Private school to ditch GCSEs, write own exams

The first lot of kids are not going to be applying to university for another 10 years or so so who knows how things will have changed by then.

And that's only Wolverhampton Uni Noble so not a prestigious RG one. They have always trained a lot of teahchers.

Thanks for the links- I was looking up PGCE courses.
Although my DCs primary was full of teachers from abroad so I'm guessing they didn't have GCSEs!
My friend has sent me the detailed LU info behind it all. There has been lots of consultations with UCAS, Universities etc so I think they've thought through most scenarios.

From gov.uk

Entry requirements

• 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C), or equivalent, including English, maths and science
• 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, for a degree
• a degree in any subject for a postgraduate course

The very first primary PGCE course that came up in a google search

Entry Requirements

• To hold a first degree of a United Kingdom higher education institution or equivalent qualification.

• To have achieved a standard equivalent to a grade 4 (previously Grade C) in the GCSE examinations in English, Mathematics and Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics or Combined Science).
• To have taken part in a rigorous selection process designed to assess your readiness to train to teach.

Can you post a link- it doesn't seem to be necessary for any PGCE courses except the fast track scheme.

I don’t think gcses are fit for purpose and would welcome a move to only examine English and maths and leave the other subjects not taught to an exam. The formal exams can then be at 18.

I actually think gcses have got to a point where they are turning kids off from learning rather than inspiring them in subjects.

I also don’t think the gcse marking is good enough - the inconsistencies are huge. in a lot of countries the formal exams are marked by teachers - Germany being one. Culturally that would be difficult to introduce here now but I think that is a gentler approach

Re: "It may be a sign that they are in trouble financially." and "The cynic in me wonders if their GCSE results have slipped a bit, or they have a lot of people leaving for sixth form elsewhere"
None of this is true. They have buckets of money, are hugely oversubscribed and their GCSE results are very high, with no recent dip. They seem to be doing it out of idealistic frustration with GCSEs.
Sevenoaks did something similar, but only for English literature, where they felt the GCSE was rigid and unchallenging. And Latymer upper are proposing to retain maths and english (language?) GCSE to tick boxes.

Personally, I think it raises a lot of questions as to how it will work in practice:

1. if you want to change school at 6th form e.g. to a specialist maths school, will your "in-house" qualification be recognised?
2. when you apply to universities with only 2 GCSE's will you really suffer no disadvantage compared to students who have 8-12. Will all universities be aware of the idiosyncratic decisions made by your school? Will they even read the footnote in the reference that explains it.
3. A lot of public sector positions expect minimum 5 GCSEs from anyone educated in the UK. Will only having 2 lead to rejections because computer says no. Similarly some universities require a minimum number of GCSEs.
4. Who will design the curriculum and exam spec, who will write the textbook, who will set the exam papers, mark schemes etc. They may think they have the in-house expertise in every subject, but do they really? I've dealt with private schools of similar selectivity and was distinctly unimpressed with the calibre of some of the staff. There were definitely weak subject departments.
5. How different will the curriculum really be from GCSE? In certain subjects, e.g. maths, physics, chemistry, there is a common core of stuff that you simply must teach. For this reason, an American introductory high school textbook doesn't look much different to GCSE. If you go significantly beyond GCSE, you'll end up encroaching onto A level material, which will then need to be skipped or re-covered. So if you end up at A level standard 2 years later, how much have you really gained? And why couldn't they enrich beyond GCSE in years 9-11, while still taking the GCSE qualification?

The GCSE system needs reform - there is no need for high stakes testing at 16 when the school leaving age is 18. But for one school to go it alone smacks of hubris and naivete. What is clear is that the first two cohorts will be the guinea pigs, and the results of the experiment will likely not be known until 2030. I personally wouldn't want to shell out upwards of 150k for a school to play Russian roulette with my child's future.

I can't find the info about needing a science gcse to teach? Have been looking that's something DD is interested in.
All the PGCE courses I've seen specify English and Maths only.

@noblegiraffe haha yes. £8k a term is on the cheap end in London, however LU doesn't include lunches so once that's factored in, it's pretty much in line with everywhere else.

'Home' students apply through UCAS, is there any other way? Uni course requirements tend to list what's required for them. Afaik quite a lot of unis are at least to some extent 'computer says yes/no', I'm not sure there's a box for 'I went somewhere weird with its own system'?

At most private schools the parents pay exam fees so doubt that's a factor.

It may be a sign that they are in trouble financially. It will save them a fortune if they don't enter their students for exams.

Some schools ( direct grants) tried this for some pupils many moons ago eg. Manchester Grammar School. I think their logic or how they sold it to parents was that their best students took the bare minimum of O levels say 3, in year 10 which would enable them later to matriculate for University and then they had 3 years for A levels to give them more chance of Oxbridge places.

Manchester High School for Girls tried to run a system where their A class would do say 4 O levels - so eg English Language, Maths or a Science, History Geography ie just enough to matriculate together with A levels but not eg English Literature or subjects they were intending to study at A level. It didn't last long as parents were very unhappy at the lack of flexibility. My sister said she had lot of explaining to do when being interviewed for a University place in a subject she didn't have a track record for. (This school may have had serious financial problems though as their new school had been bombed during the war and maybe they thought this was a way of saving money for repairs?)

Looks like a money making wheeze to lock children in for A levels.

I think you have nailed it

The cynic in me wonders if their GCSE results have slipped a bit, or they have a lot of people leaving for sixth form elsewhere.

Some schools used to do a mixture of IGCSEs and GCSEs and people could still move (in or out) for sixth form.

The exam boards can be so different in what they ask for anyway that some cross-referencing is needed — for example I know that Edexcel modern languages used to be a controlled assessment for the longer writing while for AQA it was an exam paper.

I get that, but other countries have their own public exam system which will generally be more robust than ' marking their own homework'
I wonder if Bedales is planning to diversify itself into selling their 'gcse equivalents' and becoming a kid f exam noard too

No they are planning to do this in 2028.plenty of time to chicken out

It is a very high risk idea, and I don't it will happen

kids come from all over at any and all times of the year thanks to international work and family. so how would this any different than a teen joining from the usa/canada/brazil? surely all schools have a method other than gcse's to evaluate new admissions.