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.

DS did an ‘extra’ gcse a year early and got a good grade. His school
Offers a couple of optional ones that aren’t on the general curriculum but even those in top sets do normal GCSEs end of year 11 (maths wizards do two maths ones).
I know of schools who get their pupils to take some end of year 10 to spread them out but as unis etc ask for date of exam I think they want to see the majority done in same year to show you can cope with the workload, fairly or unfairly.

We have a mixed bag of experience of this.

DD1 took a twilight language GCSE and then A level before she sat any of her main GCSEs. All good.

She then took her maths early but the school didn't have a plan in place for what to do in Y11.

DD2 took maths a year early then went on to study FM. All good.

So for me early is fine if there is a plan and it meets the student's needs. Not fine if it is simply a blanket policy.

As long as they are able to cope with the GCSE level, it isn't intrinsically bad - BUT - to narrow down your options so early could mean missing out on things you would have been great at.

Music is one of those, as the level of improvement in playing/composition and just enjoying yourself in lessons, especially if the only playing you get is using a school guitar, bass, piano or computer at lunchtime - or singing in the after school choir - could be an abject fail in year 9, but a grade 8 by year 11. And most boys have finished their voice breaking by halfway through year 11 - in year 9/10, it could be about to happen, not completed, and you do have kids who sound terrible one Friday, but come back to school on Monday with a bloody good Baritone or Tenor and they're shocked by their change, so need more support/tuition.

We had one go from whiny, nasal voice to a full blown Bass. He would have got next to nothing on his performances beforehand, but after - and because there was time to work with him to develop his new voice and confidence - his was a top rate performance.

Of course, the child of a piano teacher, who has been hothoused and got grade 8 by age 6, will be able to pass GCSE early. It doesn't mean that they should. But they could if they wanted to - if there is a reward, such as not having to take another academic subject, having free study (playing music, drawing, reading, using the sports equipment) or being able to do something that interests them instead.

My opinion might not count in some eyes, though - my GCSEs had a lot of coursework, English, English Lit and another were 100% coursework, so I had 3 under my belt (and two more were good passes if I answered half the exam questions) before I ever walked into the exam hall. So I was quite relaxed at exam time. I would have thought that was a good thing - I got top grades in all my subjects, including the ones that were 100% final exams, too.

I passed my O level maths a year early. It was great to get it out the way.

For me, there is something about looking at what the private schools do (given they generally want kids to leave With lots of top grades). Yes the maths early is quite common for the students that will do a-level maths. I’d be amazed if many were doing essay based subjects early.

I think it can be a very good idea, particularly in the world of the highly weighted final exam. One less to worry about. And presumably they've been covering the content since year nine where others start in year 10, so get the same amount of time for it overall.

I don’t really understand the ‘doing maths early, getting it out of the way then doing further maths in Y11’ brigade. I did maths and further maths both at the end of Y11 with my top set last year and they got great grades in both. In addition, there were some who would definitely have got a lower grade in maths had they sat it early, the extra year of maths boosted their grade. So same two maths GCSE, better grades from sitting both in Y11.

Depends I think. DS sat 4 last year in Y10 - they all did, it's standard practice in his school. He did English Lit, Computer Science, Psychology and media studies. He's a very average kid but he passed them all (A, B, B, C respectively). Now this year he sees it that he got these out of the way and can concentrate on his other, core, subjects.

I think it depends how talented the students are. At ds's school the top maths set took igcse year 10, AS in year 11, A2 in year 12 with further maths AS and then A2 further maths in year 13. All grades were A* (A for the AS).

My children's selective independent did nothing early except for the short course RS, which they made compulsory. Those who wanted to (mine didn't) converted it to the full GCSE in year 11. That was pre-reform and wouldn't be possible now.

I asked if my older daughter could do music GCSE early, so she could get it out of the way early and allow her to have another option (she had to give up one subject that she had wanted to continue). The school refused. In retrospect it was the right decision. She would have done well taking it early, but the school wouldn't have followed up with an early A level, so she'd have had two years with no academic (as opposed to practical) music. Obviously if she had wanted to stop the subject after GCSE it wouldn't have mattered. But she went on to do it at A level and for a degree.

At a local selective independent boys school, they put everybody in for maths a year early and then they did additional maths in year 11. My daughters' school had the top sets doing both maths and additional maths in year 11.

At my bog standard comprehensive in the 70s, the top sets did O level English Language a year early which gave us a year to concentrate on literature. Interesting that some schools are doing it the other way round.

DD1 took a twilight language GCSE and then A level before she sat any of her main GCSEs

An A level foreign language in year 10? Is she bilingual?

SpiderCharlotte are these iGCSEs, given that you are using the old ABC grades?

Doesn't doing 4 GCSEs a year early not impact on university choices, given that they want to see that students can juggle a full workload of GCSEs in one go?

MitziK coursework has been reduced significantly because it is so easy to cheat. There is no way that the school can check of the work is the student's own work.

My son’s school has GCSE’s taught over three years. It works well as it gives the kids a chance to drop subjects they dislike at the end of Year 8. For some this is art, others a language.
There is a lot of pressure on schools to report how many students have achieved the EBacc which is a range of GCSEs including one humanities and one language gcse but at our school it was decided not to force students to study these subjects if they didn’t want to.
From year 9 the timetable is designed for and extra hours per week of one subject that the student can fast track and take at the end of Year 10. This works well as it takes pressure off but still allows for extra study time, the student chooses which gives them extra motivation. The school is consistently in the top percentage of state schools nationally so for the students this system is working well.

@noblegiraffe I like your comment about maths GCSE being an 11 year course. That is so true. I also think that maths can be a lifelong journey. Both my DDs are in science subjects and their use of maths in their work and studies left me behind long ago.

Unfortunately I think in some schools (my DCs' was one IMO), getting maths 'out of the way' was for the school's benefit as much as anything. Able students would come out with a pass of some description which was considered by the school good enough. The maths department then had longer with the less able students to coach them along to a pass. A handful of students took FM but these were the most able students who also didnt need so much supervision.

Gin - ime I don't think it affects university choices if students take some subjects early, but then take AS course with the remaining subjects as this is also a demanding workload.

Interesting that some schools are doing it the other way round

It’s because literature is more “content heavy” and can be motored through - and keeping all content closer to the exam is easier. Language is much more skill based, and some of those skills develop whist studying Lit - but you want as long as possible for those skills to mature and be honed.

We do two year and one term of GCSE at my school although lots of subjects teach GCSE content in Year 9. I find the get It out of the way mantra a saddening indictment of what we think learning is for. This seems to have afflicted Eng Lit especially . No wonder there is a drop in uptake at A Level!
GCSEs are designed to be teachable in two years. This should be years 10 and 11.
Any school that tells you early entry isn't something to with league table massaging is fibbing!

I keep hearing on Facebook of despairing teachers doing three year GCSE and scrabbling around for things to fill the time!

GCSEs are designed to be teachable in two years. This should be years 10 and 11

They are badly designed - English Lit in particular does not lend itself to a linear course. It should be modular, allowing for assessment at the end of each text.

Gin - ime I don't think it affects university choices if students take some subjects early, but then take AS course with the remaining subjects as this is also a demanding workload.

Fewer schools are doing AS these days. My understanding from this thread was that some schools get 2, 3 or 4 GCSEs "in the bag" so that the students can concentrate on the remaining 6, 7 or 8 GCSEs with no extra exams.

I didn't realise this was happening so frequently.

Our experience here is that they do 2 year GCSE courses finishing in Year 11. Almost retro when you think about it!

@Ginfordinner we had lived abroad for most of her primary years and she had gone to the local school rather than an English speaking international school. We spoke English in the home. By the time she took the GCSE in Y7 she had been back in the UK for over a year so I would say she was highly fluent rather than bilingual. She passed the GCSE on the basis of being fully fluent in the language herself and me coaching her in exam technique.

We were then lucky to find someone who was willing to tutor her for the A level. Not a professional tutor but a native speaker of the language with an interest in getting the chance to speak her language while living in the UK.

It was a unique set of circumstances which made the whole thing possible. It also led on to DD1's interest in the subject which she then took to degree level and now career.

That's never going to happen though smile. Because Gove.

As suggested a\bove have a look at what the private schools do. Most of them want to see pupils doing their full spread of 8 - 10 GCSEs all at the same time (as that is harder than picking off subjects early). people looking at CVs later may well look at when someone did the exams. Doing them all at once is normal and quite hard. PIcking them off year by year may not always be regarded as that good.

(I did put myself in for GCSE (o lelvel then) music in lower sixth though as the school had no music GCSE and they just let me sit it in the schoool having taught it to myself and that didn't seem to be a problem but then I had good exams from the year before in all the other subjects so it was just kind of an extra).

My dc is in year 10 and is sitting her english language gcse this year. Instead of teaching english lit and language over years 10 and 11 her school teach only English language in year 10 and lit in year 11.
Her school also start all gcse subjects in june of year 9 so that they have a productive few weeks before the holidays.

Yeah, I know Piggy 😖