If exams/assessments are to establish a certain level of competence, then the TAGs are brilliant. If it is to select students for appropriate university courses not so good, maybe there needs to be an University Entrance Exam (I took one as a mature student). If it is for employment purposes there would seem to be a variety of factors to take into consideration. General 3R’s competence. Then specific attributes which are not necessarily matched to traditional subjects. A large number of todays school students will be doing jobs which do not not yet exist! Skills and aptitude are becoming ever more important than knowledge – maybe an exam in which students have to interpret different internet sites for authenticity?
Obviously I have no answers, but it does seem that the whole exam and indeed school system is as antiquated as asking someone to ride a penny farthing and then giving them a driving licence! Children are spending too much time on screens anyway without adding hours of education looking at the OHP screen in endless hours of boredom in the classroom.
School trips, as a geography teacher I managed to fit in 370 days+ out on field trips in my teaching career. But the decline was steady. In 1986 there were 16 days out with students (more for me, if going out with different classes in the same year group), by 2012 this was reduced to 7. (Of which 5 were year 12). Trips to Drayton Park and paint balling are not in the same league educationally.