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Secondary education

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Original poster

The English Baccalaureate has really affected the League tables...

552 replies

MrsTweedy · 12/01/2011 11:55

Is anyone else finding this fascinating? I am really surprised at how few pupils at well-regarded schools in my area have done what I would consider core subjects eg
Richmond Upon Thames

The Ebacc is basically English, Maths, a science, a language & history or geography with A*-C passes. These were compulsory in my day (okay I am ancient and did O Levels). It just shows how the curriculum has changed and how schools have been slanting it recently to improve their league standings on the previous benchmark.

I suppose it depends on which criteria you use to rate them ie either the EBacc or just 5 A-C GCSEs at the end of the day but it is certainly a surprising result in some cases.

OP posts:
dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 10:05

mrstweedy - the danger is that you cannot do some subjects that are really useful and interesting as you won't have time.

my son's school did actually take your suggested approach, and thankfully backed down when we challenged it - otherwise my son would have had to do subjects he disliked/was no good at and had no future use for but didn't have enough time for others that he needed

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 10:10

litchick - that may be so, but its a shame and i think this new measure will make it worse. I can't say i found geography gcse very vigourous.

I'm all for woodwork etc not being equal to say maths. but its a shame if academic and useful subjects are biased against.

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 10:10

sorry meant to say 'rigourous'

Original poster
MrsTweedy · 13/01/2011 10:32

dreaming of sun - it will all depend on how the school timetables and bands subjects. Everyone's opinion differs on what they consider to be important subjects.

Personally I think a well-rounded education helps to create a well-rounded person (obviously upbringing and family etc are factors but they are not the topic under discussion). When looking at schools for ds who is starting secondary in September, I was put off one which didn't have compulsory History as a GCSE, and very enthusiastic about another whose options coincidentally have resulted in a high Ebacc score as it is very traditional (for want of a better word) in its approach. It is all personal preference and perhaps this means that parents will look at a school's GCSE options more closely when choosing.

I started this thread because the state schools close to me had such surprising results. Schools that parents start going to church or appeal or travel great distance to get into. One had 79% 5 A*-C GCSEs but only 8% Ebacc. So what is going on in that School? Will be very interesting to see its results next year.

OP posts:
dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 10:39

mrstweedy - is it a specialist school? our local ones are either art or sport - my son's is the latter and that has done very poorly in the ebacc measure. though since my son is considering becoming a PE teacher it seemed an obvious choice for him

purits · 13/01/2011 10:48

"league tables have done a disservice to schools rather than the opposite."

I disagree, unless you mean 'teachers have done a disservice to children because they have concentrated on manipulating the data this is to be input to league tables, instead of concentrating on education'.
You can bet your bottom dollar that, right now, there are Headteachers across the land striking music and art off the list of available GCSEs because they are not EBacc subjects.Hmm
What we, as parents, need is the raw data - a full list of the school's GCSE results showing how many pupils got each subject, grade by grade. That would stop the game of concentrating effort on scraping C grades and would show up how many don't get higher grades.

Original poster
MrsTweedy · 13/01/2011 10:48

It is a Technology Academy, so yes it probably at the moment doesn't offer Ebacc options and you need to take both results into account but at the moment it certainly seems to be overly skewed one way.

OP posts:
thekidsmom · 13/01/2011 10:48

You only have to look at the number of schools scoring 0% on the new measure to see what a nonsense it is - inlcuding both my DS' and my DD's school!

If you're going to measure something that's going to matter you really should make sure you're measuring the right thing.... and the specified components of the Ebacc are celarly not it.....

crazymum53 · 13/01/2011 11:01

I think the only value of the Ebacc is to highlight which schools offer more traditional GCSE subjects and which ones offer more vocational subjects.
However schools did NOT KNOW that they were going to be measured against this criteria when GCSE options or exam entries were made so it really isn't a fair way of judging schools.
In my LEA the highest performing school is a specialist language school so they could be some bias here.
My OH and I looked at our O levels and have found that I would have scored for getting the Ebacc because I studied Geography and French whereas he wouldn't because he did both French and German. I would say that German is probably harder than Geography. So there may be an increase in pupils doing one language at GCSE but probably fewer studying 2 languages which could be counterproductive !

Bramshott · 13/01/2011 11:16

Purits - I suppose what I meant was that it is a disservice to try and shoehorn a complex set of results into an easy to organise table of School 1 is the best, down to School 250 is the worst. Yes, raw data is certainly needed, and should be freely available to parents, but league tables themsleves IMHO can drive schools to push kids into choices which are not right for them. All in all I am in favour of more traditional subjects, and of keeping options open at such a young age, but the risk is that this new Eng Bacc, by being used as an absolute measure, will just push kids for whom this particular range of 5 subjects are not appropriate for whatever reason, into taking them anyway. I don't know - it's hard.

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 11:17

crazymum - and its all very well people saying a broad education is good - but if you want to be a language guru just having one at gcse isn't going to be much help is it.

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 11:21

bramshott - i don't think its hard at all.

i'm in favour of subjects that are right for that child - academic if they are, vocational if this suits them better.

i'm also in favour of academic subjects that the child enjoys, is good at and will enable them to do what they want in future. if that happens to be economics, and lots of languages rather than say history then so be it.

the danger, as you rightly point out, is that this new system will deter schools from doing the above

Bramshott · 13/01/2011 11:30

But surely, at least in some schools, there has been a trend towards putting kids in for non-traditional subjects which are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as easier - driven at least in part by all GCSEs counting the same in the league tables?

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 11:31

another thought - sorry but this has irritated me... if schools put pressure on children to study bacc subjects it could result in more discruptive classrooms - if a child doesn't enjoy the subject and doesn't want to do it and is struggling they are hardly going to be a model student - affecting the others in the class

dreamingofsun · 13/01/2011 11:34

bramshott - but if a child is not academic, and wants to work with children what is wrong with them doing a childcare subject (this is exactly the case of my niece). perhaps it is easier, but at least she sees the point in doing it.

purits · 13/01/2011 11:48

I sort-of agree with you there, dreaming. That's why I said there should be two EBacc - one academic and one vocational.

Bramshott · 13/01/2011 11:50

Hmm. I just think 14 is very early to close off options.

I am not 100% in favour of the EBacc, or the current system TBH, which leads me to think that it's the league tables causing the problem, and that schools should just provide the full data to parents and leave them to make their own choices about which school / ethos / options suits their child.

alison60 · 13/01/2011 12:32

A good school should have the academic kids doing academic subjects, and the vocational kids doing vocational subjects. Every child should end up with the best results they are capable of and the most appropriate for what they want to do. But I have no idea how you design the league tables so that those schools come out on top. This new EBac measure has certainly highlighted some of the schools in my area that are pushing kids to do easy, useless exams, and those that are not. But if it's used as the main measure, it will only highlight the schools with the highest concentrations of bright kids.

Any ideas?

civil · 13/01/2011 12:39

A good school should have the academic kids doing academic subjects and vocational kids doing vocational subjects.

But, there should be an element of choice so that children can follow their interests as well as their ability.

And thus make for happy and motivated children.

Also, there is much discussion about hard and easy subjects but I put more work into my music GCSE than I did for my three sciences and maths put together.

Personally, I think the English Bac should be just maths, science, english. Many pupils swap the history/geog for RE or music. And why not? They could still do history at A-level.

snorkie · 13/01/2011 12:40

A lot of parents don't involve themselves with that level of detail Bramsholt, they just trust the schools to do the right thing. I agree to try and shoehorn everyone into doing the Bacc regardless isn't ideal, but I still think it's better than what we do now.

I have no problems at all with the not all that low Tiffin ebac figures quoted below as I'm sure they're all likely to be doing a reasonable set of GCSEs even if it doesn't quite meet ebacc criteria. If they try and put their figures up (and they don't really need to - people will be clamouring to go there even if they ignore ebacc due to their reputation) probably most of the children there won't worry too much except for some hardened linguists maybe and hopefully they'll make an exception for them. But even if they don't I think the improvements this is likely to bring to huge numbers of children whose schools have been pushing them towards soft choices will outweigh that. My local school (comp in normal catchment) has just 4% ebacc. Kids round here have been let down badly by that school imo. and I think ebacc will improve things significantly.

duchesse · 13/01/2011 12:44

My children's very academic selective school scores 0% under the new measures and the old ones, because they offer the (more demanding) IGCSE for most main subjects, which don't count in the GCSE or EBacc league tables. Luckily they make up for it by being 3rdd in the county for A levels.

gramercy · 13/01/2011 12:49

I do think dreamingofsun has a point about the more disruptive, or even the less able pupils being funnelled into doing some subjects.

Ds goes to a comprehensive and actually it has scored rather well on this EBac thing because it doesn't offer too many less traditional options. Nevertheless, being a comprehensive there are a fair few kids who opt for drama or dance and whatnot and drop French and History. I cannot think it will be a help to the brighter ones to have those sitting unwillingly in the class. And for some kids there isn't a cat's chance in hell of their passing French. When the teacher is bellowing "a verb is a DOING word" at 14-year-olds, the future conditional is clearly going to be rather beyond their grasp.

Remotew · 13/01/2011 14:13

Interesting have all areas published these Ebacc tables? I presume they will have used data from last years GCSE results and I know for a fact some of the top achieving GCSE pupils in our good state comp wouldn't appear in the Ebacc figures because they didn't take a MFL.

Talkinpeace · 13/01/2011 14:23

abouteve
have a look here
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11950098
you can sort by GCSE old style
ebacc
cva

Remotew · 13/01/2011 14:24

Just checked it, not looking good for them compared to A-C grades. Reckon they will be pushing pupils to do a language now.

It shouldn't make a difference to the students though, should it? I mean if one has excellent grades in the sciences, maths, history etc but didn't do a language, it won't go against the student.