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.

i don't know why we let knobs parents who send their kids to exclusive private school to have any sort of say in what is taught in state schools.

yes we all know you are rich and have had a great education and your children can do the same and it goes on and on

but fgs lets get back to teaching kids real skills that will get them work.

I honestly don't think that anyone should be starting to study new subjects that will have to be covered in their entirety (I'm talking syllabus, clearly, not the entire subject) at the start of your GCSE course unless they genuinely are easier or you are very very clever. Because otherwise, most people will not do well in them. The top ten or twenty per cent will do well in whatever they choose to study (given decent teaching, parental encouragement and a reasonable amount of application/attention). The rest should be concentrating on the basics and improving their grasp of subjects that they already hopefully have a reasonable grounding in.

If it is really possible for an average student to do well (by which I mean as well as they might in their other GCSEs such as English or whatever else is compulsory) in something like Psychology which they will not presumably have studied before GCSEs begin, then you really have to question the validity of the qualification. If it's not possible to do well, then why would you do it? On a purely practical level surely it's far far better to get reasonably good grades in subjects that you already have some grasp of? I do realise that people are hopefully learning because they are interested but I am not sure this is really the whole story with Business Studies or Psychology or whatever.

And Xenia is quite wrong. It simply isn't true that all private schools insist on the subjects in the E Bacc. Plenty of very good schools would allow a student to entirely drop humanities in favour of extra languages or extra science. However it's certainly true that most of the really good private schools would insist on three separate sciences and at least one language.

horton - so maybe they should start dropping some of the stuffy irrelevant subjects earlier and doing psychology and other relevant ones prior to GCSE. my son will only have studies spanish for 3 years - so your argument doesn't really stand up that well for him anyway

My wish list:
maths
englsih
chinese, arabic, spanish, urdu
ICT
history and geography
science
arts.

Swedes1 - you must be absolutely livid with your DCs school for offering such a narrow and restrictive education.

Are you living in the 1950s? Is he at the school that featured in Dead Poets Society?

I'd ask for my money back.

Where is he allowed to be creative/expressive?

I think the worst thing about the EBAC is that there isn't enough accurate information about it available. It isn't a qualification, there is no certification, it's just another way of measuring and comparing schools. And some pupils are being sold a certain selection of subjects which, yes, may be good for the majority of pupils, but not for everyone and pupils (not all) seem to think that making this choice will get them a EBAC qualification

The other thing that really annoys me is that modern and ancient languages are OK for the measure, but not Urdu. As a colleague pointed out when disussing this at work, there are plenty of businesses which deal with suppliers etc in India and Pakistan for whom employees with Urdu, Hindi, Gujurati etc as an additional language would be an advantage. Why is their achievement not going to be recognised? Would it do these prospective employees any good to choose French instead and 'get' the EBAC.

Various things matter... what old (and young) employers and people who recruit will like to see on the CV no matter how silly and prejudiced those people might be; what university entrance tutors or the employer in the local factory likes to see there; ensuring children know about English history, literature, can get by in France, undersetand some science, can spell and do the sums you need for life. The traditional 8 give you all that so it's a bit silly to depart from them.

Xenia - I don't get the IQ being relevant to learning languages either.
I have A level maths and computer science (NOT ICT) and an IQ of 145+
Struggled with German (dropped as an option), narrowly failed French O level. Although can always make myself understood in France.

It's more about aptitude as far as the written language is concerned.

Possibly I didn't explain myself very well, dreaming. I should have added that the point about Psychology or Business Studies or Media Studies or whatever, is that none of those kinds of subject need to be taken at GCSE in order to take them at a higher level later on. But you do need to start another language at that level (or pref before) if you might want to take it at A Level and possibly study languages at university (or maybe just be a reasonable speaker of them in later life). Yes, I know some people do their A Level starting from scratch in another language in two years but they are very much in the minority and it would make it much harder for someone who wasn't v talented in that area, IMO.

I bet there isn't a single Psychology degree in the country which requires you to have it at GCSE but I bet there are loads of Modern Language courses which require you to have two languages at A Level. And if university isn't suitable for you, then why not put some effort into improving the basics instead of starting something completely new? Unless the new thing is actually easier, in which case, well, what I said before.

xenia - i agree but i think its a shame as this will halt progress towards more modern, relevant but still stretching alternatives

makes me laugh sigh would you have liked learning chinese at 13? actually i can guess the answer rofl

horton - understand what you are saying. Isn't it an advantage, though, to know that you are good at and enjoy your subject area before you do a degree in it? Especially now its going to cost so much money

the only way 2 of my children have done this with psychology is to study it at gcse - one excelling, one failing

I was quite impressed by Michael Gove on question time last night which is not something I thought I would ever hear myself say.

thetasigmamum- Of course St Peter's selects by the back door! It's a christian school run by evangelists, with admission criteria that favourise regular and frequent christian worship over distance from school- how is that not back-door selection? It's very well-known that imposing a religious element to admissions excludes the more problematic families.

I for one would have loved to learn chinese at 131 Rather suspect that DD2 (13) would take up the offer in a flash.

Yes, I see your point, too. But IMO, something like a Psychology GSCE would be better taken alongside A Levels if you're aiming for doing that or something related later on or, if you're already doing 8 or 9 basic good traditional subjects at GSCE, do it as your fun extra instead of art or music or something. I don't think it should be an option instead of something important like a foreign language, personally. Unless it really is easier! I have no idea.

I would also have loved to do Chinese, and am slightly jealous to note that my old school now offers it.

On the language selection point whilst any MFL (or ancient language) should count French, Spanish and German are chosen above Chinese, Arabic and Urdu because they're closer to English, therefore more familiar, therefore easier to learn/pass!

Studying those other languages would be fascinating but hard, especially Chinese given the tonal elements.

I think pupils should get a certificate saying they got an EBacc though. Although I do wonder about grading. Do I get an A Ebacc because 3/5 requisite GCSEs were A, or do I get an A because I missed the A* in 2 of them? Or would they average up the points I got in all those exams to see what my overall level was? Or should we go in for the French 'mentions'?

Usualsuspect - can I ask why you ds chose Btec music over GCSE?

At my son's school you can study - Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish, chinese and mandarin

its a grammar school that specialises in languages - which presumably won't come off very well in these new measures.

i wonder how these measures will impact on specialist schools

horton - i'm with you on foreign languages. its the history that irks me most as i've never seen the point in it - other than to show you can remember facts, argue a case and write english - and i think you can do this with other more relevent subjects

The secondary school next door to ds's primary is a specialist language thingummy. Very well regarded comp in an area of correspondingly high house prices. Does v. v. well in the old style league tables focusing on five GCSEs with Maths and English. But oddly only gets 27% for the eBacc. Can't understand how that works.

We are a comp that has very good results.

I was discussing this with my students today, many of whom took all the humanities at GCSE and went on to get A* across the board. ( Hist. Geog and RE full course) They did not, however, take a language so they would not have qualified despite being super bright.

I can also think of students who took a number of languages but not a humanity.

That may explain the low figures in some very good schools. In particular we have a very strong humanities department, so it is not unusual for out students to take all the humanities. Maybe this will enourage MFL to improve. I actually ran after school Biblical Greek, Hebrew and Latin classes which a number of our humanities students took out f interest rather than because they wanted a GCSE. Maybe it will enable our students to take a GCSE in these courses now.

circular..He chose btec because the course was relevant to what he wanted to do ..it was performance based and he got individual music lessons as part of the course ...he also wanted to go onto the next level at college ...he got triple distinction in the btec and worked bloody hard for it ...some might say it was an easy option ...I disagree

Dreaming history is an excellent GCSE at training students to analyse evidence, draw conclusions and structure an argument. I think there is something to be said for being able to remember a lot of facts as well. As well as the joy of learning, the intellectual exercise, these are also good skills for the workplace.