Gove to announce scrapping of GCSEs

[Itchyandscratchy]

But before anyone is taken in by the leak announcement in the Daily Hate Mail here, take the time to then read this for a more informed version.

With any luck they'll be out of a job in 2015 when this is sposed to be brought in, but there's no doubt GCSEs will be scrapped. What I woud hope is that Labour will get is finger out and propose a system that has had full consultation with schools, teachers, employment agencies, industry chiefs and unions.

It will change how every child is currently taught at secondary school. And I hope that doesn't mean some children's futures are determined by the age of 11.

But not everybody will be capable of achieving a First at any Uni, no matter how 'rigorous' the qualification at 16 is. No matter if you insist that they continue to 17 or 18, it still won't be enough for some pupils to pass an academic based exam.

And if vocational training has no place in a school curriculum, and should all be done post-16, then they need to increase funding for courses, and pay CTC and Child Benefit to low income families not until an arbitrary date of the July after their 19th birthday, but until they have finished their vocational education. Or they should be able to get Student Loans like University Students, to cover their living costs.

Hundreds of thousands of people, up and down the country, are ending up as NEETS BECAUSE there is only funding to do 3 years at College. And if, like my DD, they want to do two two year courses, they DON'T have the financial option to THEN do a catch up year doing an NVQ Level 2, or an Access course, because then they won't be able to complete the training they actually NEED to do to get into their chosen career.

It's finances that will stop my DD from being able to access the correct College courses for her chosen career. I can't support an Adult child when I will have no income for her, she won't be eligible for student loans, and it will mean that I can't afford to cover my rent and council tax shortfalls without her earning to cover them.

It's not all about me, it's about the hundreds of thousands of people like my DD that can't AFFORD to access the courses they need for their chosen career.

Doing a lower level course for the first year will mean that she can't complete her training. Because she will have to be working and earning.

I am far from the only parent in this situation. Locally, the Community of parents with DC's with SN's are horrified by these moves. So while I am using my DD as an example, please near in mind that she is not an isolated case.

And the reason for SN's rising? DC's that wouldn't have survived in the past are not only surviving, but being educated in MS schools, which they weren't until relatively recently. If you take out the results of DC's with SN's from each school's results, the figures aren't actually all that different from MS schools for the last few generations. A lot of the reductions in results in MS schools happened when SN schools started being shut due to inclusion.

And also, you have to bear in mind, that even in the 1970's and early 80's, most DC's with certain SN's were not even taken home from the hospital by their parents, they were put into institutions from birth, and weren't even educated at all.

So there are a myriad of reasons why SN's in schools have increased.

I can't understand why it is classed as perfectly acceptable for children of 14yo to decide which academic GCSE's they want to do to give them the best route into their chosen career or FE establishment by choosing academic subjects over vocational ones, yet it is seen as unacceptable for a non-academic 14yo to be able to decide that academic subjects don't offer them the best route into their chosen career or FE establishment by choosing vocational subjects rather than academic ones.

Why do some people think that EVERYONE must be educated to the sane level in the same subjects to make it fair? Fair isn't equal, fair means the best thing for each individual pupil.

And learning Pythagorus theorem and reading Shakespeare and examine the motives behind the story just ISN'T what's best for some DC's.

How would you like your 14yo to become disillusioned with education because they have had the goalposts changed around them, and they are now realising that no matter how hard they work, they will NEVER achieve their life's goal, simply because the type of exam they MUST take at 16yo has been changed, they won't achieve the grades they need (or even a grade at all), and because of a lack of parental finances, will be unable to complete the College courses that they need to do. And they see more academic DC's, off to Uni, getting Student loans to cover their living expenses, but they can't get that because even with these qualifications, they won't earn enough to pay it back, so they can't get one.

She is disillusioned with education at just 14yo, after the downgrading of the GCSE's, as she has got a U instead of the F she was predicted, that she had worked her bloody socks off for.

And seeing her so disillusioned at just 14yo, when I had got her to a point where she had seen the route into what she wanted to do was just about possible, and now almost certainly isn't, is sad. I really value education, for all, but it's not helping her.

He doesn't come from a background of 'pure privilege' noddyholder!

He was adopted into an 'ordinary' family (his adoptive father was a fishmonger). He won a scholarship to a private school.

I always remember a thread on here when an admissions tutor at Cambridge came on (a MN 'regular' now whom I won't name) with a list of GCSEs and what they really think about them....done in a lighthearted way, of course, but that sort of attitude is SO unfair to the unsuspecting pupils (at perhaps not v good state schools) who actually think their qualifications are worth something!!

Something has to be done, unless you want universities only to be full of ex public school pupils who have taken the right subjects. If everyone has a chance to take the right subjects, it will eventually even out, and, gasp, if they make it harder some (not all) of the spoon fed private school pupils will not get straight As regardless of their fairly average intelligence and someone from a crap state school, but who is naturally very bright will get their place at university, (and go on to be an MP or whatever!!!)

Obviously there are going to be non academic children who find these exams hard. But they will now be in the majority, rather than in the minority and who end up with a string of worthless qualifications which no-one accepts. Having a string of A*s at GCSE will become exceptional and having Cs will become the norm (probably not even the norm.....) Vocational education will have to be set up for those children. These reforms hopefully will force the govt to do so.

There is plenty if opportunity to work while studying catering. The colleges will put the students in touch with catering companies. My friends dd has spent the summer working at the Olympics arranged by the college, she is also on the books of other companies through the college. Another college had 800 jobs a day for students.

Educationally he did. Do think some choice is essential as it teaches students to be responsible for their own future. A sound basic education to include economics and basic politics to age 15 followed by perhaps and Arts based BAC and a science based one would be great. My son is 18 and dyspraxic and this system would definitely have failed him yet he is very well read in terms of politics and day to economics and news yet his teachers had no idea. He started at 6th form and it was a nightmare he hated the exams and is now on a more practical course and his tutors predict he will have enough UCAS points to get on a top film course at a great university which we never thought possible even 2 yrs ago. If he had failed at 16 god knows where he would be now and he would have failed. The GCSEs which many rubbish on MN introduced him to cameras lighting and online technical film making skills that changed his life.

Do you really think he will find a job with that type of degree. My niece has that type of degree and had spent a year working in poundland.

Abra1d If the reason they were coming to the UK for their education was taking the IGCSE in some of their GCSE choices then they would save themselves a lot of money and send them to one of the many International Schools in Asia, no shortage. Asian parents send them here because of the brand that a UK Education has. It stands for a much broader education than the confucian rote learning exam based systems and equips their children to operate in both east and west. Gove hasn't the slightest idea what he is talking about when he talks about what it takes to have a world class education system, he is damaging the brand if he does anything but take the best of East and West and look forward rather than backwards. That is eaxctly what Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are doing with their education policies. Gove fell hook line and sinker for the traditionalists in Singapore but their system is evolving forward with consultation between schools universities and employers.

The US are already the brand leaders for a western education because of their emphasis on a broader education and creative thinking. They are certainly not going in the direction Gove is headed. If it were not bad enough that he doesn't understand the strengths of our brand, his party's immigration policies are also irreparably damaging it.

My brother is a film editor and has a great job and he is 30 . My son has already had 2 films shown privately at 'events' I hope he gets a job ,yes. Thats the idea. What 'type'of degree do you mean? He wants to work in film production so a degree in maths would be no good to him.

I think it's a real problem that only a tiny minority of the government have any direct experience of the state system. How can they possibly make informed decisions about an education system they really know nothing about?

This is why we have had so much fiddling about and so many panicky snap decisions. Teachers and students are constantly trying to keep up with the changes, and we end up with a mish mash of policies blended into a very unsatisfactory set of exams. It is our children who suffer the consequences.

That is a problem for all politicians surely, across all parties? The majority of the Labour party cabinet were either educated privately or in a grammar school. Since those in government are supposedly the most able of their generation and/or best educated, it isn't surprising that is the case.

I don't for one minute believe that just because you haven't experienced something you can't understand it otherwise the only people any of us would understand are people just like us. That is what education is all about, teaching you new things beyond what you have personally experienced.

I think you are letting all politicians off the hook by assuming that they can't know what it is like for the average person because that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want. It would be better to challenge them about why they have disregarded the experience of the majority of people or why they haven't bothered to find out what that experience is.

I am sorry, I didn't express that well. I meant ALL governments, regardless of political party. And you are right, it did sound like I am letting them off the hook. I actually don't believe that politicians ARE the most able and/or 'best educated' of their generation, perhaps they were once, not any more.

I think it IS a major disadvantage to have no direct experience of state education precisely because they have disregarded the experience\opinion of the majority of people involved in it. This is very similar to the treatment of the people who work in the NHS with regard to the NHS reforms... but that's another thread.

Bruffin, in order to get her FE qualifications, my DD will have to focus 100% on them. It will be as hard for her to do a vocational qualification in Catering as it is for an Oxford student doing one of the degrees that they don't allow you to work while you're doing them.

Just because to YOU a vocational qualification is seen as easy, and possible to work while you are doing it, it doesn't mean that it will be easy for my DD.

My DD will find it just as difficult, and have to put just as much (if not MORE) effort into passing an NVQ in Catering, as my DS1 will have to with his degree.

It might be easy for you to dismiss vocational qualifications as 'nothing', but I can tell you now, a piece of written work for that NVQ will take my DD as long, of not longer, to write as a 3,000 word essay takes someone at Uni.

Then there is the point that for every penny she earns in a PT job while studying, I will lose the equivalent amount of her CTC - so as a family, we would be no better off, and that money would have to be used to feed and clothe her and pay her bills.

Maybe before dismissing finances out of hand, you could do some research on how over 16's where their parents are on benefits or a low income are coping financially with FE if they are doing vocational courses rather than going to Uni, since EMA was got rid of.

The loss of EMA in a lot of cases has lead most parents in my financial position to insist that their child does no more than a 2 year course of FE and then must be earning.

I have saved like mad to be able to give DD 4 years at College, so she can realise her life's goal, and become a productive member of Society. I CAN'T do any more than that, as at that point, my DS1 will need the money to do his A-levels.

So any delay, even a year of resits or a lower level course, will mean she cannot train in what she has wanted to do since she was 7yo.

It's really NOT as cut and dried as 'she will have to get a job', because she won't. Not without a C in Maths and English. Which weren't subjects she was predicted C's in even as modular exams - she is now predicted U in both as linear exams. Not conducive to getting a job without vocational training.

The C/D's she was predicted under modular exams were ALL in non academic subjects. What good is pushing vocational subjects off the curriculum going to do for DC's like my DD?

Well said.

Fax - my turn not to be clear - I meant their generation of politicians, not the most able of anybody their age. Much smaller subset for them to rise to the top of!

I don't think it does help to have experience particularly. Your experience is specific to you. I went to state school but I have no idea what it is to sit a GSCE because I didn't sit them - too old. My children haven't sat any because they are too young yet so I haven't seen it through their eyes. You can see from the varied opinions on this thread that everybody's experience is very different. There are some of us who didn't like exams and thought the emphasis on exams of the O level was all wrong. I personally hate course work and can remember much less of what I learnt from coursework parts of my education than I do from the stuff I had to learn from an exam. I would gladly scrap coursework completely if I had my way. Based on my experience I would make a very different exam structure to somebody whose experience and apptitude is different to mine so, we have to work together to share experience and to learn about other ways of doing things . Surely that is what the civil servants are for - to teach the politicians what is happening in the real world so that they can make informed decisions? There should be no excuses for not getting right just because they haven't been to a state school. There is also a small argument for saying it is useful to know about the private system because some of it clearly works (smaller classes for example) so everybody's experience is valid.

I suppose the trick is to be objective in your policy setting so as to take on board all the successes and failures from all sides but that is very hard to do within a party political structure where you are forced create a policy from within a particular philosophical stance.

Or they could just use the evidence that is produced by good quality educational research, there is lots of it.

I was at a meeting at the Dept of Health a few years ago, discussing the 'evidence' for a particular policy. I was told that 'popular opinion' was evidence not just of attitude (which it is ) but also about the need for a particular policy (which it certainly isn't). In this case, it held about the same value as a clinical trial .

I can only assume that the Education Dept has the same stance on 'evidence', eg a few good anecdotes from some mates, backed by the Daily Fail

Yes Big, or with one eye on your seat in the next election. We all learn differently and have different needs (as evidenced in Couth's excellent posts). This is a concept which will be hard to completely understand if you have spent your childhood at a selective school. I really can't think of many politicians who listen properly to good quality research and then act on it.
I agree with Cream, successive governments have just given us what the Daily Fail tells them we want, a series of knee jerk reactions to whatever crisis hits the fan that week.

couthy can I just say that I really really admire you, for your commitment to and passion for furthering your DD, despite the financial struggle. And also for the eloquence of your posts.

I dont know what the answer is - but what I do know is that Govt should just let schools teach, and let children learn, and give them all a bit of TIME instead of wading in heavy-handed every year to change things for the sake of change.

Seconded boschy.

Laqueen - plenty of people have answered on my behalf.

But, do remember that you are not comparing like with like. Infact, I am constantly amazed how poor some of the results are at our local independent schools when you consider they are selective academically. The thought - and the parents paid 100k for those results spring to mind frequently.

Having gone to comp. (and done well) I am a big fan of comprehensive schools. And I would hate for my children to have their primary education blighted by the thought of selection at 11. Plus - unless you choose a really decent private school like Westminster or St Pauls - you can get some mediocre and unimaginative teaching in the private sector.

And some private schools will fiddle their results by asking the less academic children to sit their GCSEs at external exam centres so that their results don't appear in their school results.

Luckily we live in a comprensive school area with only mediocre private schools. (pleasant and leafy, but without the greatest teaching).

I have to say that when I was at Cambridge University, none of us who had gone to comprehensive schools felt that we had been disadvantaged - we'd had great teaching up until 18. On our degree course the split was roughly 1/4 foreign, 1/8 state grammar, 3/8 state comp, 1/4 private.

I'm not a Michael Gove fan but to say he comes from a background of 'pure privilege' is rubbish!

He has however married wealth and embraced wealth (as the parliamentary expense scandal demonstrated - the lavishness of his wrongly claimed expenses was ludicrous). His wife used to write the most ridiculous column in The Times - I did wonder if it was a parody column at first lampooning the idle arrogant ignorant and greedy (frequent references to lavish lifestyle etc) - I don;t know if she still does because I don't read the Times any more. I doubt her views contradict his so it's fair to assume that though he wasn't born to pure privilege he has attained it and isn't looking back in any way.

That's a really unfair (and not very clever) argument.

I also married a fairly wealthy bloke and now have some of the trappings of a privileged lifestyle. My parents were dirt poor, I went to a comp. My dh went to private school and did a lot of things that were a complete closed shop to me. Just because I married him doesnt make him me!

Yes, Sarah Vine has a terrible time of it with her cleaner. I wonder whether Gove is setting a generation up to fail so there will be a sight more potential cleaners who don't think they're too good for anything in a few years.

@walpole Delighted that you think I'm not very clever. I did need cheering up and that has done it. Take a look at Gove's parliamentary expenses as disclosed in the scandal and then show me your workings supporting your claim that he hasn't embraced the same sort of ludicrously ostentatious and completely oblivious to either taste, class or irony attitude of his wife. Elephant leg lamps FFS.

Gove is typical of many of the men I work with in the city. Background is essentially irrelevant - most of them reinvented themselves while at university (to be fair everyone does that to a certain extent). He has wholeheartedly and enthusiastically bought into a particular type of wealthy living. He uses his childhood and disadvantaged start in life as a vote winning tool and to provide a fig leaf for some of the most retrograde policies that have been put forward by any member of this government.

He admits himself that he was privileged in his education! Which was what I referred to. He is an odious little git with IDS not far behind him