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.

Ah, maybe it was a different thing back then. No idea!

In England, most schools offer 9 GCSEs as standard and you don’t get to choose a different number.

@Minasama that's not true actually. Yes the highest % in 2024 was 9 GCSEs (28.4%) but 25.1%, a quarter of 16yos, took 8 GCSEs, so "most offer 9" is not accurate. More than 80% took 7-10 GCSEs btw.

I agree tho there is no benefit in taking more than 9 particularly, tho for an able student 10 may be fine. But plenty of schools are moving to offering only 8, due to the high level of content – the one I worked in is an example actually, as is the one I quoted above; both of these are comprehensive schools with 1,000+ pupils. (I don’t think this is a particularly good idea, esp if triple science is an option, as it can lead to YP literally taking Eng x 2, maths, science x 3 and two others to cover humanities, MFL, tech, art, drama, music, computing)

GCSEs were practically still in the training wheels stage then.
4th year group to take them.

Other posters have already covered this, but it's called Double because you obtain 2 GCSEs at the end and only study 2/3rds of the content.
Modular courses for GCSEs were phased out from approx 2015. Since GCSEs were reformed and the 9-1 courses introduced in 2017, the minimum for Science has been the "Double" combined science worth 2 GCSEs.

It makes sense now that I am aware you get two grades for it 😂

Why? Because some kids can handle more than others and can get the top grades even taking more subjects. Why get two degrees instead of one? Because it gives you more options.

The system varies because children vary. Kids here can’t ‘skip’ a grade ahead so how do they challenge academic kids and ensure they stand out above the crowd? More GCSEs and A levels.

There are also some subjects that are real passion subjects (Astronomy, Latin and Mandarin were offered at my DD's school as additional optional subjects, taught on an after school and rotating lesson missing basis - like one to one music or LAMDA- sadly only Latin remains now of the 3 GCSES) and the more able can easily add one. Parents also often like students to take a GCSE and maybe also an A-level in a home language. The school may act as an exam centre but the lessons are usually on Saturdays. Compulsory school hours of 50 ish a fortnight are sufficient for 8 GCSEs of 6 hours each by year 11 plus 2 hours of PE. Some schools fill the spare hours in year 10 with the RS short course, however, I think it would be possible to timetable 9 or 10 GCSEs with fewer hours of lessons across the two years in a more able cohort like a grammar school, and schools can offer more than minimum hours.

I'm really old, I did O Levels.

It wasn't unknown for some schools to have a fast track so they took their O Levels in what was fourth year, so a year early and then they had 3 years in VI form.

Now they GCSEs grades would not count because they are taken early.