AQA English GSCE

Understanding and producing non-fiction texts


1.	What do you understand from the article about the issues of children and starting school?


Let’s get some baselines down, the article is from The Guardian, a highly popular news source with left leaning authors, not to say that all of the authors of them are socialist, but the majority are. The Guardian is also one of the most, if not the most, popular news site online, even as much as making a website before its competitors.
But lets not forget that The Guardian is also a business first and foremost, which means they are going to be using marketing and propaganda on their target audience, it would be silly not to think otherwise. So what does this mean? Well they’re going to pander to their audience, their audience being liberals who would prefer our county being more like the Slavic countries, being Finland in this article, because they’re more progressive than the UK.

[just reading up on the article online, and to be truthful you really shouldn’t of butchered the piece, I understand that the education boards want don’t want to exclude the so called “least gifted” but if there’s anything children like more its giving their opinion on social issues, which this article could of provided, it’s giving their opinion on social issues that effect them. Could you imagine all the essays criticizing the UK and their conservative schooling system? And it would happen too, you’re giving a teenager, which by the way tend to more liberal to begin with, a professionally writ article pointing out some flaws in the schooling system, which they’re apart of. They’re going to agree with the article because why wouldn’t they? It’s leftist and professional and supports their view, and I bet some of the essays would be hilarious, all the disgruntled opinions and pseudo-intellectualism, brilliant.
 But hey what do know about teenagers? I isolated myself away from them for two years. Just to state I’m writing the essay on the source you gave me]

The opening paragraph sets up the topical of the article, being the difficulties of starting state schooling at a young age and the effects that could cause to a child still in development. It later stats how in many European countries the national schooling age is higher the UK and that the ones that adopt a higher age, being Finland, usually experience higher educational outcomes. The writer then focuses on Finland a little bit more and expands on how Finland boasts not only a the best educational scores in the European Union but also has a “high level of income equality but also has the highest age for beginning formal education – which is seven, a full three years later than many children in the UK.

The writer then goes on and gives some reasons and explanations about how the younger national schooling age affects the children, deducing the popular modern myth of only less gifted pupils being effected, when in fact its largely only “gifted” pupils being failed by the system by proxy of placing to much stress on them, giving the source of a study deducted by a charity, potential plus UK.  The writer uses to the word “stifled” in regards to the children’s eagerness to learn, to form a negative opinion on the way children are taught now on the reader.  The author then lists some scenarios when a gifted child could become stressed by being placed in a formal education when in early development, “an inability to manage time; disorganisation and frequently losing things; problems with friendship; bullying; being disruptive in class; difficulty concentrating; overall poor presentation of work”, she says these scenarios could result in a fear of failure.

The next paragraph tries to connect with reader, expressing what would it be like to be in child in today’s education? Well she says it would be like be put into a straight jacket that’s too tight. She then says how children are often miss-diagnosed with learning, namely ADHD, ODD, OCD, OCPD, depression and aspergers syndrome. The writer then goes on to say how awful it must be to placed into a fun and vibrant place with many distractions and being told to be quiet and concentrate.

Our highly standardised schooling system is oft time destroys a child in developments work ethic and says how this mainly effects males, says the author, and if we continue to keep an frankly old fashioned system seven years could have had enough schooling to last a lifetime.

I mean that says it all really, a leftist paper criticizing a right wing schooling system, what’s new? Except that isn’t all that needs to be said, The Guardian does have some merit. Students are losing their work ethic. But is that because of  the low schooling age or because of the highly standardised testing?


2.	Explain how the headline and picture are effective and how they link to the text.

Article from the Times here, not going to bore you with ramblings but the Times is fairly conservative, good thing the question doesn’t relate to that.

Lets give some notes on the picture first:

1.	First thing that stands out is the apple laptop, it glow lighting up the childrens clothing and faces,  a nice little pun to the title there and the idea of this virtual classroom initiative it called glow, albeit not a good one.
2.	Its looks like highland Scotland, clearly giving a sense of isolation from others, rolling hills with purple skies and all the other overused “artistic” descriptions, give a sense of lonely and remote probably in neglected seeing as how the articles from 2010 and is only just getting internet. Also leads into the fact that “the school could hardly be more remote”.
3.	The children look like they’re in a sense of wonderment, not quite sure why. Its only a laptop, then again, like the west country, I suppose isolated Scotland has only just discovered internet.

Lets move onto the headline, Island children bask in the glow of a virtual classroom, miles from everyone:

1.	“Island children” gives us a sense that they’re not like other people..
2.	“miles from everyone” just reinforces the fact their isolated and remote.
3.	“virtual classroom”  gives the reader the idea of a modernised educational experience,  perhaps even amazement by the fact that most schools don’t rely on technology as much.
4.	“bask in the glow” gives a sense us a sense of mystery and perhaps even enforces a godly feeling, of course its metaphorical but it links to the picture.



Question 3. Explain some of the thoughts and feelings the writer has when cycling home.

She views herself as impressive, quite vigorously in fact, it’s a constant in the text. “I had to overtake them, it was a race though they didn’t know it”, The writer, Jane, is competitive, always wanting to be successful and takes pride in herself now that she got into, I’m assuming, a decent school. She continues with being “impressive” stating that she was sure people were watching her as she cycled past them, she enjoyed being viewed as mature and adult, which is why she was pleased with having being assigned homework. “we never had homework at cliff lane” she views that as an achievement of some calibre.
She views her old self with a negative view, disgust even. She could believe that she used to be like she was, and views going to North Gate as some title of accomplishment and to not muddy the title by acting immaturely, “It was difficult to believe that I’d played in this dark musty space for months on end. I didn’t play in sheds any more now that I went to Northgate” and “I didn’t play with Margaret Whitman and Margaret Hayward any more either. I was a grammar school girl”.


Question 4.

I’m choosing source one, just because it’s more professional.

 Source 1.

1.	The writer uses professional writing throughout except for some notable exceptions, its clear and to the point, no useless artistic descriptions apart from paragraph five, which is where the quality declined.
2.	She uses the word “stifled” to inflict a negative opinion on the reader while supporting her views, stifled means to suffocate and eventually, perhaps, even kill, which is obviously how she feels about the current educational system if it keeps going the way its going.
3.	A similar approach appears later on in the text as well with “straight jacket”. She views the schooling in the UK as clear cut with no opportunity to express their creativity while being suppressed by a highly standardised system.


Source 3.

1.	The text is more personable, trying to relate to viewer and see things from her point of view in a more casual writing tone of speech, almost as if it was being writ into a dairy.
2.	“I was hot, but I’d beaten everybody” she wants to best everybody.

I know my analysis of source three wasn’t very good, not saying the others were either, but I just don’t relate to anything in the text


Question 5.

Don’t have any real memorable events, filtered them all out. I don’t really want to make one up either because that isn’t what literacy Is about, you should write from past experiences and  have none.


Question 6.

Let’s try not to take away the oppositions integrity. He thinks would like to live his life on an island away from the rat race, and who could blame him? Well, honestly, everyone. Because lets be real here he isn’t some macho wild hunter. No, he’s probably some college student who likes to hike every now and then and expects the little island of his to be some magical place from his fantasies. It’s entirely possible that he some bear grylls type but it’s a slim chance.  Now obviously attacking the rival isn’t the way in a heated discussion. So let’s focus on the city, and I know I’m supposed to be some silver tongued snake that poisons your ideal and wil persuade you to come to my side of the opinion, but I’m just going to shoot straight. Because nobody trusts a sales man, they would prefer a straight talking person who will tell you the flaws, how do you think Corbyn got elected? They liked his honest personality. So, the city life is alright, its not great but then again nothing is truly great about any place. It has its flaws, but it’s good at what it does. What does it do?  It’s a place for middle management types to come together and play their corporate games. That is the base of what a city is. A place for business and trading. But with that comes many disadvantages, its no place for a family, there’s a huge homelessness problem and its loud. That’s not all the flaws, but it’s the ones that stands out to a layman. Do the benefits outweigh the problems? I don’t know it’s your decision. Is it dirty? Yes. The city is dirty. Good thing you have shoea. Is it noisy? Yes, good thing theres sound proof windows and headphones which you can buy with that extra money you get from being employed in the city where the jobs are better. All the problems brought up are solvable, good thing he didn’t bring up any meaningful problems.