To think entering children early for GCSEs is wrong

[inthepacificocean]

AIBU to be concerned about this practice? It means that children don’t have the same preparation time as their peers. I realise for some very talented individuals it might not make a difference but for the most part it doesn’t seem a positive move to me.

This is becoming rarer now : mainly because of changes to league tables and Ofsted changing their view.

We used to do it at my school for C/D borderline students. It was awful. They did Lit early and bombed it. We then spent a whole year teaching the deadly dull IGCSE and/or GCSE Eng Lang. Results weren't better.

I'm cynical I think because my secondary experimented with this with some quite bad results. In my year we did an extra maths GCSE in year 10 which was fine, most of us got an OK extra grade. However I had a sibling in a "guinea pig" year doing maths and another subject early only to do something like a quarter of an AS level in year 11 under an exam board incompatible with most of the 6th form colleges. Totally pointless, they would have been better off with better year 11 GCSE results.

I think the overall policy of the schools is variable and that changes the response.
Aiming to get children through at grade 4/5 isn’t good enough. It might help in league tables but gives the completely wrong message about both aspiration and individual ability to youngsters.

Giving faster learners early GCSE opportunities boosts confidence and interest. They can do more subjects to keep them interested or do A levels early too and so have sufficient challenge built in.

They must pass language and so it also give the opportunity to retake if they fail.

Which can only be done after they turn 16 by a certain date in August (can’t remember which date) anyway.

The opportunity for students to retake is just silly, though : it should be taught properly the first time round (and sat at the correct age!), not have a 'back up' built in. That can become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Many posters obviously don't know the first attempt is what counts in the league tables these days. Large numbers of resits are certainly not to the school's advantage any more.

I wouldn't trust school's judgement on this : it is rarely a decision made for the benefit of the students, even if it is dressed up as such.

Some pp have suggested that it removes pressure but I think it has the opposite effect - kids used to take exams in year 11 and year 13 but now they can be sitting GCSEs in years 9,10 and 11 followed by AS levels in year 12 and A Levels in year 13. Where is the time to be a teenager, to develop and to explore non-academic interests??? This kind of thing is the reason that young people today have higher IQs but less ability to solve problems and are less independent and have higher levels of anxiety. I'm a teacher so I believe passionately in children being encouraged to do their best but I also believe passionately that they should have a chance to grow and flourish as a whole being and not just a set of grades.

Our school does this, they sit English lit, re, maths and half the sciences in year 10. Then if they want a higher grade, they can sit it again in year 11.

Piggy the local secondary who does this (not my ds school) tops the league tables every year. They also are the only secondary with a 6th form that is extremely competitive to get into. They are obviously getting something right re students entering some gcse in year 10.

If I had my own way ds wouldn't even be made to do literature and they'd focus on his language instead. He's going to struggle to pass both and I'd rather he just did one and did better in it.

I took one of my gcses a year early, got an A* and it meant I could take on an additional gcse in its place. I think if students have the capability then it is fine to do gcses early. But it would be wrong to encourage a student to take GCSEs early if they would do better with the additional year's worth of tuition.

Disagree. Some do it based on children being very bright, do able to do it early. Seems fine.

Ds1's school does NO early GCSE's.

Most people I know do 1, often English Lit? Study the poems, sit it a year early. Great. Now it's one less to study for in year 11. Seems very sensible to me.

I would like some teachers opinions @Piggywaspushed and @noblegiraffe? on this as I'm pretty sure that resits don't count in the school's figures. Also, universities like to see exams sat in one exam period.

When DD was at school they used to do two short, fat GCSEs in year 10 and another two short, fat GCSEs in year 11. So students used to sit 8 subjects in year 11 rather than 10. Students taking double science used to sit core 1 papers at the end of year 10 and core 2 at the end of year 11. The triple science students took core 1, 2 and 3 at the end of year 11. Oh, and the brighter maths students took iGCSE maths in the January of year 11 (iGCSE maths was considered more rigorous than GCSE in 2016). When the GCSEs were reformed they discontinued this practice.

The stats showed that entering kids early got them worse results than if they entered at the correct time, and many then weren’t given an opportunity to resit and improve their grade.

That’s why the rules were introduced that first entry only results would count for league tables, to discourage them from a practice that clearly disadvantaged the kids.

Schools shouldn’t be doing this.

And don't forget that all GCSE attempts must be declared on the UCAS form, unbeknown to a friend of a friend who pressurised the school to let her DD do Maths GCSE early. She thought it would look impressive on her UCAS form but she ended up getting a much lower grade than expected, retook in Yr11 and got the top grade. Mummy wasn't happy that the lower grade also had to be declared on the UCAS form meaning her PFB DD didn't look like the child genius she'd hoped for ...

Could the teachers on this thread give an opinion on teaching GCSes over a three year peiod instead of two. As far as I know DD's old school still only teaches GCSEs over two years.

So what is your situation op and why does it worry you in this case?

Doesn’t a child being potentially put as a disadvantage worry you, maddening?

To reiterate I am not talking about genius children who are taking 12 or 13 and sit mandarin and music a year early. I’m talking about children who will probably get grades between 5-7.

I’m a teacher Ginfordinner and as I have written above, no they don’t count anymore.

I’m still burnt from the previous English GCSE debacle when grade boundaries were changed in the summer exam period due to exam board error and so those who sat the modules early in the January and before, benefited unfairly. This affected many Ofsted gradings, despite the High Court declaiming the debacle unlawful. Our lead Ofsted inspector at the time, outrageously stated that they didn’t pay any heed to that ruling. Grrrr.

Anecdotally, my husband who teaches Biology, is glad that this is dying out. Many schools doing triple science would sit a science exam in each year from Year 9. He would get far too many Year 12 students from other schools, opting to take Biology (which was usually the first subject taken), when they hadn’t actually studied the subject for 2 years and subsequently struggled at A Level.

At our school they start GCSE's in year 9. They take their English and RE exams in year 10. The rest in year 11. It gives them more time in year 11 for some subjects such as maths. The Maths results compared to English are poor.

I am still in a school that only does 2 year GCSEs Ginfordinner. I prefer it and it means that students actually tend to choose their options more wisely, having had an extra year to explore them. It also means that the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum is more appropriately followed with the proper amount of time devoted to it, in my opinion but I know a lot of academies don’t actually care about this! I have found that at an age appropriate level, this actually prepares students for the new 9-1 GCSE better.

My school did this with maths and French. Just the top set, and the results were always good.

The problem came the next year. The maths felt had it sorted - they covered an A Level module so there were fewer to cover in such form.

The French dept had it less well organized, and their class spent the year reading Le Petit Prince and nothing else. As there were so few people doing French A-Level all the students had to go into one class, so they couldn't afford to let half get ahead by a year. I know of at least one person who was put off French and changed their mind about doing the A-Level because of this wasted year.

I think it's a shame that if you don't want to re-sit the GCSE some schools make you do A Level. Ours was replaced with a library session where we could study for other subjects, do coursework or homework. Granted there was a lot of messing about, but a better system I think.

Some schools do early entry for English Lit so students can have more uninterrupted prep for English Language. It puts the exam nearer to all of the teaching for Lit, rather than being examined at the end of year 11 on a text first taught at the start of year 10.

The maths felt had it sorted - they covered an A Level module

This was invariably a terrible idea.

I think it's fine for the top set who probably don't need the same amount of time to cover the material eg Ds took maths in year 10 achieved an A* and then AS maths in year 11. Those students who were not as strong in maths took the exam in year 11.
However, he attended an international school so league tables and which grade counts/implication of retakes etc are all irrelevant.

As a maths teacher I have no real opinion on 3 year GCSE courses because maths is an 11 year GCSE course.

I understand that taking options in Y8 narrows a student’s education as they miss out on the full KS3 curriculum. The idea behind 3 year GCSEs was because the new GCSEs were harder so they need the extra time to get through the content. I don’t know if now they are more settled whether teachers still think that’s true.