GCSE's taught over 3 years?

[Grumpysfirstwife]

My friends school has decided they will now teach GCSE's over 3 years instead of 2. The letter from the school states this is now considered the most successful way to teach GCSE's as it gives them more opportunity to iron out any problems and that staff don't have to squash in bits of teaching, they can offer it in a calmer more detailed way instead.

Does anyone elses school do this? I'm curious to know if it improves grades or makes school less stressful for the students. It may suit my DD to do this due to a variety of reasons but I wouldn't like to consider moving her if it doesn't help the students achieve their potential.

"There were schools in the 80s (well at least early 80s) where people did 12 GCSEs."

That's impossible, it was O levels and CSEs until 1988. Or did you just mean the 16+ exams?

It was unusual to do more than 8 or 9 subjects at the start of the 80s, and all were linear and there was no coursework for O levels (other than in subjects like art) though there was for CSE.

At my grammar school, even the two exceptionally clever swotty girls didn't get a clean sweep of A grades.

There needs to be a big change to perceptions of what a 'good' set of results looks like.

RedHelen that's my thinking too, and my dds' grammar school position. However they do begin GCSE content in yr9 in some core subjects, without dropping any (non GCSE) subjects.

The boys' grammar down the road are moving to 3 year GCSEs though, but I don't know the details.

"Oh & St George's Medical School in London want you to have done maths GCSE in yr11 with your other GCSEs. There might be other universities which specify but I'm not aware of them."

There's a minor exception to that, if you do maths in year 10, plus further maths in year 11 you'll still be OK.

They don't mind how long you take to do them so long as you do them all at once.

I do admissions, and I wrote our RG department's admissions policy after reading a lot of other departments' and talking to peple. I'm not aware of any department with a GCSE timing constraint, although I know a few (mostly medicine: as a counter example, a friend's child with staggered A Levels is doing English at Oxford on a two-subject conditional offer) which place that constraint on A Levels.. It's even harder to see how this claim stands today, as literally no-one has published their entry criteria for 2020 or whenever it is that current Y9s are applying.

I don't currently know of any department, certainly not in my subject, with a hard requirement on GCSE timing, nor can I particularly think why they would care. It's possible that it would be a (weak) sorting criteria for subjects that interview, but even then I've seen no evidence of it. I know it's popular to believe there are hidden criteria which they don't tell you about, but any university which did that at scale would do so at its peril: Les Ebden is stalking the corridors looking for that sort of shit, and universities are also paranoid about CMA referrals on publicity material.

My kids do extended GCSEs too, they start in yr 9 as it's shown to be better for results. Makes perfect sense

Our local school has the pupils taking science GCSEs in 2 sittings. They all sit the first 2 papers in each science at the end of year 10, which (if they pass) gives combined science, the equivalent of 2 GCSEs. They sit the 3rd paper for each science with the rest of the GCSEs in year 11, which, combined with the earlier papers, gives them a GCSE in each individual science. Pupils can also have a second attempt at the other papers if they want/need to improve their grade.

Do the comments above mean that pupils who "collect" their science GCSEs in this way would not be viewed as favourably, for example in competiting for a place on for a sought after course?

OK, by reading through the thread, I've found an exception: St George's Medicine. But it's a wild outlier: Oxford and Cambridge don't impose the same requirement.

In our school Year 9 is seen by many children as not really mattering, so not worth doing much work for. I think a move to 3 year GCSEs might help solve this issue.

Don't know about the kids, but both years 8 and 9 are seen as not really mattering by the teachers at our son's school. If any year 10-13 lessons are jeopardised by their teachers being off sick or away for training/meetings, etc., it's always the year 8/9 teachers who cover for them, leaving the years 8/9 to suffer supply or cover teachers with the usual scrappy worksheet if they're lucky. There's also be a very noticeable lack of homework in years 8/9, compared with huge amounts they got in year 7 and promises/threats of huge amounts in years 10 onwards. From what my son says, I get the impression that years 8/9 are "holding" years where they're just baby-sitting/entertaining the kids rather than teaching them anything fundamental. Of course, some of the teachers are awesome and have done a hell of a lot, but a significant minority of his year 8/9 teachers have been pretty disinterested - eg he only got one maths homework in the entire year 8 and in year 9, he's only seen his proper Physics teacher for about 10 lessons in the whole year as he's either covering higher years due to teacher illness or off the for afternoon with the inter-school rugby team! I'm hoping they up their game in year 10 onwards as it's been pretty poor so far!

At DD's school they ramped up the homework in year 9. She got the least amount in year 8.

I work with a lot of schools across the north and all of them, from suffering comp to well off independent, are doing a three year GCSE.

For an all rounder like my dd it would have mattered to have lost music, art , computers RE etc for a year. For my other DD she struggled with the pressure of gcses at the start of Y10 so think it would have been harder for her at Y9. They have been allocated 1 extra lesson for maths & English but have found in Maths at least that they have already covered what they needed to this year. Think it might be a bit of a knee jerk reaction and I am still a bit surprised grammar schools are doing this. So much for being better all round educators for the high achievers.