely philosophical standpoint. This degree appears to have no overview of theory and two courses (women/postcolonial) that are optional. As there is no major theory course preceding them I can only assume that they will look at a few books by women or ethnic minorities and that this will largely be the reading of those texts not the study of feminist theory or postcolonial theory philosophically. In fact, I hope I am wrong, but it would appear that women and ethnic minorities have been added as a bolt-on. Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Woolf and Toni Morrison do not make for a balanced course otherwise very, very, heavy on the DWEMs.

3. The only novel post-1945 mentioned on the reading list for the compulsory courses is Toni Morrison's Beloved. Damn good book. But where is the rest of post-war fiction? There is a course called 'the novel' and other courses that might have a post-war novel or two in passing but it seems very light.

4. For this superficially traditional course they are going to charge £18,000 a year. I haven't forgotten the decimal point, that's 18 grand. To my mind what they're offering for that is just not good enough.

In case you're thinking I am asking too much in three years, my own degree, also just English Literature not lit and lang, had a first year of: history of English language, Middle English literature, Renaissance literature and Introduction to literary theory and a subsidiary (philosophy in my case, including formal logic, much vaunted by New College of the Humanities) and 9 courses across the next two years of which Milton to the Romantics, Victorian literature, Modernist literature and Contemporary literature were compulsory as was a course on Shakespeare, further literary theory, and a literary theory option (I did narrative theory, pure theory not applied, and there were about six to choose from). We were able to pick three optional courses from a large range covering everything from the Brownings to Bob Dylan to holocaust literature.

The thing about literary theory is that it is hard and potentially boring when you start. I hated it in my first two years. By the third year I was starting to get it (and quite enjoyed it once I was a post-grad). But in my first two years, broke as I was, I think I would have been tempted to pay 18k to NOT do literary theory. This course, theory-lite as it is, seems designed to appeal to the paying parents (who might not know much about it but like the traditional sounding nature of it) whilst avoiding students dropping out because of having the heebie-geebies over literary theory, and dropping out students take their 18 grand a year with them.

For further thoughts on the teaching and standards likely to be available David Allen Green has a good piece on his Jack of Kent blog.

I don't want to get in to a big argument about whether there should be tuition fees at or not as that seems a done deal for the future. But what do you think about the New College of the Humanities as proposed, and particularly what's on offer as the Literature course?

Edited to add: Harriet in the comments below points out how old fashioned the course seems and no wonder if an article in the Higher Times Ed is to be believed. Gabriel Egan finds he recognises one of the courses offered:

"The college’s website helpfully lists the courses to be taken, and I noticed that something called Renaissance Comedy: Shakespeare and Jonson is a required component. Coincidence? No: the 200-word course description, the prescribed reading, the “topics for special consideration” were all mine. Or rather not mine, as I’d sold them to the University of London (via Goldsmiths) nearly two decades ago.

Students at the New College of the Humanities will take the University of London External BA exams, so for English literature they’ll get the teaching materials written in the 1990s at Goldsmiths. Apparently my fresh-from-a-BA reflections on early modern drama strike the New College professoriate as suitable promotional material for their £18,000-a-year degree. I was just happy to get them past the gatekeepers at Goldsmiths."

Cringe.

Booktrust and Bookstart and the cut in government funding.

You might have heard that funding for Bookstart, a programme to give books to young children, is being axed. According to The Guardian:

Booktrust, the independent charity set up to encourage reading, is to lose all government funding for its children's gifting programmes Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up, in England, it was announced today.

Whilst the aims of Bookstart are undoubtably laudable, having experienced the bookgifting side as a parent I would suggest that the books probably largely go to families who are already highly literate and are therefore a questionable use of resources. I'd rather the money was spent on smaller classes in early years provision in catchment areas with poor literacy track records, in the current economic crisis.

You can read here about how in my town the first book gift worked well, the second was an accident, and the third (aimed at three year olds and at a cruicial point in reading development) was entirely down to my child attending the right play group and my using the library. Reaching stay-at-home parents with poor literacy it was not.

Snow closed schools

After two days off in many cases (because of a bit of snow) there's a right old fuss about schools closing with people citing everything from childcare problems,to how writers remember the winter of '63  and following the snow plough to school, to comments on how we'll be bringing them up to life long weakness and failure if we let kids stay home because of snow, as reasons why schools should be open regardless. See the BBC here, and the Independent here for just a couple of examples.

Setting aside for a moment the idea that schools should be regarded as childcare (they should not), I am amazed by the number of online comments that say things like teachers should live near school, or councils should keep essential staff like teachers in hotels near schools (do teachers not have families that need them at home in the evenings then?) when bad weather is forecast. Amazing.

Ok, if you teach really well behaved 6 year olds you might risk living in the catchment area, but what teacher in their right mind wants to live near their teenage charges? The few that do tend to be either near retirement age and probably moved in before so many kids (not all I know) ran rings round their parents and every other adult, or they are very young, newly qualified and financially challenged.

When young, newly qualified and financially challenged, we lived in the catchment area of my husband's school for 9 months. Amongst other delights we had fireworks thrown at the house (very scary I can assure you) and kids knocking on the door on a Sunday demanding help with homework or the return of confiscated items. My husband had to repeatedly change the routes by which he walked the dogs to avoid malevolent gangs of disaffected history students, and, to this day, nine years after leaving that school, there are pubs in his old catchment area he wouldn't go in for fear of meeting certain ex-pupils. We lived in his catchment area rather than mine because his was the 'nicer' one. This is why most teachers do not live near their school! This is a news story from my catchment area around the time we started teaching. Would you live there?

I always knew that the kids thought we weren't human and that we lived on the premises and the caretaker went down to the cellar every morning to wake us from our coffins, but it amazes me that parents, adults, have so little empathy.

On a rather more praiseworthy note Scott Pack on twitter notes:

Look, it is pointless spending a fortune so that we are prepared for a snowstorm that comes once a decade or so. Just enjoy it.

AND

Nation of fat children? More snow is the answer. The fat buggers are running about all over the place out there.

Hear, hear!

And talking of twitter, you can now follow Juxtabook on twitter too.

Sneezing

Being laid low with the usual winter snuffle, or looking after others laid similarly low, has kept me away from the blogosphere in the last couple of weeks. I hope to resume normal service soon! In the meantime, here a couple of links to some literary news stories that might be of interest...

Firstly, it is getting close to picking the new poet laureate. Apparently the public have a say, which for one awful minute I thought would be some sort of vote and that we'd probably end up with John Sargeant, but it turns out to be just that the Department of Cuture, Media and Sport are happy if people write in to them. Much more civilised. (Simon Armitage! Simon Armitage!) You can read more here.

The other snippet is regarding Carole Ann Duffy's poem Education for Leisure. UK readers may be aware that the poem has been removed from the AQA exam board GCSE syallbus (exams taken by all school children at 16) because if involves a knife crime. Without even getting in to whether or not the exam board should have caved in to three complaints, or whether they made a smart move in the current climate, I would just like to register my bewilderment that AQA have apparently asked schools to destroy the existing in-school copies of the poem. AQA provide schools with free copies of a literature anthology for all students entered for the English or English lit exams. This book is quite a pleasant thing despite its rather academic A4 sized stapled binding, and it is good for kids to have their own copies to keep. Teachers don't have to teach all the poems in the anthology, there is a bit of leeway so staff who felt it was not appropriate could have omitted Duffy from their teaching.

I don't know if AQA mean that all previous editions should be destroyed, or if teachers should go ripping out the poem, but most teachers didn't join up to destroy books, even ones in stapled bindings! The decision to remove doesn't seem terribly wise. Especially as now, with all the publicity, kids can google for the poem and read it online with no adult guidance. In at least 5 years of both teaching the poem and marking the exam I never heard a student get the wrong end of the stick; they all knew the poem made the knife weilding protagonist look like a loser. There were plenty of poems the students did get wrong, and did misunderstand, but this one is quite clear and written in the language of teenage ego about which they are obviously experts. I would have removed the poem too were I in charge, but because I don't think it is particularly good poem, and the students read so few poems that I would have rather taught a better one, but I can't see that it really glamourizes knife crime. The kids think the narrator is an idiot. Better perhaps to have removed it as part of natural cycle of revising the set works when the time came. You can read the story here and also the text of the poem. By the way, one of the three complaints received was not apparently about the knife crime but about the cruelty to goldfish. Don't you just love our culture's priorities! I think that is a darn sight scarier than the poem!

It's that time a year again ... but spare a thought for the examiner

As always at this time of year I spare a thought for the teenagers sitting their exams. I also spare a thought for those families living with teenagers sitting their exams. Lastly, this year, I also spare a thought for those teachers who mark the darn things. I say "this year" as this time is the first time in about a decade that I am not among them. In fact I marked for twice as many years as I taught.

Normally sometime in the last week of May I answer the door to the parcelforce man and take receipt of a quantity of post that reaches from the floor to the middle of my thigh. GCSE English Literature is normally first on the GCSE calendar as it is so complicated to mark, so whilst the candidates are still concentrating on their other subjects English teachers across the country are just settling down to tackle one of the hardest subjects to nail to a specific grade. The candidates sitting the exam for my board answer just two questions, but these answers are essays of literary criticism with all the difficulty in standardisation that that entails.

The good news, if you or child have sat your GCSE English Literature this year, is that the marking system is very impressive. In the first week after receiving 400+ scripts your examiner will read the mark scheme which is a document at least 50 pages long, and which will help them attribute to the right grade to your efforts. They will also check the piles of scripts against the documents from the exam board to ensure that they have all the right essays from the right schools and from the right candidates. Usually one dodo school examiner has sent the wrong tier (GCSE being spilt into Foundation and Higher tiers which are loosely equivalent to the old CSE and O level respectively; I mark the higher tier), or otherwise done something odd with the entries, and now is the time we sort that out and every script ends up exactly where it should be. Then we mark about twenty scripts in pencil as preparation for thinking about the big training day that normally happens in half term.

So it often was, that on the first Tuesday of this half term I would tackle the journey from the Yorkshire Dales to Manchester. Scary traffic - I loath the M60! Meanwhile senior examiners have been discussing the questions and a large sample of the scripts, and then setting the standards. At the training day we are allocated a group where, with up to eight other teachers, we are taught the standard by a senior examiner. We read, mark and discuss, and by the end of the day have just about got it. For the next week we are closely monitored and exchange several selections of scripts with our senior examiner and if you are not getting it right you have to send more of your marked scripts for review. Eventually, about a week after the training day and nearly two weeks after the exam, if the senior staff think you are doing it right you are cleared for take off and get to mark with a red pen. Even then several samples of scripts are sent in the middle of the marking process and at the end. As a teacher marking for the first time you have to under go additional training too, but old hands generally are left to get on with it for a while now. Believe it or not the senior examiners' checking of examiners' work is also monitored from on high, by even more senior examiners endearingly known as "Apes" (assistant principle examiners), above them all sits the Principle Examiner, all cross checking the work like fury.

What amazed me the first time I went to an examiners' standardisation meeting was how convinced the senior examiners were, that despite the difficulties, a universal standard could be found and applied across this difficult, subjective exam. The senior staff were all impressive and convincing. As current or former English teachers, of course, they were highly literate and good communicators; they were also good teachers themselves, usually drawn from senior staff (heads of department or deputy heads). The training on the day left assistant examiners feeling both the weight of the responsibility but also confident that standardisation could be achieved. The sampling and checking of examiner's work, together with clear feedback to the examiner of where faults in the marking might lie, all ensured the standardisation was achieved. It is never 100% accurate of course in a subjective essay based subject, but the procedures are in place to make it as fair as is humanly possible.

So if you have just sat your GCSE English Literature rest assured that the script you handed in is in good hands, and the teacher marking it will be monitored closely.

If you are marking this year for the first time it is a bit daunting, especially if you are a fairly new teacher. Your senior examiner will probably ring you a lot to check you're ok. The first 100 scripts are the worst, followed by the last 100! The middle two hundred, when you've got your eye in, and you are flying along I always enjoyed. Honestly! The kids, even if they have been a pain in the proverbial for their own staff for their entire school career, tend to try hard in exams so you are seeing the best of them. Some of the A and B grade answers will delight you. Even at 10pm after a full day at work and two hours evening marking someone will give you an answer on To Kill a Mocking Bird or Lord of the Flies that will have you re-reading it just for the sheer pleasure of watching someone do something well. Once you get in that last hundred it is hard: end of term, you're tired and want to get it finished but you get there in the end. And from a parent or student point of view, because of this obvious tiredness towards the end of each examiner's work, senior examiners always call in the last 50 scripts from each marker for double checking.

In a few months time each examiner will receive a written report on their marking with a grade (yes, A-E!) on the standard of reliability and accuracy they reached in applying the agreed standards. If you're not good enough you have you won't be asked to mark again. Only examiners who consistently achieve A grades over several consecutive years will be asked to apply for senior examiner roles.

Not all bureaucratic systems work but this one, considering the odds is not bad at all. So as I look towards my first June in ages with no GCSE script marking to do I will think of those tackling the job with a little envy, but also with a little gloat as I relish the rare freedom.