Does EBacc mean anything??

[bamboowarrior]

Any thoughts? about to take options here!

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12156709/Students-should-learn-second-language-to-prevent-dementia-in-later-life.html

just one of many articles.
plus it helps recovery after a stroke or other brain injury.

It’s 9 at the private selective school, the vocational school & the state comp that my children have attended in two different counties.

green Thank you.

mrsm The impression I have is that with the new GCSEs, many schools have 'dropped' one GCSE.
When DD1 did GCSEs the most able could in theory do 2 English, Maths, Accelerated Triple, ICT, 4 options one of which could be RE&Sociology, and twilight Latin = 13.
Now DD2 is choosing the most able can do 2 English, Maths, Triple, 4 options and twilight Latin = 11. Generally 9 or 10.

But as I say, even if 9, there is still a free choice of 2, on top of a well rounded basic curriculum.

My daughter is currently options year, and at her school and those of her peers - all 4 local schools, it's 10 standard or 10-11. I've not heard of anywhere that takes 9 as standard, although a few individuals are advised to do 9 or even 8 based on lack of academic ability, but to be fair these are not the children that EBacc is targeted to, and are those for whom the school will generally not try to push the EBacc on, and rightly so.

It seems that the number of GCSEs offered is a key point. If ds was doing 11 and had 3/4 free choices that would be fine but all the schools round here offer 9 GCSEs as standard. I suspect it depends on what the local competition for places is like. Around here all our schools struggle in the league tables so their focus is on getting as many students as possible through 5. If you're in an area where schools are competing for high ability students then maybe offering 11 GCSEs is an attraction. I would love ds to be able to take 11 subjects as he could carry on with subjects he enjoys but nowhere around here offers it.

Also although technically you may only need 1 science for ebacc schools only offer double or triple science and if you want to do science at A level (at our local sixth form at least) you have to have triple science So realistically doing ebacc would only leave him one free choice.

My daughter is actually at an independent, where they don't push/decree Ebacc at all, but we still (gently) encouraged it.

She'll be doing 11 - Maths, 2 Eng, 3 Sci, French, Spanish, History, Music and PE.

That's well rounded IMO. If anything, the area she has least of is humanities, but interestingly her reserve subject was Geography.

Her electives were French, Spanish, History , Music and PE. Only Maths, 2 Englishes, and Science (2 or 3 depending on ability) were prescribed. Everything else was free choice.

Betrand - both ds and dd want to pursue science at A level and beyond, that pretty much ensures they have to do 3 sciences.
We insisted that they do MFL - I feel passionately about this, depspite it not meaning they can fluently speak a language for many reason, which I won't go into, I think learning a MFL is important.

That left ds with 3 choices, as his school does 3 sciences as standard, and they all do 10 GCSE. He is doing EBacc, but I don't really feel it is that balanced, as, apart from French, he is doing DT, business and geography.
But for dd, that only left her with 2 choices. She really wanted to do drama and computing. I thought drama would be excellent against all the maths/science, and also a great practical subject.
I would much rather she had chosen Geography/History instead of computing, but she really really wanted to do it, and really wasn't keen on geog/history.

In the end we decided to let her do that. I still feel that geo/history are what I call general knowlegde subjects and to loose them all age 14 is sad, but that is the system we have.

If we were serious about EBacc, then we should make some things compusory, but as I think that shoudl include MFL, many parents woudl not be happy

mrsm43s
my dd is at a superselective grammar. They offer 9 - 10 with further/additional maths.

ds is at a superselective grammar, they offer 10.

dds school said they used to offer 10, but found that they were stretched quite thin, and preferred them to do 9 to a higher standard.

see my post above as to why dd is not doing EBacc. The options just don't work for some kids

DS is only doing 8 GCSES and still had 3 options - he's doing English x 2, Maths and Science x 2, and is doing History, Geography and Spanish. So there's plenty of scope to do ebacc even with fewer GCSEs.

I got myself twisted in a knot over MFL as school said it was vital (despite dyslexic DD struggling).
So I emailed Exeter, Southampton and Liverpool uni's to ask about it, as DD want to do Biology.
No need for an MFL, at all. Ebacc is bollocks as a requirement for uni's. Whole thing makes me quite cross, breath is good for sure, but so it doing subjects you enjoy, and might actually continue with.

I wish people would appreciate more that the Ebacc constraints are not just about the issue of whether or not to do an MFL. The problem is about the whole set of constraints. DS is doing two MFL but will not get the Ebacc, because he would rather do computer science and music than either history or geography. Both of his choices are subjects that have proper academic content as well as potential vocational use (performance and Python!). The neglect of computing, which has to be one of THE key subjects for this century, is as scandalous as the neglect of the arts.

@WhyAmIPayingFees I'm pretty sure that computer science is in the EBacc. And lots of subjects have proper academic content without being in the EBacc.

Computer science is not in the Ebacc www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-baccalaureate-ebacc/english-baccalaureate-ebacc

We’ve just had DD’s option paperwork from school and Computer Science is listed under the EBacc subject choices.

comp science is in the Ebacc as a science. It's not a humanity tho and that's required too.

Sorry, I didn't know. I thought everyone had to do the other sciences anyway! Even more amazing that RS isn't a humanity then.

@Fifthtimelucky Yep - apologies I was wrong about CS - it does count as one of the sciences. I usually try to check my facts and this was an epic fail. DS is doing triple science and CS and Mandarin and German but will not get an EBacc as he is not doing history or geography so that distorted my thinking. I do not find it at all amazing that RS does not count at the moment. If it is mostly proper ethics and philosophy and with a wide selection of religions it would be find, but is too often mis-used to just promote one faith. Before anybody objects take a look at this:

www.education-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/de/religious-education-core-syllabus-english-version.pdf

Whyamipsyingfees, please don't worry (probs you aren't!) about your son "not getting an Ebacc" - no one gets one! Schools talk about it as tho it's a certificate but it honestly isn't. Maybe you know this but I feel some do not.

DD’s school just talked about the EBacc at options Evening a few weeks ago and certainly made it sound like an extra ‘certificate’. Only by researching it have I found it’s nothing like they made out. Happily, after much fretting, DD has chosen to not take a MFL. She’s an acedemic child but loathes languages. They stress her out no end and she really struggles with them. For a while she wanted to achieve this extra ‘certificate’ that the school dangled. I’m happy we found out the truth before her options were chosen as the EBacc is certainly not an award the student will get and she could have chased it for the wrong reasons. She’s much happier now too.