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?

Sorry- what I meant in first para was that what is actually 'of use' in the workplace is being bizarrely articulated by Gove and the Gradgrind tendency.

It's already an integral part of the English curriculum.

And, the in-depth study of drama is already taught by specialist drama teachers. In the subject of Drama.

being bizarrely articulated by Gove and the Gradgrind tendency.

He can't catch a break, though, can he?

The accusation levelled at Labour was that they allowed a situation to develop where a lot of children at state schools, particular at schools without a history of sending children to selective universities or who didn't have parents on top of the education process, ended up doing non-facilitating (or whatever euphemism you want to use) qualifications at 18, in part because they had done courses up to 16 that didn't lead to A Levels. When it came to university entrance, they were disadvantaged as compared to their privately educated peers, who had a meat and potatoes diet of "traditional" GCSEs followed by either Maths and two sciences or English, History and an MFL, the classic A Level choices.

So what Gove has tried to do is encourage schools in the state sector to offer, at least to the higher attaining, a curriculum similar to that offered in the private sector. If the universities are claiming that they admit proportionately more applicants from private schools not because of prejudice but because of course choices, why not call their bluff and present them with a load of state educated pupils, with the grades, in the "right" subjects? And his reward for that is cries of "elitist" and "gradgrind" and so on.

The only way that state education is going to drive out the iniquities of private education is by being as good. Some of the problems are about money and intake which are much harder to fix. But as an opening position, making sure that the qualifications taken by people in the state sector are as well regarded as those in the private sector is not a bad start, is it?

Friday - the inequities will never be breached, how can they be!

friday I think part of the problem is that (as you can see on this thread) a large proportion of parents are highly resistant to state schools offering that type of education. The more trad subjects are seen as 'dull' 'boring'. The pupils days only brightened by the prospect of art, drama, DT, media studies etc...

the inequities will never be breached, how can they be!

By state education being better than private education?

To what extent are Art, Drama etc dumbed down to make them more fun and liven the day? I don't think that those subjects are instrinsically necessarily more fun than English or Maths or Science - an awful lot depends on standards and delivery...

LaQueen - what about being inspired and developing their own passions though?! My DD1 is about to start at secondary school in Sept and the thing I am hoping for her above all is that being taught by people who really know their subject will inspire her and enable her to develop her own enthusiasms and discover for herself what she wants to be involved with. And if that's for PE or drama (alongside her core academic subjects) then great!

friday Intrestingly, No.1 on the list you posted is an old style 11+ school. I happen to know that they import a lot of students from abroad to hoots their points!

Hoots?! Boost.

a large proportion of parents are highly resistant to state schools offering that type of education

So then they shouldn't complain when their offspring get turned down by our better universities. It seems people want it both ways: they want to rail against "elitism" and "academic curriculum", while refusing to accept that if you're applying to an elite institution which teaches academic subjects, those characteristics are the sine qua non of the education the successful applicants will have had.

There is something rather preposterous about people who see themselves as progressive essentially saying "those hard subjects aren't the like of you" to people who are already socially disadvantaged. It's like the ludicrous claim that Latin isn't "relevant" in the state system, as though the private sector is filled with people who are, in fact, tribunes in the Roman government. I hold no particular brief for Latin (didn't study it at my comp, my kids aren't studying it at their grammar) and I find some of the arguments for it pretty self-serving, but its "relevance" is precisely the same whether you're in Eton or the East End.

"aren't for the likes of you"

too many parents think it highly unfair that universities dare to require their students to actually be academically capable.

Or, more subtly, parents and governments expect universities to be able to fix in (essentially) sixty teaching weeks problems that have been caused over the previous 560 weeks of school. So we get the repeated assertion that universities should be looking for "potential" and "talent", without realising that in sixty weeks of contact time, they can't just start with people who are bright but have been raised by wolves, and give them the same outcomes as people who arriving with AAA in maths/physics/chemistry or english/history/german.

It's never explained why this miraculous conversion from raw talent to fresh graduate has to be done by universities and why, for example, Y12/13 or Y10/11 teachers can't similarly undo in sixty weeks the effects of poor teaching in the past. Or why, in fact, it's a problem in the first place.

So universities are criticised for recruiting people who are a pretty safe bet to be teachable (relevant A Levels at decent grades), when they should supposedly be taking a flyer on people with "potential" who don't have such qualifications. Rather than making that the universities' problem, wouldn't it be better to actually encourage people to get the right qualifications in the first place?

Lottie

I applaud your posts

Fanny

And yours too

State education has to take every child in the country save a privileged elite and turn them into useful citizens. Some of those children will be university material, but the majority won't. State education has to cater for them all. Those who are banging on about university entrance are ignoring the fact that the majority of kids are not preparing for university entrance and they need to be catered for too.

Forcing a kid down an academic path isn't always the best option for the child. Both drama and PE teach skills which will be exceptionally useful in the real world. Working with others, presentation skills, motivation, coaching, leadership. Yeah, all pointless

And to claim that kids should be picking up these sorts of skills in their extra curricular activities is ignoring the reality of a lot of children's lives. School is the only chance a lot of kids get to level the playing field.

My son took GCSE PE and A level PE and he said that more than 60% of the GCSE PE class did not take the exams as they thought it was an 'easy option' and when it came to A level over 75% dropped out at AS level. He did Sports Science AT BSc and Biomechanics at Masters Level and now has a Masters in Physiotherapy. He says that the PE was very useful over the years especially the A level anatomy.
It also helped keep him sane with A levels of triple science

we NEED PE teachers and drama teachers

Well you've said it yourself in the OP, these are basically subjects where 95% of the available jobs are teaching the same subject to others. Rather like a pyramid scheme come to think of it.

Never mind that the UK is bottom of the league in Maths and Literacy, where will the next Wayne Rooney come from if kids don't have GCSEs in PE? Or when can we expect the next Noel Gallagher if nobody has a music GCSE?

Forcing a kid down an academic path isn't always the best option for the child. Both drama and PE teach skills which will be exceptionally useful in the real world.

As I recall, you're a teacher. And therefore, unless you're in your sixties and have a two year CertEd from the very end of teacher training colleges, have a degree, perhaps followed by a PGCE. Do you think that school teachers don't live in the real world, because they went down an academic path? What about nurses, all of whom now have degrees: not in the real world? And given university takeup is now around 40%, just what sort of presentation-giving, coaching and leadership jobs do you think the non-graduates will be applying for?

Some of those children will be university material, but the majority won't. State education has to cater for them all.

In many comprehensives, a majority will go into some form of HE. Even in those where they don't, I find the sort of inverted snobbery, which boils down to "well, I've got my degree, but the authentic working classes won't need to trouble themselves with such fripperies, as there are bricks to be laid and floors to be scrubbed" pretty toxic. I like to start from the assumption that all schools contain bright, able children who can aspire to be prime minister. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers think that the children they teach shouldn't even aspire to be teachers.

And to claim that kids should be picking up these sorts of skills in their extra curricular activities is ignoring the reality of a lot of children's lives.

The same applies to A Level Maths. Most parents can't teach that if the school doesn't.