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.

So we need to change the culture in schools so that students start appreciating learning for its own sake. The reason the students are so focused on exams is that they are being taught to the test. They learn mark schemes not how to think.
IMO, we should move to fewer GCSEs but with compulsory education in a choice of creative/vocational/sport subjects without an exam at the end. The timetable would be full and broad but the focus would not be just on passing exams. They could then still take their subject choices at A-level but they would just not have a certificate in the subject. They could move on to sixth form with a school report card saying what option subjects they took.

Sounds like you are arguing fir a return to School Certificate, which my very elderly parents took before O-levels existed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Certificate_(United_Kingdom)

I don’t think they were a universal qualification then - as school leaving age was 15, I suspect many destined for manual employment would have never obtained any school leaving qualifications.

No it isn't. Schools are measured on results. If only 5 subjects were examined, all their efforts would go into those. Additional time/effort would be spent on getting under-performing children over the line on those subjects, with more able children just repeating what they know and getting bored. This happens at primary school in year 6 where schools are measured on English, maths and science performance to the detriment of other subjects.

You can't "change the culture in schools" across an entire population without a magic wand. The school system has evolved, for better or worse, through necessity and good intention. The Progress 8 and Attainment 8 and Ebacc measures exist to ensure that students get a broad and balanced education, not a narrow education. If the Government doesn't measure things then they simply won't happen in many schools because not enough people care about learning for its own sake - not enough students, not enough parents, not enough teachers.

Schools could still be measured on fewer subjects. Schools could also be made to deliver other subjects too through it being compulsory to offer a certain number of hours of option subjects. In the same way that schools are compelled to deliver two hours of PE a week, they could be compelled to give 9 hours to option subjects.
Assuming 25 teaching hours in a week: 4 hours maths, 4 hours English, 4 hours science, 2 hours geography/ history, 2 hours PE, 6 GCSEs only taken as exams. 9 hours must then be spent on option subjects but with no exam e.g. extra science, computer science, drama, music, art, media studies, health and social care, sports science, DT, Food tech etc. but no exam for option subjects apart from normal test results on report card for sixth form.

We could perhaps consider a "credit" system like the Americans where you need a certain number of credits to pass the year.

The main issue (apart from all the others already mentioned) would be staffing a system with any further degree of optionality. There just aren't the staff or the teaching spaces.

I believe in America you must take extra credits in the summer if you haven't enough to pass the year. Good luck introducing that in the UK!

9 hours must then be spent on option subjects but with no exam e.g. extra science, computer science, drama, music, art, media studies, health and social care, sports science, DT, Food tech

And MFL. Good luck taking A level in that based on less than an hour a week at KS4. Or tbh taking any of those subjects further with that minimal input for two years. That’s 10 subjects you list, plus MFL, 11 subjects covered in 9 hours a week? That’s not going to be meaningful. Much better imho to let students drop those they dislike and focus on what they do like. Give up art (music, DT, MFL, drama) and focus on PE and food (or music and drama etc).

Behaviour in Y9 in subjects after DC have chosen their ‘options’ for GCSEs would suggest that non-examined subjects simply aren’t valued. Even in DC’s excellent school, groupings for some subjects were re-divided into ‘pupils for whom this us selected for GCSE’ and ‘not selected’ so that learning continued for those planning to take the subject to GCSE.

@clary I didn't mean that the students would take every subject. Just a selection of their choice. They only get 2 lessons per option subject even when they do take GCSEs.
@cantkeepawayforever Yes, I agree that students may see non-examined subjects as less important. However, if test results during Year 10 and 11 go on a report card to the sixth form they are applying to then they may work hard at the subjects they want to do later. I just think there is too much focus on exams now and not enough on thinking skills, problem solving, creative skills, presentation skills etc. An alternative is for exam boards to stop publishing mark schemes so there is less teaching to the test.

The thing is, if you are teaching all of those through the ‘option subjects’, then the curriculum coverage is by comparison going to be very sparse - not the eg vocabulary / grammar background for MFL, or the knowledge required in computer science or history or music.

That would then mean ‘two tier’ A-levels - starting from a much higher base in ‘core’ subjects and then either reaching a lower standard or having to cram massively in ‘previously optional non-examined’ subjects.

@cantkeepawayforever I mean that students would choose certain option subjects of their choice in the same way they do now. They currently get 2 hours a week per option subject e.g. MFL, History, Geography, Food tech, DT etc. This would remain the same so no change is staffing. The difference would be no GCSE exam at the end but just normal school tests. The test results would go forward with them to sixth form when choosing A-level subjects so there would still be an incentive to do well in the tests. However, the stress of high stakes GCSE exams would be lessened and the teachers could focus more on learning rather than passing an exam.

The problem with that is that teacher grades will be highly subjective (as the grades from the 2020 exams showed).
The point of exams is they are a standardised test.

Yes, but only because it was decided at some point that roughly 8 was the norm. Plenty of countries don't even do public or significant exams until A Level age. Theoretically, especially now all kids have to stay in some form of education until they are 18, we could ditch GCSEs altogether. Or just have public exams in maths and English at age 16.

In Ireland . There equivalent iOS the junior certificate and is normally 9 subjects specialising to 7 for the aenior cycle.
The idea is that everyone does subjects like history and geography and business and science to give students a top level knowledge for life not just the gcse exams .
In my opinion it's important for a well educated society to know the basics of all subjects .

It doesn't matter if teachers grades for non-examined subjects at the end of Year 11 are subjective because they will still have say 6 GCSEs as an objective measure. The test results from non-examined option subjects would just enable heads of sixth form to decide whether a student was suitable for a course or not. If they did very badly in all their tests say in French then the student and the head of sixth form would know it wasn't a suitable A-level for them. If they had good test results in say Business Studies, everyone would know that was a suitable A-level for them.
We don't need to have multiple GCSE exams to show someone is suitable for A-level study. Other countries don't require this to move forwards. We have just ended up with this system in the UK because people used to be able to leave education at 16.

So each school would set their own exams/tests and mark schemes for the “optional” end of year 11 exams?

Your idea is completely unworkable. 6th forms would be unable to validate what any school is writing on the report cards. And if schools have to go to all that bother, why not just do the GCSE?

@shockeditellyou Heads of sixth form already look at GCSE grades and reports from a previous school/lower down the school when allocating students to a sixth form place. Most schools interview Year 11 students on their A-level choices to make sure that the student is making the right decisions. This usually happens in the summer term way before GCSE results day and is based on how they are doing already in mocks/tests etc. On GCSE results day, the student would then present their 6 GCSE results to make a decision on progression to sixth form.
My idea is that there would not be any end-of-year 11 tests in option subjects. The point is to reduce stress and workload. Option subjects would just have the results of normal tests they do across the year/end-of-topic tests. It doesn't matter if these are subjective because the students would still have 6 GCSE results, which are objective already. The idea would be to learn the option subjects without being taught to the test.

How would progress/attainment 8 work if pupils only do 5 subjects?

Why do we need Progress 8?
We could just have Progress 6 for the six subjects taken.
The way we currently do things is not the only way. Other countries do things differently and are better than us in some ways.
Estonia's education system is known for allowing teachers more freedom to choose what they teach and have fewer tests than us. Finland's education system is known for its holistic teaching environment and lack of standardised testing. At the same time both these countries perform very well in Pisa's global education tests. Much better than the UK.
In the UK we are really just teaching to the test.

I only got 5, went to uni and earn v well.

Really don't think it's the be all and end all

But loads don’t stay in eduacation to 18 and they need qualifications to get on to what they do between 16 and 18

I don't think a high grade in your maths GCSE shows that you will do well at French A level though. If all you have for French is subjective results graded by your teacher - what if you go somewhere else for sixth form (which is pretty common and often a good thing)? Not clear to me how that would work.

Also I am not sure I see the point – bc you would still need to do well in your end-of-year tests to get the grades needed for A level – and you would maybe have the added stress of a searching sixth-form interview where a specialist in your A level choice grilled you to see if you could do it.

There is no way I would advise someone with a grade below a 7 at GCSE to take MFL A level so this is relevant. I imagine it would be relevant for other subjects too tbf (just that MFL is the one I know best).

From what I can see in the us there is a lot of in school testing/coursework to get these credits. Are tests said by the teacher any better than external exams; probably not as it creates unfairness across schools

But you are still saying that there will be tests, just set by the school. So if you are doing tests why not get something out of it.

You won’t find any schools doing only 5 GCSEs because Progress 8 scores need 8 grades! Schools won’t do anything to risk this measure.