Schools are removing analogue clocks from exam rooms because teenagers cannot tell the time, a representative of the UK teachers’ union has said.
Analogue school clock
Teachers are now installing digital clocks after students complained in their GCSE and A-level exams that they had difficulty reading the correct time on an analogue clock.
Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders told The Telegraph:
“The current generation can’t read the traditional clock face as well as older generations.””They are used to seeing a digital representation of the time on their phone, on their computer. Almost everything they have is digital, so young people are just confronted with time everywhere they are given digitally. ”
He said schools try to make everything as simple and easy as possible for students during their exams.
“Teachers want their students to feel as relaxed as possible during exams. A traditional clock in the room could lead to unnecessary stress”
A traditional clock in the room could lead to unnecessary stress, he added.
“You don’t want them to raise their hand and ask how much time is left,” he said.
“Schools will inevitably do their best to make young children feel as relaxed as they can. The use of digital clocks in examination rooms actually offers a great advantage, he said, as it is less easy to misread a time on a digital clock when working under time pressure.
“This makes one wonder if this is what awaits us on the mainland and what can be done here to help students or better still, children learn the clock. Surely it can’t be that we are now starting to unlearn how to read the clock? We are working on it 😉
