(UK ed secr) Gove orders inquiry into exams advice given to teachers

Education secretary Michael Gove has ordered an inquiry into a claim that examiners are giving teachers advice on what questions their pupils should expect in GCSE and A-level papers.

Some examiners are giving detailed advice so that schools can focus on teaching to the test rather than covering the entire syllabus, an investigation had found. Teachers attending exam board seminars get precise information about what areas will be examined, according to the investigation reported in the Daily Telegraph.

At an exam seminar on GCSE history in November, a chief examiner was recorded as telling teachers: "This coming summer, and there's a slide on this later on, it's going to be the middle bit: life in Germany '33-'39; or, for America, it will be rise and fall of the American economy. And then the other two questions will be in section B." The examiner allegedly said: "We're cheating. We're telling you the cycle . Probably the regulator will tell us off."

He advised teachers he was telling them how to "hammer exam technique" rather than the approach of "proper educationalists" to "teach the lot". When another examiner was asked if pupils would not face a question on Iraq or Iran next year, a teacher was told: "Off the record, yes."

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/07/michael-gove-orders-inquiry-exams