To think that it's time the UK had a GED (High School equivalency) mechanism?

[Just5minswithDacre]

Something similar to the American and Canadian system?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Educational_Development

I've applied for a contract working in an area partly concerned withNEETS (keeping it vague on purpose) so I've been boning up for that interview.

I was also chatting to a Home Edding friend at the weekend about the expense and difficulty of accessing GCSE courses and exams, and particularly about how changes to the GCSE system will make things harder/easier for HEers and the likely effect on the NEET numbers. Then we wandered on to the raising of the participation age and who that might have an impact on.

I've been thinking about it since and it seems to me that anyone NOT getting 5+ GCSEs at 16 (for whatever reason) has an unnecessarily difficult path to 'catch up'. There's absolutely blanket provision for 16-18s and adults to take Maths and English GCSE, but beyond that, it's hard to access Level 2 general education at 16+. Anyone trying is likely to be forced down a vocational route.

So why don't we have a GED-type option? Should we?

My dd got onto a level 3 BTEC with only two GCSE's because I prostrated myself before the entrance tutors at her college and begged them to let her on to it. A year in and she's repaid their generosity by turning up regularly, doing all the work and getting good grades (despite her mental illness). Her two friends who also left school with a couple of GCSE grades are now NEETS. . The difference is that neither of these girls has a confident graduate mother willing to go and plead for a place on a course for them.

Our next hurdle will be finding somewhere she can do a nursing degree with a level 3 BTEC, but only 3 GCSEs (she is retaking maths this week and will hopefully pass).

I would love for her to take a year out at the end of her BTEC to do some GCSE's but there isn't anywhere locally she can do a range of subjects.

The claim in the film is that is wasn't just an early morning thing, but was used as a form of "PE". I am truly baffled that anyone thinks we can learn anything from the US school system. As I said, ours was working fine before various governments took all the money away - I don't see how adopting something inferior from the US is going to make that magically reappear.

I've just had a really good hunt. In the (pretty large) city I live in you can do GCSE maths, English and (slightly randomly) biology.

Nothing random about it, if you want to be a teacher you need GCSE (or equivalent) English, maths and science, biology is often seen as the one it is easier to achieve in than single subject science.

That's interesting. I did maths, f. Maths, physics and chemistry for A levels so see biology as the "hardest" science. Can you be a teacher with just 3 GCSEs. (And an access course presumably?

I honestly don't understand why someone would need five random GCSEs.

Jobs asking for a minimum of five GCSEs generally accept Btec and other level two equivalents.

I haven't rtft as I'm on my phone, but I just wanted to say that there are alternatives to the traditional school and GCSE route. My no2 Son was HE from age 12 and started at our local college of FE at 15. He is now in his 20s and is a chef with his own home and several people under him at work He never took any GCSE s at all

Bowling was an elective PE class in Columbine, apparently geared towards students who weren't interested in PE classes involving lots of running or contact sports. PE wasn't a class where your grade went towards your gpa - it may well have been a pass/fail class. It might have been necessary to pass PE in order to graduate. The bowling in question took place in a bowling alley iirc.

You are not being 'educated' if you are not participating in classes to your fullest ability. Sitting in class disrupting the work of others is not education. Dragging yourself around a track or doing the least possible in team sports or swimming is teaching you nothing about challenging yourself, or fitness, or self discipline. It just encourages immature, attention-seeking, fear-of-trying behaviour. At least the students from Columbine who participated in bowling were up and dressed and out of their homes for a 7am start. There were more students participating than the two killers, and many of them I presume went on to lead productive lives.

The lesson to be taken from the availability of bowling at 7am as a PE elective is that US high schools try to provide some version of required courses that will suit everyone. DS took a course on War and Literature instead of a course that featured lots of Jane Austen. The reason to provide alternatives is to minimise the potential for disruption in classes and make sure everyone actually works productively, as opposed to what is often the case in British schools where there is a hierarchy of courses and the students who have been turned off by literature or who don't read well enough to follow Dickensian sentences down the length of a page understand very well that they are the bottom of the barrel and behave as such.

In many schools you have to pass the PE requirement in order to graduate. In my DCs' high school students take PE every day for four years, with one of the eight semesters taken up by drivers' ed. If for some reason you fail PE in any semester you have to retake it. The options for a retake include early morning or after school classes, and you would then be taking two PE classes daily for at least one semester. Early morning would involve a 7am start as classes begin at 8. If you fail drivers' ed then you have to take it in summer school or privately and you must have a state licence to show in order to graduate.

If you fail any other core course in any semester you also have to retake it. Retakes are offered in summer school, which you pay for. The cost in my DCs' high school is about $200 per summer school course taken. This means that students are not allowed to fail their way through four years of school and emerge at the other end having wasted their own and everyone else's time. Maybe something worth considering for British schools...

Summer school also allows students interested in advancing quickly through a maths track to do so. DD3 did summer school maths for two summers and joined a track that was two levels up from her original track in her second year. Are British students able to plough ahead like that if they want to?

It is always a shame to turn up one's nose at something one really doesn't seem to understand and to refuse to believe there is anything in the educational approach of the US that could be useful to Britain just out of sheer small-minded disdain.

As I said, ours was working fine before various governments took all the money away - I don't see how adopting something inferior from the US is going to make that magically reappear

Maybe for starters, throw money at it like many American high school districts do. My DCs' high school has an annual budget of $77 million.

Oh wait...

That's interesting. I did maths, f. Maths, physics and chemistry for A levels so see biology as the "hardest" science. Can you be a teacher with just 3 GCSEs. (And an access course presumably?

But for both chemistry and physics you have to do equations and chemical equations. Don't forget this is a requirement for a teaching course, if I'm teaching you this just to pass I can get you there without much understanding. If I was teaching you with a view to go on to A level then this would not be enough, I would want you to understand it.

filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-BL1FP-QP-JUN15.PDF

As for can you be a teacher with only 3 GCSEs? Well I have none, but then I'm O Level generation.

If you watched 'educating Wales' - the head there had left school without GCSEs. It could be argued that those of us who entered teaching later, or via an unconventional route are more sympathetic to students having difficulties. I'm not saying better, but better for some students.

Can you be a teacher with just 3 GCSEs.

Not by a standard route, because (hidden in the small print, because it doesn't affect many applicants) most universities require you to have the 2016 equivalent of "five GCEs, two at A Level" (ie, three O Levels in different subjects to your two A Levels): it's what in the 1980s was "Form R", the 1960s was "matriculation" and before the war was "school certificate": the magic number of five subjects, the magic number of two A levels. It's also the requirement for a course qualifying as "advanced work" and therefore eligible for student funding.

However, what three GCSEs might do is get you a gig as a TA, from where there are a variety of access routes to teaching. But you're going to need to do a degree, either in another subject or a BEd, so you're going to need to get university admission somehow.

However, I suspect the reason why biology is chosen is that a more plausible route for people without GCSEs is into nursing via a nursing foundation degree which (historically, it's changing next year) attracted a bursary and had lower entry requirements than many other degrees.

Just5minswithDacre - Have you had your job interview yet? If so, how did it go?

Harking back to the stage in this thread where people were pointing out how hard it is to find provision for adults with no GCSEs, who simply require those "five GCSE passes" to find a job and/or progress in it, I came across this interesting piece on the OCR website:

www.ocr.org.uk/blog/view/we-need-an-adult-gcse-for-post-16-english-and-maths/

There are three comments at the end, the second of which sums up the hurdles faced by adults in their late 20s/early 30s trying to improve their career prospects.

I imagine Jay has been sitting his IGCSE exams while this thread here has been running - hope he gets the grades he needs.

Hello. My 15 year old daughter suffers from acute anxiety, and as such she has been unable to attend her school for nearly a year. Her teachers have been emailing her coursework. However, this was with a view to eventually integrating her back into school. We have now reluctantly come to accept that this will never happen and we are now investigating different online providers. So far we have considered Interhigh, Oxford online, Oxford Open Learning and Wosley Hall. It is hard to pick between them and so I am just wondering if anyone has experience of any online providers they would recommend? I should add my daughter is studying for her GCSEs and we live in London.