Private school to ditch GCSEs, write own exams

Across the sector collective efforts to maintain charitable status are a massive scam.

Are these schools scared they can no longer compete with London state schools any longer, so this is a desperate bid to shift the goal posts.

Lol - I always find it amusing arrogant when posters mention private schools without any info on where they are or what age group - like anyone knows this stuff (a handful of famous ones aside) outside of a small bubble.

All it takes is one little scandal, the papers to escalate and all their credibility will go out the window. This is far too high a risk and I'd be really surprised if they remain oversubscribed when they ditch standard benchmarked exams.

Interesting - I read a similar article this weekend about GCSE being ditching by private schools but when I read it they were all apparently moving to IGCSE which author then went off about inferiority - which struck me as odd I thought they were just different.

Wales is currently mid reform and GCSE reform will start soon - there was talk of getting rid of GCSE and doing school certificate instead - you can still leave school at 16 here - in end it was more popular to keep GCSE and reform them. I've seen threads on here suggesting there are plans to get rid of Scotland's National Five - I think it is.

Welsh GCSE my DC have sat and are sitting are very different to current English GCSE. I know N.I does mix of English boards and their own board - which I've no clue what those GCSE are like.

DH, in higher education , cynically thinks we've just reached the education theory cycle bit where it's anti exams. I suspect it may be the actual exams courses available and that.

the assumption that it'll benefit the state system is absurd

No it is certainly not. Thinking about what schools are actually for rather than following the path of old traditional curriculum and outdated GCSEs benefits us all. Buildings, teachers and prescribed curricula, if those are necessary at all, are subordinate to the big picture of the purpose of the education. We need to see the wood for the trees.

I'm not here to get into a debate about charitable status, it's been done to death on MN. I think it's pretty well-established that some schools do very little, a few do lots, and others are somewhere in between. Ours is definitely on the quite a lot end of the scale (Oxbridge prep was just one very small example), but that's not the point of the thread.

Hahaha @userresuuser our local private school offered support for state school Oxbridge candidates in the shape of a single afternoon. As opposed to a whole term of Wednesday afternoons for their own paying customers. As far as I could see that was the justification for their charitable status. And it simply isn't enough.

We're not a private business, we're a charity - and above all, a school. Yes, I know lots of people think that's just a semantic difference. But although we charge fees and therefore have a very different model from a state school, we don't have profits and shareholders - and that does matter.

I've worked in the state sector as well, so I'm not totally ignorant of the issues. I'm sorry if I sound patronising (though it does also strike me that private schools are constantly denigrated for not doing enough to support state schools and then criticised as patronising for pretty much everything they do offer). Yes, we're probably better placed to help the top end than the bottom end, because that's the sector we know. And it may be that it's the bottom end that needs more support - but the state sector has a top end too, and I would hope that (for example) offering state school kids help with preparing for Oxbridge entrance still helps to level the the playing field just a tiny bit, and provides a little bit of resource. It would probably be more patronising if we offered to help directly support lower achieving students, where we have less expertise.

I get that it feels unfair that private schools have the resource to navel gaze while state schools are constantly fire-fighting. But I still believe it's better that someone (outside of a politicised education secretary who's been in the job five minutes) has the capacity to navel gaze than that nobody has. In the long run, education needs people to think about it. It might feel like the education sector can't withstand another overhaul - but if you look at the changes that are going to happen in society, employment and education over the next 50 years, then arguably it can't afford NOT to have an overhaul. And that means people thinking about it now. I'm not saying that a few private schools designing their own exams is the grand answer to anything. But if nobody has the capacity to think about anything other than crumbling buildings and teacher shortages, then nobody's thinking about possible change.

I think you might be a bit naive. I went to a different SW London private but had many friends at LU. A few who were in my year at LU are now primary school teachers. My step sister who attended a big name boarding school is now a primary school teacher.

@DynastywasthebestTV my comment was explicitly regarding this:

"but also because it allows schools to explore the alternatives, look at what works, have the freedom to try new methods etc, which to some extent can then filter out to the state sector (whether directly, though private/state partnership, or indirectly, through published research papers and resources, or through lobbying of government)."

Private schools can do whatever they want, I couldn't care less. However, the assumption that it'll benefit the state system is absurd. The govt doesn't give a damn about the current basic building safety laws. The idea they'll care about some research paper is just hilarious. I just often get the impression these schools think they're doing the lord's work. It's hilarious. Also, unless you're currently working in a state school you've no idea what it's like. Even parents with kids in them haven't a clue of the severity of the shit show currently at play. Wherever you went to school or worked before has no bearing on this. Sorry.

Of course many teachers and other staff know about the realities of the State system. many of them went to state schools, have taught at state schools and send their children to state schools. In the same way that many state school teachers went to private schools, have taught at private schools and send their children to private schools.

In addition both of the schools my DCs are at do a lot of partnership work with local state schools, both senior and primary and the teachers and other staff work on committees etc together.
I really don't see the outrage. A private school has decided to change the way it goes about things- it's not suggesting that the rest of the country should follow or that they're better than anyone else. In fact they're saying they can do this because 99% of their students will do A levels. Obviously schools where many children'n only qualifications will be GCSEs would find it trickier.

Parents can send their children there or not. It's their choice.

@noblegiraffe Agree with everything you've said and very well put. My DD has just moved into Y9 in a private special school funded by her EHCP. She's come from a very good state inner city comp with excellent behaviour management, results, staffing (didn't have a supply in any subjects last year bar one or two lessons. Specialist teachers in maths, science and English. However, I've heard most left last term and it's a shit show now) and an eco building with air con, air filters and nothing leaking. Essentially paradise, compared to a lot of comps. I had a meeting at the private school recently and when I described why it may take her a while to get used to their behaviour policy, described the types of fights she's witnessed and the rigid behaviour policy she's used to, they were so shocked and said it sounds like the school should be shut down. I wanted to laugh. If they think thats worthy of shutting down imagine what they'd think of a shitty comp. Private schools have absolutely no clue about the realities of state schools and to suggest any curriculum changes they're planning would be of wider benefit, is absurd. Absurd. And clueless.

Maybe this is in MN, but seems like one can be easily at the top of cohort of any schools bar one?

I think you may have missed my point. My daughter didn't apply to LU and I have absolutely no knowledge of it, apart from the accepted 'West London parent attitude' that all these schools are much the same. I was pretty interested to see that that isn't apparently the case. Like you, I didn't pick schools for grades (although other people's grades were part of it because my daughter needed quite strongly not to be at the top of her cohort because it was making her miserable).

I do think some GCSEs are just awful. Not the sciences or maths.

But the History and English prep was all about how to get the top marks. How to answer the question using key words to score marks. There was little creativity or opportunity to be interesting or thoughtful.

It made my kids never want to read or write an essay again.

But I would still not send them to a school
which didn’t do them.

My daughter is off to university in a couple of weeks and had to scan and send her GCSE certificates a few months ago to the college she is attending.

My friend’s daughter went to a top private school, was the star of her year and recently graduated with a first from Oxbridge.

She is now teaching in a state school in inner London and absolutely loving it! And being promoted rapidly. It happens!

I agree with this and I don’t think it’s necessarily arrogant for private schools to ‘write a better curriculum’. I mean a lot of teachers think their curriculum is a bit shit.

UK universities DO ask for GCSE results. Some take them into account more than others and some only need the minimum Grade 4/5 maths & English (my son had to send a copy of his GCSE English certificate but they do require them.

International students will be required to have equivalent alternative qualifications (remember that many other countries continue with a broader education up to age 18)

Nothing had higher correlation than later stage entrance exam intake competitiveness to the public exam outcome of the School.

UK universities don’t ask for GCSE results. They ask for A Level results. Employers want GCSE maths and english as a minimum to ensure non-degree calibre students are literate. As most private selective schools don’t need to worry about kids dropping out to work after GCSEs they can afford to scrap most of them in favour of what are essentially more in depth but specialist studies. It’s similar to the IB model which has a far better international reputation than A Levels.

BTW although the junior school feeds the senior school entrance there is also super competitive and the school track results the junior kids do just as well academically as those who enter at 11+ so not sure that is dragging LU's apparently unimpressive GCSEs down