To think that this is terrible news for my children's education?

[ICameOnTheJitney]

Axeing of Soft GCSEs to hit Drama and PE

Exam board insiders confirmed this weekend that subjects such as law, media studies, drama and PE were at risk of being culled from the list of about 58 GCSEs. One source said that as many as 20 subjects were under scrutiny

Why the arts? And surely PE is a VALID subject...not all children are academic and we NEED PE teachers and drama teachers and actors ffs!

Please tell me why, if this happens it's a good thing?

LaQueen Music is an academic subject!! It's a language in its own right.

Ffs - the VAST MAJORITY of school children won't ever go anywhere near a Russell group uni so why the fuck should the academic requirements of these places shape the way secondary education is organised?

LaQueen Looks like we agree that these subjects are perfectly good with the more traditionally viewed ones, but I don't see them as easy options. Again, noblegiraffe has nailed it. Take away GCSE status and hordes of aspirational parents will frown on studying them further; schools will be impoverished for it.

I despise the snobbery and academic elitism on these boards.

As if an Oxbridge education was the pinnacle of human experience and something that that all reasonable people should aspire to for their children...

State education did indeed used to be better in a lot of ways pre league tables/ofsted/national curriculum but no way can they compete with private schools in terms of pure exam results due to a number of well documented factors. Just watch an episode of Educating Yorkshire & they are the kids who potentially could get c's at GCSE! Private schools keep the kids who will get the results, state schools have no such luxury!

I wonder how many private school parents would welcome their class sizes to be filled up to 30+ students from the local school just to show them how it should be done!!??

for Yermina's last 2 posts.

what is wrong for studying for enjoyment? Kids need a mixture of subjects so when the compulsory stuff gets dull there is some thing to offer a bit of relief

If you take away the joy of learning you wont get good results over all.

Private schools keep the kids who will get the results, state schools have no such luxury!

You're missing the point. Clearly, selective schools (whatever the basis for the selection) will do better in aggregate terms. The problem today is that a particular individual child will probably do better in a private school (by roughly half a grade per A Level, although opinions differ and the evidence isn't very robust) than they will in a state school. So if you have the choice, sending your child into the state system is essentially taking a child who might get AAA and dropping them to AAB or ABB. At GCSE the effect is even more stark, with matched cohorts (those that got 5a at KS2 SAT) doing markedly less well, both in terms of raw grades and in terms of the quality of the individual qualifications.

That can't be excused by the things you point to, and indeed wasn't the case in the comprehensive I went to in the 1970s. There, people who would have gone to grammars pre-74, when this city abolished the 11+, did exactly the same as they would have done under selection, both in terms of subjects studied and grades obtained. The city overall increased its results (no more secondary moderns) and the high attainers did just as well.

Now the state sector can, if it wants, assert that it's not interested in educating high attainers, and that "comprehensive" schools are henceforth secondary moderns in all but name and those who want more can make their own arrangements. But in that case, Local Schools Network and the like can stop whining that the middle classes don't engage with their local schools, because you appear to be asserting that the local schools shouldn't pay any attention to their aspirations. You seem to want to restrict the professions, for example, to those whose parents have the money to pay for a private education, because you don't think that state schools should bother about admission to selective university courses. I hope the "Red' refers to your hair, because it sure as hell isn't your politics.

still I agree that music is a perfectly academic study and deserves its GCSE status alongside maths and history.

Ditto art.

And I see no reason why drama should not. Or indeed PE or Food etc. However, what is currently expected of students in these disciplines is simply not sufficiently challenging. And I say that as a parent with a DD taking GCSE drama.

If we want these subjects to have equivlalence then we must ensure they merit that. What we can't do is offer them as fluffy alternatives to the students who can't or don't want to undertake the more traditional subjects and still expect equivalent status.

We can't have it both ways!

yermina I think what you say is at least honest.

State schools have a majority of students who have no vested interest in receiving the sort of education that will allow them to attend RG universities etc.

The trouble is that the current orthodoxy says state comprehensives can do all things for all people. That the same curriculum is valid for everyone. That it allows the less able to access a rich and useful education, whilst at the same time allowing the more able to be challenged sufficiently to access an ongoing top flight academic career.

Common sense tells us this is probably a bit too much to ask. Yet the orthodoxy continues.

Andnow as admissions time is upon us, the universities will once again be faced with applicants who, through no fault of their own, accepted that orthodoxy...

All the state schools in my area do that.

There, people who would have gone to grammars pre-74, when this city abolished the 11+, did exactly the same as they would have done under selection

That seems a bit of a bold claim given the paucity of tracking data? And saying they did as well in a comp as they would have done in a grammar school in 1974 thus selecting your intake shouldn't prove an advantage is odd. The 11+ back in the day was selecting for bright kids from any background. The 11+ today is selecting for bright kids who have been tutored to the hilt by well-educated and interested parents. Private school selection is also selecting by family background and wealth. You can't compare selection today to selection then, when all kids simply sat the exam.

Family background is a predictor of results alongside KS2 results - FFT use various measures to capture this in order to generate their targets.

The trouble is that the current orthodoxy says state comprehensives can do all things for all people. That the same curriculum is valid for everyone's

I don't know of many schools (if any) that offer the same curriculum to everyone. Triple science for the brightest, extra maths GCSEs for the top sets etc. Part time college courses, vocational qualifications, different courses for bottom sets.

I think that's a real shame. At the school my son will attend they have quite a high % of pupils take Ebacc subjects but they also offer softer subjects.

I think the softer subjects can provide a good balance to pupils studies. I studied for 6 traditional academic subjects plus Childcare and Business Studies. You don't need Childcare or Business Studies but I enjoyed them they were fun and I actually chose my career because I enjoyed that particular module in Business Studies.

If you get rid of the less academic GCSEs you will demotivate some students and we will probably end up with a two tier system which is exactly what Gove wants.

The 11+ back in the day was selecting for bright kids from any background.

It wasn't really. In this city, if you place one point of your compasses in the city centre and the other at the most distant pre-74 maintained or direct grant grammar, and draw a circle, all of the post-45 newbuild housing falls outside it. The city built no new grammars in the new housing, only secondary moderns. So anyone who passed the 11+ had to make a long bus journey, at their own expense, to attend. Few actually did. And that before you consider that with a school leaving age of 14 and essentially zero unemployment, the opportunity cost to the family of a child of continuing to 16 or 18 was massive. Provision of grammar places varied with socio-economic background of the area, and willingness to take them up did as well.

This city later attacked this problem with a complex scheme involving building large comprehensives with grammar streams for people who passed the 11+, and did well out it: it's comparison of that stream with the post-74 cohorts in the same schools which allows me to make the claim I did about selection not appearing to benefit matched cohorts (I was the second cohort to not take the city 11+).

The idea that the post-44 11+ provided a general route out of low aspiration is over-stated, of course. It meant that a very small proportion of bright kids from families who were invested in education but wouldn't have been able to afford the pre-44 system were able to get a decent education. But there were fewer grammar places available in poor neighbourhoods than in affluent ones, there was no provision to fund transport or uniform and there was no financial assistance for people who could have left school at 14 and worked but instead wanted to continue to O Level. The 11+ may have been taken universally, but the chances of someone who passed it going on to complete O Levels at 16 in a grammar school were massively dictated by parental background.

for people who passed the 11+, and did well out it: it's comparison of that stream with the post-74 cohorts

But the post-74 cohort didn't sit the 11+ so how could the comparison be made? Did they guess who would have passed the 11+?

I'm not sure what your point is here anyway. Comps could do as well as grammar schools in 1974, but school's are failing the brightest today because they don't do as well as private schools? Did grammar schools in 1974 do better than comps today? Did a larger % of state kids get into Oxbridge when there were grammar schools? I'd be very surprised.

Oh, and of course the historic 11+ was very much about attainment, not ability. 11+ exams for the residual state grammars tend to use CEM testing from the University of Durham, or similar schemes from other providers, which at least make some sort of pretence of not testing prior attainment. A lot of it is vaguely IQ-test-y, although it also loads heavily on vocabulary (as such tests are wont to do) which means its claims to be culturally neutral and/or not discriminate against ESL students are a bit .

But 11+ exams circa 1950, which is roughly the golden age that is often invoked, were straightforwardly about attainment.

As there was no national curriculum, the link between what people did in junior school and what was in the 11+ was sketchy, at best, and some schools spent more time on the required material. Those schools were, anecdotally at least, more likely to have affluent parents. There was some improvement later, and circa 1960 11+ exams look more ability-based (although they have massive literacy demands to access, and also had very vague essay topics which gave markers the opportunity to discern the background of the candidate and mark accordingly) but they were certainly not intended to even out issues of prior education. Why would they? Burt's orthodoxy was that ability was set in stone anyway even if he had invented data and researchers to back that position.

GCSEs might not be as demanding as O-levels, but kids do take way more of them.

A broader education isn't necessarily a bad thing.

But LaQueen EVERY subject at GCSE is dumbed down according to the media, especially Maths so the Drama appearing easier to you is just par for the course!

But the post-74 cohort didn't sit the 11+ so how could the comparison be made? Did they guess who would have passed the 11+?

Pre-74 cohort, the top sets in the schools in question had all passed the 11+: that was how it was done.

Post-74 cohort, the top sets emerged by the usual setting mechanisms from comprehensive intake.

The outcomes were the same.

Did a larger % of state kids get into Oxbridge when there were grammar schools?

Depending on the periods you're comparing, yes they did. Parliamentary Briefing Note and shit. There was a massive drop in entry to Oxbridge from state schools starting in 1980. There's some problems with definitions, and you can see from the graph on page two that there's a discontinuity caused by changes to what "state school" included, but the drop from 1980 to about 1988 is well documented elsewhere. That's the cohorts that started secondary school immediately following the widespread abolition of selection in maintained schools, which happened in the early to mid 1970s. The Hartford Scheme and other projects to widen participation from state schools complicate comparisons after that point, too.

Comps could do as well as grammar schools in 1974, but school's are failing the brightest today

Yes. The most interesting metric in the DfE tables for this is to compare "GCSE Equivalent Entries" for high attainers with "GCSE Entries". What you see is the large number of schools boosting their notional GCSE success rate with non-GCSE qualifications, for students who arrive with 5 in KS2 SATs (the definition of "high attainer" in these tables). Such schools tend to have poor value-add in this segment, low EBacc and the students, possibly without knowing it, have large areas of higher education and the professions closed off to them.

My local comp has gone into special measures this week. The report hasn't yet been published, but a look at the data makes one think this is highly likely to be part of the problem (VA below 950 for high-attainers, in a low-FSM, low-ESL, low-Statement school in an affluent suburb).

Am I the only parent who is not that bothered about GCSES, A levels and definitely not University, even if both children were bright and had no problems.
Dc are both dyslexic, eldest who has been tested is in the bottom 1 percentile for some aspects of dyslexia and ds has dysgraphia. I am just hoping that they enjoy school and get through it. Getting rid of the so called "soft" GCSE's and just having academic subjects would make their lives dull. I should add eldest already has a career and doesn't need GCSES to follow the career she has chosen. Youngest looks like following similar path.
What bugs me is the people who look on in horror that my dc will somehow end up on the street because they will be incapable of earning anything because they will not have a degree.

Post-74 cohort, the top sets emerged by the usual setting mechanisms from comprehensive intake.

Then there is no evidence that these kids were the ones who would have gone to grammar school back in the day and you really aren't comparing like with like. The 11+ isn't a great predictor of eventual exam success.

What you see is the large number of schools boosting their notional GCSE success rate with non-GCSE qualifications, for students who arrive with 5 in KS2 SATs

You need to be exceptionally careful if you are going to claim that an academic student taking an equivalent non-GCSE qualification shows any sort of failure by the school with regards to that student. ICT is compulsory at KS4, kids have to have lessons in it. In order to make this time worthwhile, lots of schools put all the kids in for an OCR nationals ICT qualification. This will show up as an academic kid getting an equivalent qualification, and I remember the Daily Mail outrage about this last year. I haven't seen and can't find the sort of analysis you are talking about.

45% from state schools in 1970, 57% from state schools in 2010 going to Oxbridge. Can't see that as a failure of comps compared to grammars, although as you say there are many confounding factors.

The drop in the 80s doesn't show a failure to stretch high attainers either.

MILLY My DS is mildly dyslexic and it really is showing in problems with schoolwork at age 14, I just want him to get through the next couple of years with some self-esteem intact.

I always have felt his best years will be after school!