As I have often said here, the plural of anecdote is not data. But (as I have often gone on to say) -
A few years ago a friend's daughter came round to my house to do some coursework on my computer. She was doing the composition module of her GCSE music. At some point in the day she played it to me. "It's bloody awful", she said. Privately agreeing, but searching for something good to say about it, I said, "I quite like the middle section". "Oh, Mr Beech wrote that bit", she replied. Mr Beech was the head of department.
A relative of mine was doing GCSE art. She had got stuck with a big painting and brought it home. Her Mum is quite a good artist and spent an hour or so working on it. The daughter got an A, and for a year or so the painting figured prominently on the school's promotional literature.
A teenager was telling me recently about her French GCSE aural. Apparently the kids have to write and then memorise the answers to some questions (actually where the parents are literate in French, the parents tend to do it for them). In the aural itself the examiner, who is their teacher, asks the questions and marks the kids on their ability to recite the answers. The exchange is recorded on tape, but, this teenager told me, that doesn't stop the teachers giving visual clues when candidates have a memory lapse, or even writing words down on paper and holding them up for the candidates to see.
I have a lot of sympathy for teachers faced with yet another shake-up of the exam system. But coursework has got to go. There is overwhelming temptation for parents and staff to cheat.
