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

[MrsTweedy]

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.

Agree ref adding arts subject and with kez 100's other points 100%.
I worry for Britain's creative talent which adds untold billions to GDP and cheer us all up with their output. Where are the Nick Park's, Gareth Malone's etc of the future going to be nurtured.
The policy discriminates against the artistic child who doesn't have a hope of achieving the ebacc but could add huge value and happiness to many lives through their talent(Maybe Gove and Cameron can do some joined up thinking here regarding the long term happiness index of the UK)

Thanks everyone! Sorry, TIP, I thought you had misunderstood my badly worded post.

But regardless of whether GCSE's are second rate or not - they will become viewed that way by employers as the new exams come in and take over and are deemed to be a better qualification.

Even if they are the same standard

Pot
DDs school is a comp. They will never in a million years get more than 50% ebacc.
So long as they are getting over 30% I and I suspect most other parents will be happy
A selective school should aim for around 66%
and secondary moderns would do well to get 5% (as the grammar has nicked all their bright kids)
Any school that has 100% is either cheating or weird IMHO

Talkinpeace - why on earth should it be impossible for a school, even a comprehensive, to get 100% 5 A*-Cs?! It is not that difficult to get a C at GCSE. yes, there are schools with difficult intakes who struge with children whose ATTITUDE to learning is very poor, but children who are willing to learn, even if not very bright, should be capable of 5 Cs. It's not a big ask in my opinion.

struggle, not struge. Stupid iPhone.

How music can be degraded so badly baffles me, considering you need to play an instrument to about Grade 5 level and study theory, history and so on in order to pass with a decent grade. Gove's clearly never played anything.

BTW I happily wrote a history dissertation at one stage of my strangely successful academic career (strange given I had no Ebacc, being too busy learning things like Additional Mathematics, Russian and Greek etc), having only studied history for three years at school. I think this gave me an advantage as I didn't know the history-bundled-up-for-British-schoolchildren canon of knowledge and did the history thing properly instead, by studying primary sources in the British library. GCSE history teaches you little expect the fact that German equals Nazi IMO, unless you have a particularly brilliant and rebellious teacher.

I feel that 13, (as many pupils are when choosing options) is very young to overspecialise. I think Ebacc will help focus some academically bright pupils' minds on choosing a broader range of academic subjects. Many choose a whole series of Drama, Art, Music, Dance type subjects. They do have their merits, but are not a broad range. So many children change their minds about careers and interests, that we do them a disservice if we do not encourage them to continue with some academic study. Children with a real, solid interest in drama, art, music, etc will almost certainly be doing some outside of school, and anyway can still opt for one or two.

To anyone questionning the value of these subjects. Would we really want a future generation who know nothing about WW1 or 2, or about other cultures, or development issues, or their place in the world? the thought of that makes me worried. Education is not and should not be about jobs, jobs and more jobs. That is just one purpose.

Agreed 100%, opaque.

missmiss
Why do you think all children should be able to get 5 GCSE at A-C?
Do you not read the threads on here about SEN kids?
Have you worked with SEN kids who, no matter what the resources, will always struggle to learn.
It is a fact of life.
A non selective school should be able to get around 75% under the old rule (any 5 or equiv)
Every child should have at least 1, in something
and Ebacc - non selective getting 40% would be pretty good in the view of many teachers

even with that leeway, there are a lot of poor schools with CVA under 995 who need to pull their socks up

They have classed iGCSE maths which is harder as not counting so no one at Manchester Grammar one of our best private schools academically go into this, they all got zero!

I was very surprised thoguh that so many comps are so useless and how many chidlren who aren't much good at anything but needlwork GCSE are there. It certainly makes you glad you're in the private system where 100% of children have always done this and not just the 5 but the traditional 8 core GCSEs which used to be what all privaet and state pupils passed to get their "school certificate" - english lang and lit, maths, a language, 2 sciences, geog, history. They were my 8 I think and then I did music too.

Of course yes in private and state you get chidlren with IA under 100 who may well not get any exams everyone knows that.

Talkinpeace - yes, you're quite right, there will always be children who won't achieve those benchmarks. But to aim for 66% 5 A-Cs still seems ridiculously low - there can't be many schools where 44% of the pupils have such severe SEN that they can't be coached into a C grade.

O-levels were a different case but the level expected for a C at GCSE in most subjects is laughably low.

If all pupils had a positive attitude to learning, I'd expect 100% in selective schools and 75-80% in comprehensives. At least 50% in secondary moderns.

Ah missmiss you are talking about 15 and 16 year olds so the reality is that they don't always have a "positive attitude to learning" even when they have support at school and at home.

the private system where 100% of children have always done this and not just the 5 but the traditional 8 core GCSEs which used to be what all privaet and state pupils passed to get their "school certificate" - english lang and lit, maths, a language, 2 sciences, geog, history

This simply isn't true. I did neither History nor Geography at my excellent private school (of which I am sure you have heard - St Paul's Girls') because they were sensible enough to realise that not all children have the same needs. You are right, though, that the others you mention were all compulsory in my case. I was very pleased to be able to drop Geography and History in favour of a third science and a second language. It would have done me no favours to do subjects I actively disliked.

Well, a third language, I suppose, because Latin was compulsory as well as French.

True, which is why I accept that 100% is probably unrealistic, though I dispute strongly the fact that it's impossible. 16% (current percentage of children achieving the Bac) is a joke.

missmiss
how many comps have you been to in the last year?
DH has been to around 40
he thinks I'm overoptimistic in my figures
"coached to a C grade" with what resources?
classes of 30 and 2-3 hours per week lesson time don't leave much room for coaching
unless you are willing to pay the extra taxes to provide it.

I know this will have been said several times before but the publishing of English Bacc. scores this year is scurrilous and smacks of political opportunism (and my DS's school got 50% so I'm not sour grapes here!).

I am hardly surprised, coming as it does from the Conservatives but it's only so that, as the 'with the program (box ticking?) schools' realign what their puplis are forced to study with the Eng. Bacc., we will suddenly witness a huge upsurge of apparent attainment and the Conservative government will point to it and say ' Look how we've pushed educational standards up'.

Boffin sadly GCSE music isn't as hard as it used to be. My friends who now teach GCSE bemoan the fact one could, in this years' exam, get an A without being able to read or write a single note of music. There's also very little active analysis/actual theory and plenty spot-the-instrument multiple choice questions and 'is this piece in a major or minor key?'.

Don't even get me started on the total lack of the subjunctive in French GCSE... We were introduced to it in Y11 with a quick what it was, how you form it etc and then told NOT to use it in the exam because it wasn't on the syllabus

Pretty sure Nick Park would have sailed through all this - don't suppose his genius came from what he learned in school.
Boffin Mum - at my son's school, (not sure if history is compulsory for IGCSE - not got that far yet) - from Year 6 they absolutely go back to a sub set of original sources (obviously they can't read Anglo-Saxon scripts/latin etc -I have been quizzed/lectured severely about this - they do take it serioulsy - not sure where you get the British -schoolkid..etc ot spoone-ffeding - they are explained the method and tehn don to them.

I work in a comp and our results aren't far off what missmiss says can happen. We had 86% of our students achieve 5 A* - C inc Ma and En this year. This is in "proper" bacc type subjects - we're a very trad sort of school. However this would only be 25% with the Eng Bacc because we don't make our kids do languages.

Have a look at this school near me.
Not DDs but one I know well.
It's a comp.
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/performancetables/school_10.pl?Mode=Z&Base=c&Type=SC&Year=10&Phase=1&Begin=2&No=8504175&Num=850&s2s=1
I suspect their head cracked open the Champagne at those results.
And remember they have more than 8% SEN.
Its a well heeled area.
I'd be interested to see a comp that did better.

I think that it is good that pupils are now going to be encouraged to have a broad and balanced education.

When I was at school, we did 8 subjects (Scottish system) - Arithmetic, Maths, English and French were all compulsory. Then we had to take 2 Sciences, either History or Geography, and a free choice of one other subject (a third Science, a second humanity, a second language, Art or Music). This met the basic entrance requirements of universities, which all included a MFL in those days.

My two children that have gone through GCSEs would all have met EBacc standards; my child who is choosing options now will do also. I feel strongly about doing these basic subjects before thinking about further options.

I only have a tiny bit of sympathy for the retrospectiveness of these new league tales. Schools should always have been offering a broad and balanced curriculum, and the ones that have not been doing that ought to be outed.

I think we need to set new standards for a 'good' school. It doesn't have to be 80%, which seems to be a bit of a benchmark at the moment. We should not be afraid to recognise that the EBacc standard is not appropriate for all pupils. There is no point in struggling with French if a pupil can barely manage English, for example. Or forcing a humanity if they have significant memory problems.

I suspect that the EBacc will introduce new problems, however. Already, there are courses masquerading as 'Science', which really do not fulfill the aims of science education (for the love of learning, to produce future scientists, to use scientific information to make decisions, and to develop practical skills). I imagine there will be an array of new 'History' and 'Geography' courses.

Missmiss, eminently possible in some comps, eminently not in others - depends on intake and the issues they face. My Dad's school, high profile, is troubled by gang culture, has high no. of free school meals & ESL students but gets v good results as these issues can be combated with a proactive approach - ambition generally not an issue. Dh's school has a higher than average % of low academic ability on intake, many social problems, high unemployment, teenage pg rate & difficulty recruiting enough good teachers = much harder to raise standards.

I think its good they published these results. It shows up schools who've been massaging the figures by discouraging kids from doing hard subjects, or making kids concentrate on just 5 GCSEs to try to get good results in those (apparently some schools do this, give extra tutoring in 5 esp maths and english, at the expense of breadth).

While - because of that last issue - I think its a good thing the new stats include 6 subjects, I'm not so sure History or Geography should be in the mandatory list - that 6th subject should be broader - not sure which others should be there - Music, maybe RS (though it may be relatively softly marked from the data we've seen), maybe Art, maybe some tech eg electronics.

Anyhow, my DDs school tops the table for our LEA at 87% - they all do 3 sciences and an MFL and a tech, but may not have done Geography or History; they get to choose 3 out of A second modern foreign language, Art, Drama, Music, Geography, History, R.S. and Information Technology