Interesting Facts

According to guidelines drawn up by, of all things, the Institute of Physics the following words and phrases should be avoided to prevent sexism. Sissy Don't be a girl Man up Cupcake (Senior teachers will be appointed ‘gender champions’, in a bid to eliminate gender stereotyping. I would suggest they add, "grow a pair" and "you throw like a girl" to that list. In all seriousness, the idea is that schools should find strategies to get more girls to study so-called ‘male’ subjects such as economics and physics at GCSE and A-level, while boys should be encouraged to take more ‘female’ subjects including English literature, foreign languages and psychology. Hang on! Male subjects and female subjects - now that is sexist. The Department for Education obviously has a lot of time on its hands, and a slightly worrying regard for physicists.)

nder plans set out by Schools Minister Nick Gibb, every state school pupil will be expected to sit at least five “hard” GCSEs to increase the number of state-educated students at the best universities and in the top professions, the government has said. (This means that all pupils starting secondary school in autumn 2015 will be expected to take maths, English, a foreign language, history or geography and at least one science subject when they begin their GCSE courses in 2018. If you have just sat your art and design, music and drama, business studies, communication and culture and citizenship exams, you can breathe a sigh of relief.)

The Twitter hashtag #EdexcelMaths popped up all over the internet following  the GCSE maths exam paper from Edexcel (part of the Pearson group).  It contained a question about someone called Hannah and her bag of orange and yellow sweets, and caused a hilarious Twitter storm. (Tweets like this:- flooded the net over the following question:- Hannah has 6 orange sweets and some yellow sweets. Overall, she has n sweets. The probability of her taking 2 orange sweets is 1/3. Prove that: n^2-n-90=0 According to the Independent, this is the answer:- There are 6 orange sweets and n sweets overall. So, if Hannah takes one, there is 6/n chance of getting an orange sweet. When she takes one,, there is one less orange sweet and one less overall meaning that the probability is now (6-1)/(n-1)=5/n-1. To find the probability of getting the orange sweet both times, multiply the two fractions: 6/n* 5/n-1 =30/n^2-n. It shows the probability of taking two orange sweets (1/3) i...

When writing a CV, over 50s in the UK are removing references to their O-levels to give themselves a better chance of getting an interview. (The O'level is a pre-1988 secondary school qualification replaced by GCSEs.  Once something to be proud of, nowadays by writing O'level on a CV you are giving away your age, and in our ageist society people just think - past it. )

According to a report published by Renaissance Learning, pupils in the UK struggle to understand GCSE exam papers. (Their reading skills are so poor at the end of secondary education due to a lack of time spent practising how to read.  This is so sad.) Source

GCSE exam papers in the UK are aimed at a reading age of 15 years and seven months. (So, if you want to assess your reading skills, try looking at some past exam papers online . Good luck!)