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?

Bonsoir I wouldn't have thought that Oxbridge of all places would really care that a pupil really focused on their subject to the exclusion of the real world.

In fact isn't that their sort of thing? Andrew Wiles who holed himself up for seven years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem had a building named after him!

"Also, what is academia, if not a career in learning a lot about very little...?"

The best academics (like the best people in every field) are interested in and knowledgeable about many things. Only ten days ago I spoke, purely by coincidence, to a recent Oxford graduate about someone I know who had taught him French poetry. What the recent graduate remembered was the incredible breadth of knowledge of humanity and its achievements that this man (also a recent prize winning novelist - so you will be able to identify him) brought to his tutorials.

Hm. I am surprised at the idea you need two MFL's to be considered for specialist studies at better universities.

In a game where everyone is holding a royal flush of 4 Astars

Is that actually the case? Oxford, for example, don't use Astar in their offers in general (there are exceptions), there is no Astar grade at AS and Oxford don't ask for AS UMS scores (ie, they can't and don't distinguish between a low and a high A at AS, although obviously school references may highlight anything notable).

Bonsoir - I think you're over-extending, there. A lecturer in a humanities subject (English) showed an extensive knowledge of other humanities subject (History). Gosh. You might have had me convinced if you'd told me about his fascination with string theory, or his intricate knowledge of mechanical engineering.

I had no interest in biology (despite being good at it), but I loved our GCSE work on the History of Medicine and have kept up an interest in the subject ever since.

Why is "general ability" an advantage when you reach that level of specialisation?

I doubt even the snobbiest "American degrees are just a bunch of A Levels" old buffer would include Yale and Harvard in that dismissal, but their entry criteria are precisely about "general ability". You vaguely indicate a major on application, and it's slightly tricky to jump from roughly "arts and humanities" into "science and engineering" once you've arrived, mostly because there's an extra admission essay you'd have bypassed. But they do admission almost entirely on general ability, and the SAT and the SAT2 subject tests cover a very wide range. Of the three parts of the main SAT reasoning tests, "Critical Reading" is seen as both the hardest and the one where high scores are most desirable, which means that all entrants to Ivy League universities will have scored highly on that area. Even SAT maths is GCSE-and-a-bit standard, too.

If you deal with American-educated scientists and engineers, their ability to write and present is far higher than their UK brethren, and they have no shortage of science and engineering skill either. "Freshman Comp" is a real benefit.

It was an awful lot broader than than, NomDeOrdinateur.

It is, in any case, my experience that world-class academics (of whom I am fortunate to have quite a few in my acquaintance) can hold their own on many topics and draw on a huge variety of skills in addition to their own specialist field.

Friday16 -

Highly renowned and selective universities will invariably produce high quality graduates, and I can't compare Yale etc with Oxford because I don't know anywhere near enough about either.

However, what you've said about the American system's "success" more broadly is news to me.

""If you deal with American-educated scientists and engineers, their ability to write and present is far higher than their UK brethren."

DH was an academic in the field of Engineering, and said the exact opposite.

My department had a lot of American exchange students, and they all said that they found our work much more sophisticated and difficult, even though the breadth and volume of our courses was far less than theirs. Their marks varied as much as ours did.

Take from that what you will...

Bonsoir - You're talking about academics as people, rather than academia as a career path. Yes, intelligent people with inquiring minds will be interested in many things and learn a great deal about them, and that can present all sorts of advantages. However, the wide-ranging general knowledge and diverse skills set is symptomatic of having the sort of mind that's appropriate for research, rather than a prerequisite for succeeding in that field.

You still haven't refuted my point, which is that academia as a career is the process of "learning a lot about very little." You have a few specialisms, but IME you're encouraged to build up a great deal of expertise in a relatively small number of linked areas because the alternative makes you look "flighty" when you apply for posts and funding. (This advice was given to me recently by very successful academics, when I was still considering pursuing that career path.)

Right, I really must start cooking now, so won't be replying!

Friday, re GCSEs, wordfactory who says she is involved in Oxbridge access posted

However, an applicant with GCSEs in drama and media studies and law would struggle. Unless they did fourteen or fifteen. And then they might be asked why!!!

Which is where I'm getting the idea that there's a problem with kids sitting these GCSEs getting into Oxbridge.

Cor blimey, MN is obsessed with Oxbridge.

Which is where I'm getting the idea that there's a problem with kids sitting these GCSEs getting into Oxbridge.

wordfactory can speak for herself, but I think the problem with "weak" GCSEs is what they get in the way of. All universities say, and I think honestly say, that if you have eight good GCSES (maths, English x 2, science x 2/3, humanity x 1/2, language x 1/2) done in essentially one sitting then that's fine. That was the basis for the EBacc "stop getting people to do lots of odd qualifications" accountability measure, and is (for those of us approaching fifty) "what we did back then". It's also the basis now for "best eight" measures, popular both with universities and now with DfE value-add tables.

So if you do a bunch of weak GCSEs then you just increase the amount of work you have to do, without adding any real value. And it's unlikely you'd take then all in a sitting, so you then get into the whole question of "being able to handle the workload". So I don't think anyone's saying it's that law is a red flag, it's the consequences of doing law that are the problem.

I don't think the vast majority of unis give a toss about GCSEs at all, one sitting or otherwise. And rightly so, if the student has proved themselves through the appropriate A-levels.

I just went on UCL's website because I knew they had a GCSE language requirement and it seems that they have now dropped it, or at least they say if you don't have a language you can make it up alongside your degree. I guess they realised that their stated intention (to get cultured undergrads) wasn't actually only achievable through selection by choices made at KS3 and they were actually turning away decent candidates to meet a silly restriction.

However, an applicant with GCSEs in drama and media studies and law would struggle. Unless they did fourteen or fifteen. And then they might be asked why!!!

this is not correct - a previous student of mine who had 10 GCSEs which included a BTEC level 2 qualification is currently at Oxford...

Wordfactory said one wasn't a problem.

she did unless they had 14/15 GCSEs (in fact he is doing a subject that he only gained knowledge and a love of from my subject )

This thread I thought was about Exam boards getting rid of so called "soft" GCSES but seems to have descended into a discussion on how many academic GCSES children are being advised to do to get into an Oxbridge university. It comes across as though there is no question that if children do not go to a university then their lives are over. It seems for the majority there is no clear idea of what your children actually want to do as a career just that what ever they want to do will need a degree.
If we end up with a nation of university graduates in academic subjects who is going to build the houses your children will live in, who will be there to fix their plumbing and electrics? Who will be there to grow the food that they need to survive or will their piece of paper that says they have attained a degree feed them?
The soft subjects keep those non academic children engaged in school and gives them a reason to keep in school.

If we end up with a nation of university graduates in academic subjects who is going to build the houses your children will live in, who will be there to fix their plumbing and electrics?

People should be able to pursue whichever of the paths their talents permit them to, at their choice, without reference to their parents' income and education. That's an idealised dream, but the problem with talk of hewers of wood and drawers of water is that you can be bloody sure that people on a hundred grand a year aren't thinking the same thing.

I know university researchers / PhD endowed people who also have plenty experience at plumbing, plastering, bricking, etc. Not mutually exclusive skills at all! We had a PhD student who drove HGVs in the holidays for income. He had brilliant (& scary) stories about shedloads.

Isn't there a brickie with a PhD who writes for the Telegraph? Or did I dream that.

I know university researchers / PhD endowed people who also have plenty experience at plumbing, plastering, bricking, etc

I knew a consultant cardiac surgeon who was a devastating DIY guy who had renovated a house from ruin to palace. He didn't do heavy building work the day before big operations. It's hardly surprising that a well educated guy with good craft skills who knew how to use tools could translate those skills from ventricle chambers to chimney breasts, is it?

It's not a zero sum game, as you say.

It doesn't matter what we do at school - social class is set hundreds of years before we are born, apparently

Of course lots of us have backgrounds that mitigate against that conclusion, and certainly the post war grammar school system, and that of assisted places, had quite a profound effect on social mobility. You only have to look at many of the politicians of the post war who came from humble backgrounds, who managed to climb the greasy pole.

Looking back, my great grandfather was a bricklayer, but his son became an eminent scientist. On my mother's side, my grandfather and grandmother were from the petit bourgeousie.

But I agree social mobility requires comittment from the establishment, and economic prosperity.

The best way to maintain social inequality is early selective education. It's a major problem in Germany whose school system has been slated by the UN.

Yet in France social mobility has decreased sharply since the school system moved to a fully comprehensive to 15 system in the 1970s.