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.

It is just Matriculation back again.

I know I'll be shot down for this but I do think we need to think about a rounded education.

To be honest I'd like to add in a couple of vocational subjects as well maybe a choice of sports science, textiles, business, economics (possibly - I know that one doesn't really fit) art, ceramics (maybe an arts subject too). We could call it the extended EnglishBAC.

This is the thing.

Gove is right that all students should aspire to Maths, English, a humanity, a science, an MFL.

What is wrong is:

1.) the definitiotn of humanity should be broader to accommodate RE etc

2.) He shouldn't have brought the EBacc in retrospectively.

3.) You can't tell people age 13 + or even younger that they need to ahve an MFL. MFL needs to be taught and taught well from primary school. And only when children have come up the system with different attitudes to learning a language should it be made compulsory if at all. Also we haven't got enought MFL teachers as it is.

4.) There are some kids who will not be able to cope with those subjects. Introducing the EBACC is not going to change that fact it will simply be another way in whcih those children are perceived as failing.

4. And finally. While I agree in principle that children should be encougaged to aspire to cover those subjects as basics there is no need and no point in legislating for this. There is no need to put the EBACC scores in the league tables.

The reason why some school have drifted away from those subjects in the first place and into subjects which may be easier is BECAUSE of league tables in the first place.

Schools and pupils should be allowed and enabled to make their own judgement about what subjects are best for them/their pupils.

alicatte
you may have something there
fivecandles
yup, of course it is. Tories always hark back not forward.

OK Ladies, lets design a perfect Ebacc for today that we would like next years tables to be.
All subjects either GCSE or IGCSE

I'll open the bidding at

English (Language or Lit)
Maths (general, applied, further or stats)
Science (physics, chemistry, biology, combined)
plus two out of
Art (pure, design, textile, music)
MFL (any currently spoke language - huge advantage for comps with a high immigrant cohort!!)
Humanity (Geography, History, Classics, Latin, Greek, RE)
Technocogy (Computing, ICT, any other vocational

all the ologys can wait till A level.
Shrinks are people who were sent to see one as a kid and thought "I can do that" @my dad!

English Lit and physics though have either basic concepts or teach skills for enhancement and students have already spent 3+ years learning the foundations of those subjects. English Lit you don't do, say, competitive analysis or look at the influence of Shakesperean sonnets on 19th century poetry like you would at university level. You learn to read a book critically, identify the main themes, look at character development, study a bit of social context and write an essay on it. Ditto a Shakespeare play etc. It's a subject which can be narrowed easily whilst still gaining the skills required for further study, and a bit of knowledge too! Physics is all Newtonian physics, fine, but you learn the areas you're capable of learning and lay the foundations for skills later on.

What, honestly, would you put into a business studies or psychology GCSE to make it harder, yet still be able to fit it into 2 years, starting from scratch? Where on earth do you start? Those are subjects which require a foundation of both skills and knowledge acquired from other subjects. They are broad subjects which can't easily be narrowed down, rather than subjects which can be narrowed and then expanded upon later. Their very interdisciplinary nature which makes them demanding subjects at university level means they're not suited to study at GCSE IMO.

Gold,
When I was starting my accountancy exams, an accountancy degree counted for less than my Geography one as the institutes had the common sense to know that early specialisers were less likely to succeed.

Anybody wanting to be a shrink at 16 needs to see one on be one.

I would bid to make a foreign language - ancient or modern compulsory. I think learning and studying other languages is very valuable but often seen as 'too hard' or 'not worth it'. The humanity I'd like to keep but I like the art or technology being valued as well. So make it 6 core from me

Fivecandles I agree with pretty much all your post of 19;04! Especially the point about languages at 13. Starting at primary is ideal, well taught from the age of 11 a good second best. At the moment MFL aren't well taught, the syllabus is all over the place and departments are dying because it was removed as a compulsory subject :( vicious circle

Haven't read whole thread...

I had a meeting with our Deputy Head today about next year's curriculum and options. I teach Performing Arts. She has completely re-done our Yr 9 Options, as our school comes out at about 1% on EBacc stats. Basically, the top half of the year group (deprived area - no point making them all do it - no point teaching MFL to children who can barely master English) will have to do the EBacc subjects (ie Eng, Maths, Science (various options for Sciene), either French or German, either History or Geography, and then will be allowed to choose their final subjects from other areas. The lower half of the year group can choose to do the same, but have wider, more vocational(including BTEC Health and Social Care, BTEC Construction - before anyone criticises, they are good subjects for some students at this particular school) choices too. I have to say I was quite taken aback when the depty head showed me the "new" curriculum, as it seems so bloody obvious to me.

Sorry- missed out bits of punctuation there - not concentrating.

eviltwins - that is exactly why i don't like this new marking method. schools will potentially force my children to study subjects they don't want to, that are no use to them, and leave them less time to do ones that are useful/enjoyable/easy for them eg history or geography is not especially useful for a potential PE teacher or accountant - economics or sport would be better.

I completely disagree Gold. There is nothing about Psychology or Business Studies which makes them any less suitable to GCSE study than Eng Lit or Chemistry or a MFL.

As you said you teach basic skills and concepts as with Eng Lit. You might look at a couple of case studies in detail as you look at a couple of texts in detail for Lit.

The only issue is they're modern and there is a train of thought which thinks that tradiitonal = good and contemporary = bad.

Twas ever thus. There was a prog on the radio once about how English Lit was once seen as new fangled and a bit pathetic. This was in early days of university education at Oxford.

I still say that early education (pre 16) is not about jobs, it is about the person. If a person wishes to be a carpenter, they can still be a carpenter but one who knows a bit about history. Before A levels or vocational it should be about skills and knowledge. The Ebacc subjects give a good range and depth of skills, and most pupils will still have at least another 3 subjects to add, so do not need to miss out on their "creative" or "practical" interests.

Dreamingofsun, it's a long time since I did my accountancy training, but my firm would have preferred O levels (I'm that old) in history or geography to anything new-fangled. They would certainly have been preferred to business studies, as, rightly or wrongly, they would have been perceived as harder subjects. Most of my fellow trainees had degrees in subjects other than accountancy. Mine's in Classics. The firm's view was that having proved that we could study to degree level, we would all be capable of picking up economics, the basics of law and lots and lots of accountancy from scratch. And almost all of us did pass our exams, so they were right.

I don't know what's covered in an accountancy degree course but I have to say the idea of spending my three precious years of undergraduate study on accountancy and then repeating most of it for another three years for the professional exams fills me with horror.

"Have you noticed how the prestige subjects are also the oldest and often the least relevant to modern life and vice versa."

Yeah, I have often thought that Maths, English and the Sciences were totally irrelevant. What are you on about?

When you talk about 'prestige' subjects which are also the oldest, do you mean those that have stood the test of time? I could have invented a GCSE in BetaMax video and MySpace - it might have been bang on trend and 'relevant' to its time but it would have had a pretty short shelf-life. There is a reason why the traditional subjects are still around.

'There is a reason why the traditional subjects are still around'

Yes, and it's not the reasons we might assume.

Subjects like Classics and Latin have gained prestige because they have always been associated with the elite.

It has nothing to do with them having any more inherent value than ICT or English Language or Psychology.

@duchesse - St Peters is not in any way selective-by-the-back-door.

I think that a gcse in IT is more relevant to todays society than latin ..education needs to move on

londonmother - you don't have to repeat it - it counts towards your professional exams.

i think your firms attitude is a shame. surely studying accountancy shows that you have a real interest and commitment to the subject and assuming you've got decent grades an aptitude.

if i had studied classics i would have had no idea that i'm totally crap at accountancy and would have wasted mine and your firms time finding this out on the job

goldfrankin - i don't think your argument stands up to logic - i would have thought that you could teach business or pyschology in topic areas in much the same way that you would history or psychology

Well we'll agree to disagree but I still think the cumulative study or core subjects is preferable to trying to introduce entirely new broad subject areas badly. Case studies aren't the same as studying a novel. By their nature they're selected to demonstrate a point in isolation but in order to get that point you need an understanding of the theories behind it, which means you need an understanding of where those theories came from and in interdisciplinary subjects that's a lot of places. To make those subjects sufficiently rigorous is virtually impossible at GCSE level. One only has to look at the current syllabi to realise that trying to go further would lead to disaster. It would be like the blind men and the elephant - you only see a very small part if the picture.

I would, however, make distinctions between some of the subjects that are lumped together as being soft but only because they have more natural links to other parts of the curriculum which means they could be made more rigorous without being overwhelming - politics and history for example.

talking piece - my children are all quite academic and sporty but hate music and art. so why should they take a subject they will fail at instead of a subject they would be good at?

why not do PE instead of art? this is all so subjective.

They should revert to what you used to have to have and hat private schools tend to do which is your 8 core subjects - english lit and lang, maths, 1 or 2 languages, 2 or 3 sciences, history and geography and then if you want an addition 1 or 2 you can do art or music or RE or whatever.

The interesting issue is whether some children's IQ is just so so low that no matter how good the teaching they coudl never pass a language at GCSE and yet children used to be able to. Isn't it just that they can't be bothered to sit there and learn the vocabulary in many cases>

If I had been asked 2 weeks ago waht % of state school pupils had 5 proper GCSEs in those core subjects I would have said may be 60%. I was abaolutely amazed only 15% do. Why do the parents let that happen and univesrities and employers look for 8+ of the traditional subjects>? Are the teenagers sitting the exams or their parents unable to do internet searches and realise GCSE basket weaving might not go down very well with their future employers and blight their CV for life or are expectiations so low in state schools that people think their precious little darlings couldn't possbily tackle 8 traditional subjects because they actually have to knuckle down and do some learning?

i have to say i let my poor ds(17) not take french now i am whipping myself

xenia - my oldest goes to a grammar school and he picked pyschology gcse as one of his options (presumably classified my MN as soft) - i'm really pleased he did as he loves it and has done well at AS level and has had 5 offers from good unis for a degree. My other son also does it and hates it and struggles - obviously he will drop it.

my point is that this has helped them decide what they want/don't want to do at A level/degree level. they already knew they didn't like history and geography

i think i have a reasonable IQ - i have a degree - but i have always struggled with languages - my brain doesn't work that way.

My talented musician ds took btech music ...he could have got A gcse in music but choose not to do it ...and hes not doing A levels either

fivecandles Wed 23:47
"I don't know huge amounts about ICT"

Why are you fixated on the ICT GCSE? Everyone has told you that it is not a highly-valued subject but you keep banging on about it. I have a feeling that you are defending what ICT (or, rather, computing) should be instead of what it actually is.