Do GCSE subjects need to be rethought?

clary there’s a big difference between a pupil who isn’t going to get a 1, and one who looks like they’ll get a 3. Should a pupil who is going to get a U be entered for GCSE? Probably not, if the reason they’re headed for a U is severe learning difficulties. But I’ve seen some things in my career that would make me very wary of writing off a child from getting a 4 at GCSE and not even entering them.

Noblegiraffe: I know . And subjects are getting dropped all the time. But I think the school day could be lengthened for high school kids ... In Scotland, we have half a day on a Friday - lovely, but rather unnecessary, imo.

... more's the pity! OK, what's it called now then - Food Technology? Textile Tech?

What else should we teach?

There’s no room to teach anything else. If you want to teach kids how to repair a vacuum cleaner (not something that strikes me as particularly desperately missing from education) then you need to bin several hours of something else.

I'm not a fan of a utilitarian curriculum. It's how you get really pointless arguments from students (who think they're being original) like 'but when will I ever need algebra? My mum hasn't used quadratic equations. What's the point in studying poetry? There's never a point in life when I'm going to need Wilfred Owen.'

GCSEs provide a general baseline and the foundations for students to specialise. Without the foundation coverage then A Level and university become not really an option.
There's already a curriculum discrepancy between state and private schools. Private schools value sport, music, drama and the arts. In state these are getting pushed out.

IMO what we need to do us allow schools to assess the students likely to get grades 1-3 in GCSE English and maths and have them do Functional skills L1 and L2 instead. And not punish the school for it.
Agree with this.
I also think more vocational options and pathways should be available, but I'm not sure I trust some academy chains not to push any middle ability students down non academic pathways because it will firm up performance figures rather than get the children set up for higher study that they'd be capable of.

Domestic Science I don't think that has been taught for years.

I agree with Ontopofthesunset about languages.

As far as physics is concerned, leave it as it is (very important).

What else should we teach? There is also a place for a very instrumental approach ...

Financial literacy! I need someone to tell me how to avoid being taken advantage of by mortgage companies and banks; how to know when to change gas and phone companies etc etc - I wish we had learned that at school (except that people weren't always trying to trick you into giving them more money in the 1970s ...).

In Domestic Science: Add a module or two on how a vacuum cleaner or washing machine works, and how to repair it yourself. Include plumbing and electrical repairs.

Kids also need to learn how to be safe and discerning when using the Internet etc, but I think most schools do teach that now.

I see the merit of a paper that absolutely all students can sit but unfortunately the range of abilities is so large that in order to be able to distinguish 7s from 8s from 9s in maths you’d need to have a paper that was mostly incomprehensible to the students struggling to achieve 2s and 3s. English Lit or History isn’t so bad because you can set a single essay question which two students working at very different levels can both spend half an hour on working to the best of their ability.

Having watched both my children go through GCSEs and onto A level (and one on to university), I see GCSEs as almost 'taster courses' for higher levels of study. For the most part, they teach you either certain basic functional skills (maths, English language, modern languages) or things we might consider to be desirable general knowledge (geography, physics, biology) or things that teach us widely applicable academic skills as well as some general knowledge (history, English literature). But I'm essentially of an academic disposition, though not a professional academic, so I pretty much just value learning things.

I guess the children who see GCSEs as most pointless are the ones who don't want to pursue any further academic study.

IMO what we need to do us allow schools to assess the students likely to get grades 1-3 in GCSE English and maths and have them do Functional skills L1 and L2 instead.
Great idea. They could have different assessment systems. You could give them different names ... something like, oh I don't know, say O Levels and CSEs.

The whole idea of GCSEs was so that everyone could have a go and not be divided into sheep and goats at a young age. You are, effectively, saying that you want to go back to the old system.

Well given that most kids can access the NC, anything that reduces subjects to just 'what's useful' is going to be inadequate for most.

Replace French with French history and culture, how does the able linguist do A Level, or even know they're able, if they don't get the chance to learn the language.

Learning about stuff, even if you never use it in real life, is still a good thing. It broadens the mind, makes you aware, gives you the opportunity to find out more, introduces ideas and thoughts and culture and awareness.

For the few who cannot access the curriculum then yes, functional skills type programmes, esp in literacy and numeracy are vital, but an introduction to art, PE, dt just might give an academically-weak kid a chance to show what they're capable of.

I’d say that the very basics of physics, which is what you get from a level 4/5 in the combined science GCSEs, are far more useful than bloody enjambments and caesuras. Heat, light, electricity, efficiency, speed and acceleration, friction, kinetic and potential energy, and inverse square laws are the building blocks of the world around you, and you can’t understand any of the huge changes and political interventions that will be needed to minimise the effects of climate change without a basic understanding of physics. The whole modern world around you is effectively “magic” if you haven’t got a grasp of physical concepts.

I’m midway through helping my second teen scale Mount GCSEs and the thing that I really wish above all else that they could skip is sodding poetry, because they struggle so badly to produce the required analysis and it’s such a niche skill but yet made into a compulsory hoop for absolutely every child who can read and write.

Realistically a GCSE in a language is not going to enable you to conduct business in that language or even to really get by as a tourist, but it will give you the foundations of language skills that you would be able to develop if you were interested. As with most GCSE courses, it is an introduction to a higher level of study for those who want to take it on.

Introducing foreign languages at a basic level exposes everyone to the building blocks of language in general, to the idea that not everyone communicates in the same way, that the way languages are constructed varies and often to interesting reflection about the way we use our own language and how that works. It's also a stepping stone to the academic study of linguistics. Learning another language at a higher level naturally enables you to access literature, culture, business, film, whatever rocks your boat.

Philosophically, there is of course a utilitarian element to everything that is taught at school, but the most practical and widely skills are actually taught before GCSE - functional literacy, functional maths.

OK Noble, I take your point about no chance of a 4 if you don't do it. But astudent in my tutor group was in tears (and making themselves ill) at the prospect of English GCSE exam - they just couldn't access it. I asked their teacher who said they wouldn't get a grade 1. Honestly - I don't see the point of them sitting it at all. This was a student with lots to offer as well, who did well in other subjects. There needs to be more flexibility.

But as to what it's for - what's wrong with learning for its own sake, just to increase knowledge and understanding of how things are?

“The same with any subject. What is it for?”

I enjoy doing cryptic crosswords. I have found that having an A level in French has helped
I stand corrected noblegiraffe. DD took her GCSEs in 2016, and they only had the higher and foundation paper.

GnomeDePlume DD had a useless physics teacher, so she did a lot of revision for physics GCSE. She ended up learning by rote to pass the exam because she simply didn’t understand it. However, she did manage to get an A*.

I would say that learning subjects you will never use again isn’t a waste of time. It provides a rounded education – and comes in really useful for crosswords and pub quizzes

A purely utilitarian view of the curriculum is incredibly depressing.

What is it for? To pass on the best that has been thought and achieved to future generations, so that they can stand on the shoulders of giants and not have an incredibly narrow view of the word based around what they immediately need to be able to do or understand.

I hate the EBacc. It makes no sense for many students to be forced to take all of language/science/humanity and for all but the brightest students(those hoping for a top University) it will make no difference to them at all. Its all for the benefit of the school.

For average students (which means most) the most important thing is that they take a selection of subjects theyre interested in, which they have a chance of getting decent grades in, but EBacc means schools are offering very restricted choices.

So basically OP you want a completely dumbed down NC for all...?

No, the old Foundation paper, back when it was Higher, Intermediate and Foundation went up to a D grade.

That’s why they scrapped it, it capped students at a ‘fail’ at level 2 before they’d even sat the exam.

Unfortunately they didn’t do what teachers wanted and introduce a notional C grade on Foundation, they also got rid of Intermediate and changed the system to just Foundation (up to a C) and Higher.

The foundation paper went up to a C grade.

Students who get a grade 2 or below don’t have to resit GCSE, they can sit functional skills instead.

The problem with not entering lower attaining pupils for GCSE because they probably won’t get a 4 is that they then definitely won’t get a 4. It’s the same reason that they ended up scrapping the old Foundation paper that only went up to a D grade.

"IMO what we need to do us allow schools to assess the students likely to get grades 1-3 in GCSE English and maths and have them do Functional skills L1 and L2 instead. And not punish the school for it."

That is an excellent suggestion, and far too sensible for the governnment to approve. How much time and resources are wasted getting young people to retake maths and English GCSEs umpteen times, only for them to fail repeatedly? While they are retaking those subjects these young people aren't able to learn anything else to any extent.

I think from an graduate linguist's point of view that teaching languages as if they were merely aids to a holiday is very reductive. As you seem to have managed to pick up phrase book language skills without studying, presumably most people could if they wanted to. There is a deeper question about why we teach languages and what we think students will gain by the study of a foreign language.

Of course you can't learn a language without learning grammar because you have no way on building on your phrases or understanding the responses. There is actually not very much grammar at GCSE, though this seems to have improved with the new specification.

You could say this about any subject anyway. Why teach English literature? Most people don't need to understand themes in "An Inspector Calls" in their daily life or be able to explain the rhyme scheme in Emily Dickinson. Why teach geography? Most people don't need to know how an ox bow lake is formed or when the National Parks were established. Why teach chemistry? Most people don't need to understand the different ways in which molecules are bonded or the order of reactivity - I've never used it in my daily life though obviously some specialists do.