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?

Pupils have to start thinking about options in year 8, while some are still 12! Hardly fair to condemn them if they make a 'wrong' choice of PE at that age. Be fair.

^Oh come on. This is very easy to say for those from strong academic backgrounds with a tradition of university attendance.
For families (like mine) who knew nothing of the university system let alone Oxbridge it is another language - baffling and intimidating and elitist.^

Exactly this.

Oxbridge is baffling and intimidating and elitist. Different application procedure, colleges (so not just what uni are you applying to, but what college?). To suggest that it is the state school pupil's fault for not overcoming this barrier is just baffling. Because the private school kids will have it served to them on a plate.

Personally, I don't think there is Oxbridge material.

You don't need to be a genius. You don't need to be posh. You just need to be bright and also want the very specific academic environment that Oxbridge offers.

If there isn't such a thing as Oxbridge material then state schools are really stuffed in identifying potential applicants then.

laqueen stop being so superior. You are not a 17 year old state school applicant trying to figure this stuff out by themselves. I certainly found it baffling and intimidating at the time. Well done adult you for being so better informed

Fanny that is the responsibility of the schools though, and parents.

Pretending it doesn't matter, that it won't close doors is highly disingenuous. Passing the buck to the universities and employers is lazy.

As for the collegiate system, well as I always say, many many applicnats won't have a strong view on college choice. And you know what? It doesn't matter. You can make an open application and remove all that stress. More and more applicants do that every year and they are in no way prejudiced!!!!

Teachers know this. They can pass this on. In many schools (in both sectors) teachers do pass all this on.

I would like to address a few issues raised in this thread;

1. BTEC (Not Btech!) qualifications were misused by some schools but they are a substantial qualification that does ensure that students who undertake them learn about the subject in a vocational manner rather than just out of a book. (I have some level 2 students who can't believe the amount they have to learn compared to GCSE in the same subject)

1. MFL is an example of schools only being able to offer the languages that they can recruit teachers for

1. Education is not just about academia; its about learning about the world, learning about different aspects of the world and what it has to offer therefore every subject is viable and worthy of being studied if you are interested in that area

I believe that the problems started when league tables were introduced and the pressures that they place on a school/HT - get rid of these and allow schools to meet the needs of the students rather than where they are placed

wordfactory ffs we got rid of the 11* because it was clear that setting an academic path for a child at a young age was a stupid idea. Closing the uni door on someone for a choice they made at 12 is ridiculous.

You can blame the schools, the parents if you like, but you need to accept that someone who doesn't look like uni material at 12 (and thus might take the dreaded PE) may well be a late bloomer. Or even simply change their mind.

noblegiraffe "Closing the uni door on someone for a choice they made at 12 is ridiculous" is a circular argument. There is no reason for any child to make options decisions until the end of year 9, when most will be 14. Schools which force this decision back earlier in their school career are doing so, mostly, for very bad reasons to do with tricky games playing with league tables. As a parent, granted one that knows more about the system than many, I would actively resist sending my child to a school that did this. "Accelerated Learning" and other euphemisms are a cover for delivering poor results, early, for the school's benefit.

My nephew has just got a B in French at the end of Y10, having had to make options decisions at the end of Y8. He now can't study French again, and has to do a one-year course in something else. In one year, he's highly unlikely to get a decent grade. How is this good for him? Another year of French then he'd have got a better grade in it, and an A in French is infinitely preferable to a B in French and a C is something soft.

noble I have repeatedly stated on this thread that a GCSE in PE, drama or whatever, will be no bar to an academic career, if sat alongside a good hand of other rigorous GCSEs.

However, there is really no good reason for schools to be insisting pupils make decisions on their options at 12. And if you do, as a school insist on such a nonsense, then you need to offer very good advice alongside. You can't simply hand over a carte blanche choice.

I know that schools don't need to take options till 14, my school doesn't. But lots do, that's clear from just reading MN.

And selection for university at 14 isn't that much better than selection at 12. It also usually proves to be socially divisive.

Well our DS was Oxbridge material because of 10 A* and 2A at GCSE. He got 99%, 98%, 97% and 96% in his topp subjects and 42 IB points. He played 1st XV rugby and 1st XI football and cricket and joined the TA as soon as he could. He is also personable and a bit of a party animal.

Admittedly he is privileged but largely because his father, who was hungry in a northern town and went to the local comp because he too has a brilliant brain, went there first. In 1979.

Yes, I imagine that having a father who went to Oxbridge makes you far more likely to be Oxbridge material. A major foot in the door.

Married, do you realise how privileged your kids are, compared to most state schooled children? You and your DH are both clearly very well educated professionals, and I think I'm right in saying that you put both of your DC into selective schools so they could do triple science and classical languages. No wonder you think they they don't need the experience of a debating society, and their highly renowned headmistress doesn't think the English oral exams (the one experience all kids get of public speaking at school) is worth much - for your DC, they would just offer opportunities to show off skills that they've been supported in developing all the way through their lives, due to their background. For students from less privileged backgrounds, debating society, drama and the GCSE oral are likely to be the only opportunities they get to focus on structuring their speech, talking slowly and clearly without fear of interruption, thinking about the impression they create through verbal and non-verbal communication, acclimatising to the feeling of lots of people scrutinising them, and (most importantly) knowing that they can be interesting, entertaining, and charismatic, and that they have a right to speak and be heard. If you can't see how rare and precious that learning opportunity is for a lot of children, then all I can say is "lucky you".

I'm not much older than your DC, at least as good at my subject as your DC are at theirs (I could prove this but not without outing myself as it made the news), went to a good state school (which was sadly lacking in extra-curricular stuff and support for university applications and careers), and had the blessed good fortune to be raised by very supportive, intelligent parents who care deeply about my education and personal development. I know that I grew up with advantages which most similarly gifted children haven't had. However, applying to Oxford was an eye-opener for me. At school it was a case of "Write the Personal Statement, get feedback from teacher who went to Cambridge 40 years ago, tweak it slightly and send it off, oh and you'll have to pop a piece of your Lit coursework from last year in the post - the poetry one will do, oh yes there is an admissions test for you to do but no I can't give you any advice beyond what you've already found on Google, good luck for your interview - if it doesn't go well then clearly you'd be better off elsewhere..." The interviews were even worse - I'd never been in a similar situation before, had no idea what to expect, and neither of them bore any resemblance to the "practice interview" that had been put on for me by the teacher who'd studied a totally unrelated subject at Cambridge 40 years ago.

Despite being very intelligent and caring about my future very deeply, my parents simply weren't in a position to help - DM left school at 15, and DF went to the local university because his parents wanted him to get a degree before joining a civil service. To them, applications process = "fill in the form and post it", and it's not as though they knew anybody who could help.

WordFactory - Intellectually, I was definitely Oxbridge material. I can't tell you how I know this without outing myself, but I can say with reasonable confidence that their intake for my subject in that year must have included candidates with less demonstrable talent and subject knowledge than me (and I very much doubt that all of them went on to achieve the kinds of things I did at my less prestigious RG university). The feedback (from the scary interviewer who nonetheless gave me a really good score) strongly implied that I'd have got a place, if my first interview hadn't gone so badly. I know for a fact that my first interview would have gone as well as my second if I'd had any useful support from my school, or the speaking and interpersonal skills that Marrried informs us have come so naturally to her children...

(Incidentally, I'm pleased that I ended up somewhere different as I loved my time at university - I just get very pissed off when people say that Oxbridge is genuinely accessible to everybody who works hard, does the right subjects, and has the right kind of mind, because that wasn't my experience in the late 2000s at all. Oxford University certainly wasn't to blame, but nor was I, and nor was the subject choice available at my school/college.)

Both my half siblings went to Oxbridge. Their parents are unmarried, uneducated and they lived in a shed with no indoor loo (or television) in remote Ireland. They are in their 30s now. The only advantage they had was that like you nom their parents were interested and intelligent.

nom the point you have missed DH remembers being hungry in his northern town He went to Oxford from the local comp. I, by the way did not even go to university. Perhaps your ability only to take and consider part of an argument is what might have held you back rather than the system or your perceived lack of privilege.

Good for them, elskovs. It doesn't change the fact that what happened to me was very unfair.

Married - I described you as a "highly educated professional" because I know you often offer legal advice in threads about HR matters. The fact that you didn't go to university doesn't change that, IMO, as education doesn't stop when we leave school and you have clearly learned enough to become a highly skilled professional. Please feel free to correct me if I've confused you with somebody else.

Please note that I said that your children are privileged because they have the benefit of highly educated professional parents and (AFAIK, and you haven't corrected me) selective schooling.

Your DH's upbringing has no bearing on my argument, because his experience is completely separate to a discussion of current qualifications and recent experiences of the Oxford applications process and accessibility.

I have to go out now, so won't be able to reply for a bit .

I am living proof of how not having a culture of tertiary education in a family has an enormous influence on whether you attempt Oxbridge or not.

If the family cannot support or get their head around the archaic bullshit attached to Oxbridge then the student HAS to rely on the school. If the school is unhelpful then you are expecting a 17 year old to be confident and assured enough to push themselves ahead alone.

Just one well informed and helpful teacher prepared to guide a student (and their family) through the process can make all the difference.
But how many teachers are there in state schools who have personal experience of Oxbridge?

married - 1979 - your DH went to Oxford 34 years ago and you think things haven't changed?!

When BTECs first came out they were very good and offered a different
way forward in to training for careers. I remember my brother doing a Btec
National in catering in 1986 , it was a highly regarded qualification relevant to the industry. Btecs have unfortunately become modern day
CSEs in content and perception. I do think an opportunity was lost with
Btecs and City and Guilds in creating highly valued vocational qualifications.

My DH's background has every bearing because upward mobility has to start somewhere and DH was assisted by an inspirational teacher and in my opinion there aren't enough of them nowadays. There is instead too much emphasis on politics and keeping people down and that is very very wrong.

Yes, it is me who helps with HOUR advice. And thank you - that is very nice of you.

I too am off now until tomorrow.

wordfactory re not making an application to a specific college. If I were to advise a child now, I would advise against an open application. Because that is what I did in 1995 and they allocated me an all-women college. FFS, I was a girl studying maths and physics surrounded by boys in a mixed comp and they thought that would be a good idea? It really put me off, even before I went for interview.

And my experience matches Nom's. My parents didn't go to Uni at all, my school experience of my application sounds similar, except none of my teachers had been to Oxbridge. Basically, the only help I got was a practice interview that was nothing like the real thing. There was an option to sit an entrance exam and I was told there wasn't any point in trying as they wouldn't be able to prep me for it like a private school kid would be. So I went for interview and it was hideous. I was completely out of my depth and totally unprepared. And I know I'm good at maths, (I didn't even revise for my A-level easily got an A) but I was wrong-footed from the start. I know if I'd gone to a private school, I'd have had a much better chance of getting in, because the admissions procedure was set up assuming that you had all this support.

Like Nom said, it was an eye-opener. And I'm not sure, if the staff there have gone the private route, that they really appreciate their privilege.

And if a school gets a kid to do an unsuitable combination of GCSEs (is that mainly poorer kids do you think?) because they haven't got their eye on the Oxford ball at 14, then how dare Oxbridge simply write them off and blame the school, while at the same time claiming to be doing their best to engage students from state schools.

The thing about wanting languages amuses me too, given that I didn't really want to go to Oxford as they didn't offer study in Europe.

NobleGiraffe - just curious, but I couldn't understand why being a girl studying maths and physics would intrinsically mean that you wouldn't want to study at a women's college? Did you feel at the time that you didn't have much in common with female students at your school, and that therefore you wouldn't have much in common with female students at University?

If I were to advise a child now, I would advise against an open application. Because that is what I did in 1995 and they allocated me an all-women college.

Which isn't a problem for Oxford now, as there are no all-women colleges any more. There is one at Cambridge, and I know of someone who turned down Cambridge in favour of going abroad in part because they were allocated to the one remaining all-women college.

And if a school gets a kid to do an unsuitable combination of GCSEs (is that mainly poorer kids do you think?) because they haven't got their eye on the Oxford ball at 14, then how dare Oxbridge simply write them off and blame the school, while at the same time claiming to be doing their best to engage students from state schools.

But what are Oxbridge supposed to do? The issue isn't of itself unsuitable GCSEs, it's unsuitable GCSEs that preclude suitable A Levels. Can a 60-week course take two students, one of whom has the requisite A Level (or equivalent) material at their fingertips, the other of whom doesn't (and is, realistically, hampered in other ways as well) and teach them alongside each other and get the same outcome?

The information about what are generally desirable A Levels is hardly a state secret, and it doesn't require massive insight to realise that in general A Level X is facilitated by GCSE X. That information was much less well publicised ten years ago, but it is very well known now. It was easier in the 1970s when I did my O Levels, because it was much harder to fuck it up: there simply wasn't the scope to choose O Levels that might be a problem, and if you were doing A Level, essentially everyone did either Maths, Physics, Chemistry or English, History, French or something fairly close to those options (swap Physics for Biology, swap History for Music, etc).