Hey, I go to the same school as war_ali, macoboi, JimMorrison and Zohab. Just a few things... The views these blokes have are not the views of the majority of the students in our year!
Numerous people have admitted having access to the our Paper One. It is only fair that everyone resit it. It is placed in the middle of our exams next week, true, but it places everyone at the same disadvantages.
Zohab said:
What about the unfair advantage that all the other 60 000 HSC students are getting over the yr 12 students at our school
This is bullshit. The trials are ONLY INTERNAL ASSESSMENTS. There only purpose is to rank us against eachother. So it does not matter if other people in the state have an easier or harder test, more or less favourable working conditions, etc. This is the entire concept of our HSC, as the great leveller that moderates all our marks at the end of the year and evens everything out.
Some other things that I've read, that are also complete and utter bullshit:
war_ali said:
Thanks to a parent who can pull strings
"pull strings".... hmmm I dont know about everyone elses school but, if any parent, or member of the public in general, rings up our principal and tells her that, they know of a breach of security in upcoming tests, our principal will of course take action to stop the cheating and to 'protect the integrity of the internal assessments'!
war_ali said:
"...[our principal] had attempted to keep her senior officer oblivious to this event...
macoboi said:
"...but the fact that our principal can actually try to believe she can hide this from her superiors is inexcusable. since wen did protecting her image become more important than our futures. imagine if no1 rung th paper. this would have happened, no1 at DET ould have been any tha wiser...
The fact that it was one of her superiors within the Department of Education, who may also be a parent, that told her of the breach of security rules out this claim. Although JimMorrison, the person who wrote that letter, may like to believe that conspiracies are prevalent and that the teachers are against the yr 12 students, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest this.
With the newspaper bit, I believe that the newspaper rang the DET Media Liaison Officer on the same day as the cheating was uncovered, and he had not been told about it yet. This is where they seem to have gotten the bit about trying to hide it from her superiors which is bullshit. And doesnt Macoboi realise that all the teachers are part of the DET, they all work together, and it was our principals superiors AT DET that were the ones who informed her of the cheating. It would of been impossible for her to hide it even if she wanted to for some unknown reason.
I'm extremely confident, knowing my teachers, that every proper procedure was followed to the book and the students were at the forefront of our teachers and principal's minds when the second paper was rewritten and the decision to redo paper one was made. Just like most of our grade. Id rather redo the paper than know that some people had unfair advantages, which cheats us out of the ranks we should be getting.
war_ali said:
"...refusing the move the exam to the next week, which would be optimal and entirely fair for everyone, they refuse to do this simply because the english staff are lazy and are complaining about 'marking time', when in reality the marking time available to them is more than substantial...
AahhhK... to anyone thats reading this forum from other schools the majority of everything written on this thread is crap... It's either a vague interpretation to a one-sided argument or its just complete bullshit.
Moving the exam to the week war_ali/JimMorrison suggests is in no way 'optimal and entirely fair for everyone'. In this week people have their majors for many subjects due, there are still language exams occuring and drama assessments, along with many other things. Secondly, the marking time is in no way substantial. English is done first for a reason... it takes by far the longest to mark, and us resitting paper one in the second week has already taken an entire week away from their marking time. They have deadlines to meet with submitting marks to the Board of Studies too. I know it was suggested that they might get an extension, but I know that I personally, and alot of others want our marks back as soon as possible, and that either way it would still be an inconvenience to some students.
The English staff at our school arent lazy, a few of our teachers are infamous for their protracted reporting of assessment marks, but they go out of their way to help us by organising study days, extra notes, marking practice essays and tests if we want to submit them, etc. Btw with the study days, as we live deep in regional NSW... Griffith to be exact, grab a map and its a 6/7 hour drive from Sydney, with a population of under 30,000 people. It is no easy task getting the speakers/composers that the city schools enjoy so much of, to come all the way out to Griffith.
war_ali said:
"...this security breach has occurred under very vulnerable circumstances and the department of education needs to seriously review the HSC trial exam process, especially with companies mass selling exams to schools... opportunities for cheating are endless
'vulnerable cicumstance'... explain this one cuz i dont understand what you mean by it...
But as for the exam trial process, yes I agree it obviously has some faults as does any other system in this world (nothing in this world is perfect... yet!), but these opportunities only occured because multiple exam papers were taken out of the exam room at schools OTHER THAN Wade High School (our school), against both DET protocols and against the terms agreed to when purchasing the Independent Schools Association papers. This is where the only fault in this entire situation lies. Of couse people can still tell eachother the questions they remember but this would only be of any use in Paper Two and this help would be negligible. For Paper One, you would have to remember all the stimulus texts which would be next to impossible while still doing the exam, and for any other subject paper the sheer number of questions generally makes this impossible to be effective.
macoboi said:
our school is trying to cover its incompetancy by blaming
1. the 2 other schools
2. the company involved in selling the papers
3. the DET
4. the BOS protocol
5. US ("well some students claimed CHEATING occured in paper 1")
Ooook.... I sat through the same talks from our principals and teachers that Macoboi did, and the only thing that could possible be construed as blame was at the school that let the papers get released from the exam room. They definetly didnt blame the DET (errrr teachers are part of the DET, that would be blaming themselves!), and I didnt hear anything suggesting they blamed us the students. As for the BOS protocol, it wasnt even mentioned, as it is completely irrelevant. The Board of Studies does not control or have protocols for the internal administration of schools.
Zohab said:
There are very few rules/regulations out there to protect us students yet there are plenty of rules to “rape” us if we hand in an assessment at 9:01AM.
Fair, I think not, this just goes to prove that we students are seen as second class citizens and the rules don’t apply to the teachers.
When is it our turn for justice,
Hmm I remember back in yr 7 and 8 when we thought we were so unfairly done by... didnt get to do all the things that 'grown ups' did. I guess some people never really moved on, aye Zohab!
war_ali said:
Ok, dandy, and our notice? about 3 days.
This is bullshit. We've had the proper two weeks written notice of the exam dates, etc. The fact that we get an extra week for our Paper One English exam should not be a problem. If they had moved something forward a week then there would be a problem. This just gives people more time.
Zohab said:
I don’t know about you but a rubric is pretty fucken useful in the sense that it guides the essay...
If you'd studied more man, than youd know that all the rubrics are basically the same for those modules... you should be used to them by now, and I think it was Macoboi that brought up that the texts werent listed. Before the test started our head english teacher came into the exam room and asked if anyone needed to be reminded of which text they were studying. If you still dotn know then you probably shouldnt be botherin to sit your English exam in the first place.
war_ali said:
Yeah we did get a choice actually - and the teachers then brushed any complaints onto us because 'we voted for it'
True we did vote for it, and Tuesday won, showing thats when the majority of the year wants it. I dont see a problem with that.
Ok thats me for now... Just to PARAPHRASE, pretty much everything that these blokes have been sayin is bullshit and theres alot more of it on here. I jus cant be bothered to go through it. Id rather study for the rest of my trials, including English which I now have a few more days on!! Personal attacks on teachers or departments will get these blokes nowhere. And if they had any guts theyd complain through the proper channels or to those teachers, not on forums where they dont expect they're teachers to look!
Our school was not in any way in the wrong in this whole thing so just gos to show how much school pride these people have! It'd be better for everyone if yous jus got over it.... bad luck things happen in life. What happens when you get a job and you suddenly have to go away for business. Are you going to have a cry because you didnt get your months contracted notice? etc etc many more situations....
