Meanwhile, the children of the proposers and enforcers of this Brave New World will continue to sit (and, ensconced in small, selective, disciplined, controlled, carefully monitored and assisted private classes, pass) iGCSEs, exams which the whole world, the universities, the providers of quality training schemes and so forth will recognise, and will remain confident that an 'A' is a good pass.
Our DC will end up with a mismash of GCSEs in the 'non-core' subjects (would that be older modular GCSEs, or new-style linear ones, young person?) and 1 to 8s (what is a pass, then?) in something new, unpiloted, untested, un-anything'ed.
What will this do to the prospects of current Y8s who not only have just GCSEs but have had to pass linear GCSEs when their Y11 siblings had the benefit of modular ones? How, seriously, can one set of DC be meaningfully measured against another, especially 3 or 4 years down the track? And what if some GCSEs were sat 'over the border' in Wales?
(For the record, only this week, at work, where we all hold the same level of qualification relevant to the profession through its changes over the years) we were talking about O levels and GCSEs. Needless to say, the post 1985/6 people had more GCSEs at higher grades that we oldies had O levels, but the confidence with which they genuinely believe it's proof they're cleverer/better educated than us, it's like 'a given', 'O' level = GCSE- so let's not for a second go imagining that our Y8s will be measured fairly against our Y11s, 10 years hence. They'll just be 'How many GCSEs do you have?'. As for our Y7s- it'll be 'Oh, you've got some of those whacky, ill-conceived, meaningless 1-8 graded nonsenses that were in vogue for a couple of years, have you? Hmm').
FFS, Gove, demonstrate some academic rigour yourself and get a grip, you stupid man.