to be a bit taken aback that DS1 after only 6 weeks in yr10 is sitting part of his GCSE English core assessment today?

[Ormirian]

It seems really confusing.

He is taking some subjects early but English isn't one of them. Apparently any of his GCSEs can be taken either in June or January but he doesn't know which yet. They no longer do 'course work' and all non-exam based work has to be done in school in a set up that sounds remarkably like an exam to me. And we won't know when he is doing them until a month or so before. He's only just been told that he will be doing 3 seperate sciences

I think I may just be too old to comprehend this but it does seem very complicated. The school have tried to explain it but there seem to be so many variables .

Life was much simpler in the old days

They could, in theory, memorise a whole essay but in English when they are being marked on punctuation and grammar etc it wouldn't really help. The controlled assessments are instead of the more traditional coursework so if anything will take up less life as they are not expected to finish them at home and rewrite them a million times to get their grades up.
I really don't understand the doing it again if he does well thing though! Sorry.

I'm an English teacher, also on mat leave. Teh course was only brought in last year and it's horrible. WHole department have struggled to get our heads round it. It's also going to be different next year (for current yr 9) as Gove is now doing away with modules. Schools can do controlled assessments whenever they want - so in our school low ability sets tend to do them earlier, as we don't go into as much detail with them. on teh other hand, high ability sets take ages and ages to prepare.

So far we've noticed that kids are tending to do better in the exam than teh controlled assessments, so let him do as many as the school can fit in (and mark).

You are kidding, they are changing it again? Just got back off maternity and still haven't got my head around this one

Yep. No modules from now on. Think the content of the courswe will remain the same - I hope so, I've only taught it once and I'm on mat leave until SEptember! So far I think CAs are staying, but not sure how long for. Think GOve thinks all coursework is cheating although to be honest, I'm not sure how the exam boards can prove schools aren't cheating with the CAs. WE're definitely not, but we're very uneasy that other shools might be.