GCSE's taught over 3 years?

For an all rounder like my dd it would have mattered to have lost music, art , computers RE etc for a year. For my other DD she struggled with the pressure of gcses at the start of Y10 so think it would have been harder for her at Y9. They have been allocated 1 extra lesson for maths & English but have found in Maths at least that they have already covered what they needed to this year. Think it might be a bit of a knee jerk reaction and I am still a bit surprised grammar schools are doing this. So much for being better all round educators for the high achievers.

I work with a lot of schools across the north and all of them, from suffering comp to well off independent, are doing a three year GCSE.

At DD's school they ramped up the homework in year 9. She got the least amount in year 8.

In our school Year 9 is seen by many children as not really mattering, so not worth doing much work for. I think a move to 3 year GCSEs might help solve this issue.

Don't know about the kids, but both years 8 and 9 are seen as not really mattering by the teachers at our son's school. If any year 10-13 lessons are jeopardised by their teachers being off sick or away for training/meetings, etc., it's always the year 8/9 teachers who cover for them, leaving the years 8/9 to suffer supply or cover teachers with the usual scrappy worksheet if they're lucky. There's also be a very noticeable lack of homework in years 8/9, compared with huge amounts they got in year 7 and promises/threats of huge amounts in years 10 onwards. From what my son says, I get the impression that years 8/9 are "holding" years where they're just baby-sitting/entertaining the kids rather than teaching them anything fundamental. Of course, some of the teachers are awesome and have done a hell of a lot, but a significant minority of his year 8/9 teachers have been pretty disinterested - eg he only got one maths homework in the entire year 8 and in year 9, he's only seen his proper Physics teacher for about 10 lessons in the whole year as he's either covering higher years due to teacher illness or off the for afternoon with the inter-school rugby team! I'm hoping they up their game in year 10 onwards as it's been pretty poor so far!

OK, by reading through the thread, I've found an exception: St George's Medicine. But it's a wild outlier: Oxford and Cambridge don't impose the same requirement.

Our local school has the pupils taking science GCSEs in 2 sittings. They all sit the first 2 papers in each science at the end of year 10, which (if they pass) gives combined science, the equivalent of 2 GCSEs. They sit the 3rd paper for each science with the rest of the GCSEs in year 11, which, combined with the earlier papers, gives them a GCSE in each individual science. Pupils can also have a second attempt at the other papers if they want/need to improve their grade.

Do the comments above mean that pupils who "collect" their science GCSEs in this way would not be viewed as favourably, for example in competiting for a place on for a sought after course?

My kids do extended GCSEs too, they start in yr 9 as it's shown to be better for results. Makes perfect sense

They don't mind how long you take to do them so long as you do them all at once.

I do admissions, and I wrote our RG department's admissions policy after reading a lot of other departments' and talking to peple. I'm not aware of any department with a GCSE timing constraint, although I know a few (mostly medicine: as a counter example, a friend's child with staggered A Levels is doing English at Oxford on a two-subject conditional offer) which place that constraint on A Levels.. It's even harder to see how this claim stands today, as literally no-one has published their entry criteria for 2020 or whenever it is that current Y9s are applying.

I don't currently know of any department, certainly not in my subject, with a hard requirement on GCSE timing, nor can I particularly think why they would care. It's possible that it would be a (weak) sorting criteria for subjects that interview, but even then I've seen no evidence of it. I know it's popular to believe there are hidden criteria which they don't tell you about, but any university which did that at scale would do so at its peril: Les Ebden is stalking the corridors looking for that sort of shit, and universities are also paranoid about CMA referrals on publicity material.

"Oh & St George's Medical School in London want you to have done maths GCSE in yr11 with your other GCSEs. There might be other universities which specify but I'm not aware of them."

There's a minor exception to that, if you do maths in year 10, plus further maths in year 11 you'll still be OK.

RedHelen that's my thinking too, and my dds' grammar school position. However they do begin GCSE content in yr9 in some core subjects, without dropping any (non GCSE) subjects.

The boys' grammar down the road are moving to 3 year GCSEs though, but I don't know the details.

"There were schools in the 80s (well at least early 80s) where people did 12 GCSEs."

That's impossible, it was O levels and CSEs until 1988. Or did you just mean the 16+ exams?

It was unusual to do more than 8 or 9 subjects at the start of the 80s, and all were linear and there was no coursework for O levels (other than in subjects like art) though there was for CSE.

At my grammar school, even the two exceptionally clever swotty girls didn't get a clean sweep of A grades.

There needs to be a big change to perceptions of what a 'good' set of results looks like.

I would have been bored silly doing gcses over 3 years. Really glad that my dds have had the two year option. I thought with grammar schools having the brighter pupils that they would only need two years for GCSEs and would want to offer as broad a curriculum as possible for as long as possible.

DD did iGCSE maths in year 11, but in January. Does this count?

Oh & St George's Medical School in London want you to have done maths GCSE in yr11 with your other GCSEs. There might be other universities which specify but I'm not aware of them.

I cannot see any benefit in taking 15 GCSEs. What subjects do you add? Dcs & I did 11, 3 sciences, 2 English, maths, MFL, & then 4 electives. Dcs will all do a creative, I did Latin. What else do you need?

flissfloss65
"I agree, taking 15 GCSE is for the schools benefit."

Schools in England are judged on progress 8 so only 8 subjects will count towards the tables. (As I understand it).

But this was last year and may well have changed already

DD did history in one year, but had 5 hours a week, same for art and geography. I think the school might be dropping the "short, fat" GCSEs now though.

A 3 year GCSE normally doesn't mean you take any of them early. Not round here.

It means:

1. You take your GCSE options for longer
2. You drop the other subjects earlier.
3. You have less teachers
4. Each teacher has you for more hours per week.

Dropping subjects you don't like can improve behaviour massively.

I'm massively in favour of it. Teaching subjects like history in one hour a week doesn't work. I'd rather have history 2 hours a week and drop geography (for example)

I see no evidence Oxbridge is in the least bit interested in whether GCSEs are staggered. They might well take a positive view of, e.g. for STEM, if kids took their maths early. The same applies to A levels, though I have seen some other universities dig deeper if they see the A level load spread. Oxbridge does care about excellence and passion in the subjects related to those under study. When I was in charge of maths admissions we did a pre-filter on having A at GCSE (and even that could be relaxed if there was maths competition performance to undo it) and had a range of other filters, but nothing about timing. I think many schools just invent this notion to make their lives easier with regard to league table entries. That's all the timing relates to. * Head teachers will bullshit about this inventing other reasons and alleged insight from uni admissions folk, but do not listen to them.

No school did 12 GCSEs in the early 80's. They were introduced in 1988 - before that was GCE or CSE.
8 O level (GCE) was considered the norm for oxbridge candidates. The fact more are done now shows how much easier they have become.

The changing fashions about how many GCSEs to take is interesting. For a while the independent schools seemed to be heading north but that seems to be reversing now, with the ones we are looking at settling at 10-12 max. Also they are moving away from doing them early, with most of them only contemplating French early (rather than the english lang and maths that were possible a year early before).

I agree, taking 15 GCSE is for the schools benefit. On the plus side it has meant by yr11 he is not worried about the actual exams and knows how to revise successfully. Fortunately he will sit 9 gcse, including core subjects, this year so the school do cover the possible need to do gcse in a set year.

Science is core, they don't give it up b4 end yr11. Is covered in less depth by some kids, tbf. I think GCSEs finishing in yr9 & 10 has done good or will work well for my DC, so far. Most parents locally see lots of good in it.

Why will schools still be doing GCSE's early?Surely it's going to become much harder to obtain the top grades.Doing GCSE's early will just lead to really poor results surely?Especially bearing in mind the coursework is far more stringent and with a greater breadth than previous GCSE incarnations.