Taking GCSEs at 14, languages and the stupid English Baccalaureate!

[chipmunksex]

My ds is 13, he is currently choosing his options for which two gcses he will take in the summer of 2013 when he will be 14.

Because of the need to have a modern foreign language, due to the stupid ebacc thing, he pretty much has to do French.

His teacher is not sure he is up to it and has told me he doesn't think he should take it, but this seems to mean that he has failed already at 13. As I'm told it's a bad idea for them to have a gap with languages as they forget everything.

He is a bright boy generally, it's heartbreaking for me to think that he will be seen to have not achieved a good standard of education, because of this one area.

Does anyone have any experience, advice, tips?

Get Down...I think it may have come from the Government. Its not a deciding factor now but its how deciding it becomes in the future that will be an issue!

As a teacher in a good quality secondary school, we could care less about the EBacc and its affects on the data...we stand by our reputation. It currently has no teeth a all here and means nothing.

Its where they choose to take it in the future that is a concern, if they want to impose value on it.

They seemed very sure that the ebacc was gonna become the bench mark in a few years time.

I really hope they are wrong, because I'm sure my ds is not the only child without an aptitude for languages.

It surfaced on a recent thread that some universities are now demanding a MFL at GCSE.

I do sympathise, OP. DD is useless at French and French tutors are rarer than hen's teeth. I've had to start teaching her myself.

Quattro - really? for all their courses? even electronic engineering?

If they start demanding the EBacc for university entrance, then we will have come full circle in the space of a few decades.

When my parents went to Oxford in the 50s, you had to have a science o-level and Latin 0-level (I'm not sure what else). My mother was never a scientist, so scraped through biology just to meet the requirement, even though it was absolutely irrelevant to her classics degree.

My father, who was not a linguist, failed his Latin o-level three times, and just managed to pass Oxford's own o-level equivalent exam in his first term there, to avoid being thrown out. And he had no need of Latin in his degree either.

I can see that there are strong arguments for Maths and English being prerequisites for any kind of further study (as well as for coping with adult life in general) but beyond that, demanding languages from people applying for science courses and vice versa just seems pointlessly discriminatory.

matriculation

My school stopped the top set doing maths a year early because the pupils got better grades having another years practice. We didn't get bored we did a difficult additional calculus and geometry paper alongside our o'level maths.
Yes I said O'level, this was 30 years ago and we are still having the same debate.

exexpat...exactly so!

I can't shake the feeling that the MPs sit there thinking 'this system suceeded for me so it must be the best way to educate' so back we go 30 years....

succeeded

Yes, quite. I think Michael Gove would happily take us back to the 1950s, or earlier.

I don't have a problem with the principle of a well-rounded education - sure, ideally most people would have got to a reasonable level in another language, and understand some science, and know a bit about history etc before they go off to university. I think in many ways the British education system (particularly A-levels) is too narrow and makes people specialise too early.

But making an arbitrary combination of subjects a requirement is something else, and is likely to be counterproductive (rather like most other things used to measure schools' performance and produce league tables).

I agree, getting pupils to take the exam early is madness! They can't achieve the higher grades which another year of study would enable them to achieve. I have had to go through this madness with my ds when his school decided that they would study 2 GCSEs in Y10 and another 2 in Y11. Naturally, the pupils take the subjects they want to do at A Level first in order to make sure that they can get on the course. The result of this 'fantastic' system is that you end up with lower grades A instead of A and then you have to wait a year before you study it at ALevel, thus forgetting what you have learned! When I challenged this I was told that this worked for the 'Outwood Grange Family of Schools' ( run by a man who has made his milions turning around 'failing' schools) and that it clearly works. Luckily my ds got the grades albeit A rather than A but if he had not got them he would have had to resit them at the same time as he was taking mocks for his new GCSEs. I don't agree with Mr Gove on much (I am a teacher) but I am glad that this stupid system is going to change.

Well I had not previously heard about this, before the thread in question, but I googled a bit and it does seem that UCL (and potentially others) do require a MFL for entrance. Even for medicine

Even for medicine

Its my understanding that these are exactly the sort of courses that the EBacc will be required for...to show not only expertise in the given area applied for but also a good grounding in what is considered to be a portfolio of worthy GCSEs.

Michael Gove went to an uber traditional boys' private school, with Latin from primary and weekly class places.

I confess that I think that Ebacc is quite a good idea (dons hard hat and flame proof underwear) in that it provides a measure for schools which is far harder for them to wriggle round than previous measures. However I would prefer to see it relaxed a bit with a broader range of humanities and more flexibility on the MFL requirement. I dont think that there is a problem with saying 'this student has ebacc, this student doesnt'. If it remains as a measure then it will be a shorthand like the old school certificate with the advantage that students also get the detail of all their achievements.

The old maxim that you are what you measure applies just as well to schools as anywhere else. I think that the measuring is a good idea (I remember the old days pre league tables when schools were able to hide their poor results behind a smokescreen of reputation and exclusivity). If you have loose measures then schools abuse them (pushing students into equivalents to bump up the volume of GCSEs). If you have tight measures then schools try to straightjacket students.

As parents we have to be active in our children's education as TalkinPeace2 exemplifies.

I obviously had some sort of ebacc type idea in my old fashioned brain when my DD's (now 18 and 20) chose their options because I encouraged them to take a language, a humanity and an arty subject to give them a range of subjects that left lots of choices open to them. DS who is year 10 made similar choices without any prompting and it just seemed like common sense to do so.

schools aren't there to be measured, they are there to provide an education that best suits each individual child. The measure is supposed to indicate that the educating is going well...and not the main focus. IMO we are getting that balance totally wrong.

Some students do not suit the particular options chosen my this Government as the ones everyone should study. What about those students who don't fit this ideal??

webwiz...you are absolutely right if you a good basic all rounder.

But if you happed to be really awful at languages, why waste a GCSE on that when you could choose another perfectly good one (another hummanities for instance) and get an excellent grade for it...playing to your strengths.

I was reflecting on this point, and I think doing a MFL makes sense. We might live on an island but we're still part of a global economy. Our children will have to connect internationally much more than we ever had to. It's true that the language of business is English, luckily for us, but doing a MFL should give appreciation of another culture. Also experiencing the difficulties of learning a language should give appreciation of the efforts other nationalities make to learn ours. I think it's a good thing, even though the MFLs are DD's worst subjects, and she would do better doing pretty much anything else.

I do agree that if you are completely terrible at something it probably isn't a good choice but there is a difference between being really bad at a subject and being ok if you tried a bit.

Talking from experience, with the new controlled assessment format, it really is not rocket science to get a C in French, German or Spanish at GCSE.
Again, from experience, if a child can get a decent grade in a humanities (or a science, English and Maths say) subject, he/she is totally capable to get a similar grade in a MFL with a bit of work and attention in class. Attitude towards learning is key in any subject.
The rest of Europe seems to be ok with the study of a language, so why not us?
Having said that, if one has learning difficulties or whatever else, there is a case for not studying a language beyond the basics.

I agree with that too.

but some GCSEs are out of the reach of some students.

with webwiz.

Have just completed another French lesson with DD. After the eye-rolling stopped, and she started applying herself, she said that she learns more with me in 30 minutes than she does in a month at school. I've seen her books and boy, although her attitude is unimpressive, the teaching is plain rotten.

Which brings me to this question - is it fair to make a MFL part of the English Bacc when I don't think there are many high quality MFL teachers out there?