Education in England: help!

[ItsOnlyATorch]

Hi everyone. I've just moved to England from another country and looking to understand the education system. I've got two primary school children at the moment and just wanting an 'English Education System for Dummies' break-down.

I know it is years off, but it's mostly the exams I'm trying to wrap my head around. Google says kids can take between 8 and 10 GSCEs. Why is the number variable? How do you decide how many they should take? What is the time commitment for taking 10 rather than 8 and how does that fit into the school day?

Then there's A levels. Again the number is variable? How many is the norm? Why would you take more? For certain university courses I presume?

Why do they sometimes change to college for their last year of schooling? What's the appeal as opposed to staying at their high school?

Google can tell me that you can take 8 to 10 GSCEs but lacks the nuance of WHY. Hoping to hear from the parents of mumsnet instead.

Gosh @FiveEightNine that's quite an extreme view!

Do you home educate then? I suppose at least that's allowed in England...

Wow @FiveEightNine yes I presume you home educate? FWIW no school ever told me when or whether my DC could walk to or home from school (tho I understand some do make a ruling; not sure how they enforce it tho).

You can take your child on holiday in school time too. You may have to pay a fine (not imposed by the school btw). Many parents feel that their child being in school during term time is really important.

There are lots of arguments in favour of school uniform. Again many parents agree with it. There are also arguments against. A number of schools don’t have a uniform - there are two secondaries near me that don’t.

I'm not in England, and I wouldn't dare to try it with my child. I wouldn't cope with so many differences - I'm not saying that everything that differs is actually better everywhere else or just here where I am, just that the cultural norms can be very surprising, partially because people don't tend to expect the difference there. And, that it is for now more important to understand that, than the understand the difference between double and tripple science (for Torch, in both cases the subject&exam covers all of biology, chemistry and physics, the difference is how much content is covered in them. And in the end the exam counts as two or three GCSEs.)

Yeah, it probably sounds extremely formulated to someone who happily lives in it, but is any of it untrue?

Not trying to find the logic and just accept the school policies are worshipped is an actual advice from a person I know who went to live in England (for senior university post). They crashed into a few of the points (for example their child was walking on their own to and from school before the move - and they selected the home to allow the same, but the school said "no, it is our policy").

So @FiveEightNine did you have a child at secondary school in England or not?

What you said is broadly not the case IME. As noted. Certainly the points you make are not true for all schools. I don’t know anyone who treats the school and its rules as a deity. And schools definitely don’t have unlimited powers. There are many things they cannot do. Obviously.

It's also worth knowing that education is organised differently in different areas of England. For example, some areas have selective secondary schools (grammar schools) and then non-selective schools for the other children. Other areas don't have selective schools. Whether this is a good thing depends on your children and whether you like the idea. I wish we had chosen to settle in a grammar school area.

We live in an area where most 16-18 education is in colleges, but there are areas where there are more 11-18 schools.

Some schools are religious - mostly Church of England (CofE) or catholic, but there are others. In some areas the majority of primary schools are CofE in some form. Some religious schools weave religions through the school day, in a way that makes it hard to avoid. But even the non-religious schools are legally required to have a daily act of collective worship. However, whether they actually do this is basically on the whim of the head teacher.

No, I've never had a child at English school, I just answered that to the previous poster so I didn't reply to you specifically, to not derail the thread too much.

Yes, Torch is asking about exams in secondary education, but her children are primary age.

My point is, that understanding possible cultural differences is more important now with her primary aged children than understanding the details of A levels, because it can be more surprising and more immediately relevant than Btech.

I've never attributed those points specifically to secondary level, it was about English education in general, a combination of people-I-know and MN experience.

I understand now that the phrasing might sound extreme, but that it how some people feel it.
It is up to Torch to decide whether it is relevant for them or not.

Ok well my DC went to primary and secondary schools in England and what you state as fact is not my or their experience. I think to post as you did, emphatically stating as fact things that are not even in your own experience, is misleading tbh.

The restrictions on allowing children to walk to school independently at primary are in my opinion and experience down to two things: a) heavy traffic and poor driving in a small and congested country that has many towns and cities still on medieval street plans and yet with an unreasonable love for gigantic SUVs; and b) increasing focus on safeguarding in the UK.

I grew up in England and walked to school independently from age 5 in the 1970s (as my friend's kids did in the 2010s in Switzerland). It's society that's changed and schools have changed with it.

Plus also some of us in England don't live easy walking distance from the primary (cost of housing, lack of places) and most mums work. My mum didn't work and the two primaries I walked to were minutes away.

I wasn't making my daughter walk 40 minutes as I'd have been late for work. As a teacher! Elsewhere!

Basically there is a not zero chance of a walking by themselves kid in Greater London getting run over by another parent. You can see why schools get nervous!

The "double" Combined Science now has papers (2 each) in Chemistry, Physics and Biology. You receive 2 number grades based on the average mark across all 6 papers. These number grades are either the same i.e. 66 or vary by one i.e. 56 or 67. The highest grade you can obtain is grade 9. A grade 4 is a pass and a grade 5 is a good pass.
For the "triple" separate Sciences route there are 6 longer papers in Chemistry, Physics and Biology and you receive 3 grades (i.e. one for each subject).
What you are describing may have been possible along time ago, but is not around any more.

@catndogslife out of curiosity why do they call it "double" ?
A bit odd as it's a mix of 3 subjects.
In my day it was just "Combined Science" and it was modular with an exam at the end of each module plus a final general exam.

Probably to indicate that you get two GCSE’s out of it, not three. I think Combined Science is the “proper” name but it’s often referred to as double science to indicate that it’s the option that gets you two GCSE’s - double is short for “Double Award” rather than “double subjects”.

(Confusingly, one of the exam boards calls it “combined science: trilogy” - which really doesn’t help as nobody can remember which of “triple” or “trilogy” is the one that gets 2 GCSEs!)

@TallagallaPenguin oh I didn't realise you got 2 GCSEs from it.
But how does that work? Do you get the same grade for both?

I think it’s exactly as @catndogslife described in a post a little bit ago. More or less an average of how you did across all the papers. Not sure because mine did the separate ones.

I understand it's an average but I don't quite understand the getting two GCSEs out of it.
So if you did (for example) English Language, English Lit, Maths, French and Double Science you've actually got 6 GCSEs even though you only did 5 subjects?

No, you get 6 GCSEs after doing seven subjects.

Combined Science students have separate biology, physics and chemistry lessons just like all the triple science students. But they cover less material overall for each of them - about 2/3 of the material for each of the sciences.

So they’ve covered all three science subjects, but only 2/3 of the material for each of them. Hence it adds up to 2/3 x 3 = 2 GCSEs worth of material.

Yes. You’ll get for example grade 6 in Maths, 5 in French, 7 in Lit, 4 in Lang and 55 in Combined science.

Why would I do that when I've got the answers I wanted on here? Chatgpt is just fishing from reddit threads etc for the answers anyway. Also I was just using straight Google, not the ai summary? Not a fan of any of the AIs tbh especially for stuff like this.

Yes 7 subjects technically as it's biology+chemistry+physics but is it listed as (for example)
English Lit grade 4
English Language 4
Maths Grade 5
French Grade 3
Science Grade 3
Science Grade 3
(so 6 GCSEs you would put on your CV)

Thank you so much this is so helpful!

You can ask it to use official sources, such as DfE guidance, including the national curriculum.

Some of the answers you got on here were good and some were bad. I tend to use both - Mumsnet for experience and opinions, ChatGPT for facts ( which I check against their sources)

Yes. The material covered in combined science is 2 GCSEs worth of material so that’s why you get 2 GCSEs out of it.

edited to add:
So in your example perhaps you’d list:

English Lit grade 4
English Language 4
Maths Grade 5
French Grade 3
Combined Science (2 GCSEs) Grades 5-5

On the UCAS form there’s a particular way of entering them to make it clear they’re the double award grades from combined science.

In England, most schools offer 9 GCSEs as standard and you don’t get to choose a different number.
Grammars and private schools may offer 10 or more, but there’s no real need to do more than 9.
If your child struggles the school may recommend or agree to a lower number.

In the U.K. you basically can’t get any job unless you have Maths and English GCSE, it’s seen as the basic minimum educational achievement.

A levels - usually you do 3, though some school allow a fourth. Four is mst usual
when doing Maths and Further Maths (then perhaps Physics and Chemistry.)

I feel a bit had then.
I did "Combined Science" but we only got the one.
But it was 1991.
I was predicted a F but got a D.
Still don't know how that happened 😂😂
(had zero interest in science apart from maybe biology and would have much rather been able to do some different subjects)