Any secondary school only do 5 GCSEs?

[loveyal]

I live and work in London and many people I know with professional jobs including myself didn't go to school in the UK. We don't understand why most children in this country do at least 7 GCSEs with the majority do 8 or 9.

As far as I know there is no minimum requirement other than English and Maths which is totally understandable.

There is this thing called Ebacc with 5 subjects which sounds sensible to me.

Why don't schools just do Ebacc and spend the rest of the time for non examined activities, be it creative, sports, community, home economics, whatever they like? They could still have all league table requirements such as Progress 8, Attainment 8, etc and etc.

And there I am wondering why it’s only 8 subjects. I did 13 at a normal uk comp in 1994

geography AND history.
design tech AND art
or Art AND music.
Spanish And music

the narrowing of the curriculum seems senseless to me.

I imagine 5 include English (counted as 1- why need 2??), Maths, one Science, one Humanities, one foreign language. Among the latter 3, free choice (any Science/Humanities/MFL).

Beyond the minimum 5, all optional, non examined, study as much as you like without exams.

I have seen some top private schools planning to ditch GCSEs altogether.

Why ditching when you still need to and should teach the core subjects?

The idea that reducing to minimum 5 is narrowing the curriculum is nonsense.

@loveyal I always thought the international baccalaureate was 16-18 and was 6 subjects so more than the A levels (I could be wrong) and that 12-16 was more coursework than exam based

the English Baccalaureate would have 7 2 English maths 2/3 science language and humanities but completely ignores the arts!

And literature and language are very different to be fair

I was pretty horrified when I learnt that at our local grammar, you had to drop a language if you weren't going to get a 7 in it. A 6 is still decent and there are lots of benefits from learning a language.
I wouldn't be horrified at the number of GCSEs but I don't like schools fudging their results by making people drop subjects.

The thing is, schools focus on what they are measured on - so if a school must do 5 and those 5 are used as a basis for inter-school comparison, then many schools will up the time for those 5 and squeeze the rest.

Like schools that narrowed the curriculum for Y9 by taking 3 years over GCSEs only returned to a properly wide 3 year KS3 curriculum of all subjects when Ofsted specifically started to look at breadth of curriculum and marked down schools trying to maximise grades through focusing on GCSE subjects only for 3 full years.

Only 5 GCSEs would also dramatically cut A level options OR lower their standard as they would have to be studiable by those who had no previous learning in those subjects.

I can guarantee if "5 GCSE'S" was the requirement and the means by which schools were ranked, a large number of schools would only focus on the 5 "essentials". Everything else would get minimized.
How, then, do you get the next doctors abd engineers, next linguists, next musicians and artists if all the stuff outside your essential 5 is optional, and so minimized?

The problem is people like to be able to evidence thier learning to get the next step or for employers. Not that much value is given to gcse subjects you didn't take further, but having a broad range keeps your options open for the next step. (Although many A levels you start new and just other subjects facilitate them anyway)

You could have a much broader curriculum and no exams at all if it was just about learning, just feedback and formative assessments to check your understanding.

I think there could be merit in only examining a core set of facilitating subjects and just studying others,
but I think people will really struggle with the idea you could just study welsh but not get a certificate In it.

Why did your son only do 4 GCSE’s? Did he do other qualifications instead?
to be honest I do find it strange to only do 4 without good reason

English literature and English language are two separate GCSE’s, most will do both.
most do all of physics, biology and chemistry and it will either count as 2 or 3 GCSE’s given the amount of work involved. Having to choose between those 3 will be too limiting at this point.
choosing just one out of languages, humanities, arts, other such as pe, dt, computer studies eliminates a lot of choice and the subjects people tend to enjoy more

Also for those not good at English/science/maths but good at other subjects they will miss out on qualifications

Very true.

I hope the government will reform the curriculum so that students are assessed on fewer GCSEs or have at least fewer exams. At the same time, Ofsted should say that students need to do a minimum of two hours of PE, two hours of creative subjects, two hours of options subjects so that schools can't just narrow the curriculum. This would allow a wider curriculum but without everything being about passing an exam at the end. Teachers are being told to teach to the test and children are just learning mark schemes. Children should develop thinking skills, problem solving, research skills and the desire to learn for the sake of it and not just be focused on passing tests.

Have you heard of progress 8?

The volume of work required for GCSEs is based on doing 8-10 though these include multiple science exams and 2 English exams. My DD1 did 12 and dd2 10 with top grades. Only 5 wouldn't be full time.

Children with additional needs may do less or different qualifications

It would be full time, if they were doing other things. Like ks3 has no qualification at the end of it but it's still full time education.

Well of course it does. What goes on a CV to demonstrate academic ability for a lower achiever - Maths and English Lang GCSEs grade 4 and sat in some classes in tech and music.

Where is the incentive for schools to teach music, DT, PE etc if they're not examined in those subjects? Where is the incentive for kids to value those non-examined lessons?

Like ks3 has no qualification at the end of it but it's still full time education.

KS3 is a pathway to KS4 qualifications, which are in turn a pathway to Level 3, which in turn are a pathway to Level 4+. There's no need for an exam at KS3 when kids are examined at KS4.

I was meaning the qualification isn't what makes something full time. The studying does. If ks3 can lead to ks4 without a qualification at all, then ks4 could lead to what's next with a different qualification balance and still be full time education.

DS was home educated, and only did 5 GCSE'S which we organised ourselves.

He got all A's and starts his A levels at college in Sept .(Maths, English and Biology)
We had no issues applying luckily.

Strangely, he only got one gcse for triple science. I was expecting two. Still don't know why. The private school he sat it at never got back to me when I asked.

8+ GCSEs gives you a well rounded education though, and covers a whole range of skills required later in life many state schools still have enrichment activities to further interests in other areas.

English literature and language are two separate subjects and require different skills

Science content for double and triple gives an introduction to lots of sub areas students may want to take further. I've known plenty of students to flourish at biology but sink with physics or the other way around, many that have really enjoyed the body parts of bio and gone on to work in a medical field but hated the plant sections etc.

Core maths important for many other subjects and statistics uses different skills and Further Maths to challenge the brightest and prep for A level Maths

When funding was available I used to take a group of students to the local college where we did plumbing, car maintenance and brick laying - these students were a nightmare in the classroom but thrived on these courses.

I think there is a real case for an exit qualification at the end of year 9 or 10 to show proficiency in English and Maths and then to allow those that would prefer to to move onto vocational courses. But realistically it would be difficult to manage, require extensive funding and possibly lead to safeguarding issues as it would be harder to track students, students who were at the lower end of GCSEs but wanted to continue them may well find themselves managed out which wouldn't be ok.

@TurtlesDoNotPetsMake if he sat proper Triple science he should have got a separate grade for each subject bio, phys and chem.

If he did double award then he would learn all 3 but get two GCSEs so a 5/4, 8/9 etc

Single award he would just get one grade.

Strangely, he only got one gcse for triple science. I was expecting two.

It's a double GCSE presumably. Two grades or one? If only one you're doing him a huge disservice not working out what went wrong.

I'd also be horrified by this, so not that the students were "only" getting 5 GCSEs, but the school were pushing the message that anything less than a 7 wasn't good enough. I mean, what kind of message does that give out for life? Don't bother with a subject as if you're not going to pass it with flying colours, it's not worth sitting at all? And all just to protect the school's reputation.