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Time to cane OBE and can levels
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This article
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Thanks Peter. Did you have Steve’s permission to publish here? Just need to check
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Thanks Bronwen - yes I have Steve Kessel’s permission to publish his article on PerthNorg.
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Great!
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Well said Steve, the sooner OBE and the meaningless levels used by this farcical system are abandoned, the better.
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Great article. I think the best I’ve read on the subject. One question, maaybe the teachers among you can answer - is the level system part of OBE?
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Sorry, I ask because they have just started reporting it at my son’s school and as far as I knew there is no official OBE implementation. He attends a private school.
Quite frankly I found his report next to useless…
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Yes, levelling is the reporting tool of OBE and is possibly OBE’s worst feature.
Unless your son is in year 11 or 12 next year his school will be required to give a meaningless level and a grade that is married to the level.
Some teachers will give you a percentage if you ask but we are not allowed to include it as part of your kids report (as percentages are not used under OBE as they may shatter your childs ego if they are compared to any other student)
You will notice that nearly all kids in the same class will have the same level.
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Hi Newshound.
I’m not a teacher, but I’ll do my best to answer your questions. The term OBE is so ill-defined that it can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. The short answer to your questions are -
(a) yes, levelling is fundamental to the model of OBE adopted in WA. So is the absence of syllabus. If WA can replace “outcomes” (vague, subjective and incomprehensible behavioural descriptors) with clear syllabus (ie defined course content) and replace ‘levels’ as an assessment method with marks, the problems would be solved. After that they can call the system OBE or anything they want to!
(b) All schools in WA, including private, are required to use OBE - though the reality is that the more enlightened have merely paid lip service to this absurd ‘top down’ edict from the education bureaucracy. Some (a very few)private schools have sidestepped OBE by teaching according to the International Baccalaureat - an internationally and standardised system, but in WA none (to my knowledge) do this other than for upper secondary school.
(c) Yes - your son’s report was meaningless - scandalously so - and that is a direct product of OBE at State level and state/federal, Labor/ Liberal bunfighting.
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Well said, Peter. I am a Secondary School teacher and I agree whole heartedly with what you have written.
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Most private schools have been FORCED to use OBE, as the original non-OBE courses have lost their accreditation.
Oh Yes, the Curriculum Council itself — the initiators of OBE in WA — decide which courses are and are not accredited! Some have been accredited even before they were completed!
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The full article is available on the PLATOWA website (also in printable form):
http://platowa.com/
And Yes, I did give permission for PerthNorg to reprint it here. Thanks for the positive comments.
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Well spoken ,Steve. The whole OBE campaign has been a scandal and a disaster. I hope the new minister realizes how it has been bullied through,in spite of nobody wanting it. As a parent I am amazed that we, the consumers in the system, are not heard, and, like teachers, our feedback has been ignored.
It’s time we had some say as it’s our kids who are the victims of this stupid system. We receive the meaningless reports, and we have to hope the assessment gets improved so our kids don’t miss out on their uni places.
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