will my son be disavantaged if he doesnt have the ebac?

but I must ask why you place music above business/textiles?

but wordfactory too often I have seen choices made for only 'academic' subjects where the student in question would not attain the A/A* grades that these courses/unis require. Far better to show a range of skills/subjects with high grades than academic ones with average grades

gramercy and ruddy well quite.

cricket what is required and what you need to actually get a place are not one and the same.

the facts are though that only 2 facilitating subjects are required at A level for a RG uni.

The facts are that the A levels/GCSEs for RG unis need to be very high grades; the facts are that it is not only business degrees that suggest A Level Business would be an advantage....

There is no point just studying purely academic subjects unless you are 100% positive that you are going to get high grades; RG ambition or not. There are sometimes the need to study something different which learns different skills (not just the subject content)

I did my GCSEs in 1996. At my school the ebacc subjects were compulsory with optional extras such as pe, re, art, music and drama. It shows a good rounded education and I would wish my dc to go to a school with high ebacc attainment. One of my younger relatives just did a dance Btec and a business Btec, each was said to be equivalent of 4 GCSEs. She then did maths, English and science, thus 11 GCSEs.

As wordfactory says in earlier post, taking a core of academic subjects is nothing new. People are posturing on here and huffing and puffing about "the Government", but in my day (ahem, that would be 30 years ago) we had to do English, English, Maths, Science (although it could be one out of the three), History/Geography and an MFL as a minimum. And in my mother's day there was School Certificate which was worse - you had to pass all the subjects or get nowt.

cricketballs it matters not a jot what's in the curiculum. The fact is that to win a place on a competitive course at an RG university, you will need to stick to the most rigorous academic subjects.

Taking other subjects limits options.

Personally, I don't think it's wise to limit options at 14 years old.

If you have a burning desire to learn about business, you would, imho, be far wiser to take good solid, well thought of quals and study it at tertiary level. Certainly no business studies degree requires GCSE in the subject. But many other degrees require you to have taken more academically challenging subjects.

The facts, whether we like them or not, are the facts.

putthat - same with my son; he did history and geography but no language! But I am glad that he did a range of subjects including DT (also resistant materials - even though the cabinet he made didn't quite go in our house ) and sport (shock horror though it was a BTEC!) He is currently doing history, geography, law and PE at A Level (and yes, the BTEC sport did allow him onto the A Level PE which he does say is by far the hardest of the 4)

wordfactory, textiles is a D&T subject just as Res mats and electronics is so why should it be treated differently?

I do think a language is important, but not necessarily as part of the ebacc package. AFAIK DD will not be getting the ebacc, even though she is doing German, French, RS, Latin and Resistant Materials (D&T)!

word factory - have you any idea what the GCSE Business Studies actually involves? If you did then I doubt you would have included it with the sweeping statement you have just made

Many independent and grammar schools have been strongly encouraging/insisting that all pupils take an MFL and a humanity since the dawn of time.

A good spread shows an all round ability. So whilst RG universities don't set the EB as a requirement, it may be the deciding factor between two otherwise good candidates.

That said, if I thought a DC would get a low grade in MFL and a good grade in music/RS/history, I'd err on the side of the good grade. What an MFL shouldn't be replaced by is business studies/textiles/tourism. Not if your DC is aiming at a competitive course at a competitive university.

My DS1 is in Year 12, and sat his GCSEs last year. He couldn't wait to give up MFL, so didn't take one at GCSE but did well in his exams and has EBacc in every other respect. I am furious that this way of assessing students which the government appeared to have dreamed up on a whim is actually being taken seriously by universities. I sincerely hope my DS will not be disadvantaged.

The reason no search results come up on the Russell Group website for EBacc is not because they are ignoring it but because it isn't actually called an EBacc!

If you search on the same site for English Baccalaureate, the search results will show you what different universities position on the EBacc is. I have only read the first one, from Oxford:

'Oxford will keep the development of the English Baccalaureate under review, assessing to see if it is a helpful predictor for success at Oxford, but will not, under any circumstances, require it of students who have chosen their GCSE mix before Oxford indicates any compulsory use in the admissions process.'

So there is nothing to worry about for pupils about to choose GCSE options, but that may or may not change for pupils who are younger.

It does seem odd to include History and Geography but not, say, Music/Classics/Latin as Humanities. My O-levels wouldn't have got me the Ebacc (still got the RG university place though).

How about if your year 9 child doesnt want to do History or geography? is that going to stop them getting an ebc and then what?

I think if your child is thinking of a good uni and wants to keep her options open in terms of subject then the eBbacc is actually a good set of core subjects that will stand her in good stead both for A level preparation AND show that she has the skills to do sciences, arts/humanities and social sciences at uni

also for those that know what they want to do at uni and so thinking of dropping one that best to think of replacing it with another on the list. So 3 sciences rather than 2 + modern language rather than 2 sciences + non core subject.

Thank god I am not an MFL teacher - some of those lessons will be absolute bedlam from next year.

In Scotland students are not required to take a MFL. However as most uni's now look at GCSE/Standard grades, to my mind it makes sense to keep your options open and go for the more academic subjects.

DS has chosen his subjects for year 10 and he won't be doing ebacc. He will do music instead of history or geography. The school don't insist on a MFL either, but they do strongly advise anyone thinking of going to university to take french to GCSE. They do offer german, spanish and mandarin(sp?) too for those wanting two MFL.

Agree with what other people have said -colleges/universities are still vague about what importance they will place on EBacc but more and more employers are choosing those with languages over those without, particularly in business and industry. People without some language skill will be at a disadvantage as jobs/uni places become more and more competitive. www.whystudylanguages.ac.uk/

ha,ha boost!