3 year GCSE courses

[mintyneb]

We've just been told today that DD (yr8) will have to chose her GCSEs next summer to start them in yr9.

Up until now the school has done GCSEs over 2 years so traditionally DD would have had over a year before having to make a choice. This has therefore come as something of a surprise.

Apparently research shows that 3 year courses are better all round but as there won't be an info evening until Feb it will be a while before I can officially find out more from school.

Any thoughts from folks whose DC have gone through this and come out the other side?!

cantkeepawayforever - I think you would have a very hard time showing statistically that kids are less likely to choose new subjects at age 12/13 than at age 13/14, however many schools you canvassed, given your admission that it is massively more complex than that!

ie the data won't prove there is a simple reason for kids' choices, it is dependent on multiple factors in all schools.

(My first reply was badly phrased - I meant there are too many possible reasons for children's subject choices in schools to establish that a child will be less likely to opt for, eg, a mfl simply because they have done 2 years of it instead of 3).

Put simply, Ofsted would not be agitating about 3 year GCSES if it hadn't reduced and narrowed curriculum experience in a LARGE NUMBER of schools, regardless of whether the ones you know are different. The same schools than narrow curriculum to force children into a reduced range of choice are often the ones which follow a 3 year GCSE. It's not an exact match, but it's enough to give rise for concern : an not just from Ofsted.

But also, within the core, Ofsted (and many teachers) are also concerned about the relentless exam focused experience for children form year 7 onwards and the enjoyment that has been squeezed out ; thr English and Media Centre has said a great deal about this)

Excuse typos : mad keyboard!

If they are worried about exam focused teaching in Y7 then that's not about whether GCSE courses start in Y9 or Y10.

Surely studying GCSEs over 3 years would give a much less relentless and exam focused experience, more relaxed, more time for enjoyment etc.

Schools presumably are organising their teaching around Ofsted's systems of measuring performance.

No, they aren't : they are organising around MAT requirements and specs, many of which (but not all) are overcrowded. You are right that is it not entirely linked. But the narrowing of the curriculum definitely is.

As I said, I am reporting the findings of myself (I work with several schools), Ofsted, the EMC, Schoolsweek and various other research groups. I don't know why this keeps being dismissed by posters.

? At my secondary school in the 1980s, we used to have end of year exams every year. At my children's school, they don't have any end of year exams until year 10. I don't think that has anything whatsoever to do with 3-year GCSEs, it's just the school.

Just because there are a lot of schools doing 3-year GCSEs for stupid reasons, that is absolutely no excuse to conclude 3-year GCSEs are the cause of the problems. No doubt the bad schools with bad reasons for doing 3-year GCSEs will be the ones which have a knee jerk reaction to Ofsted's comments and think that suddenly switching back to 2-year GCSEs will solve all their problems, though... until some smartarse points out the problems with that, and the badly run schools knee jerk react again in an attempt to keep up with what they think will make the powers that be happy, regardless of the reality on the ground at their school.

But that is the conclusion .And it is based on extensive research.

Taking English lit as an example.

A 3 year English Lit course will see them study ~15 poems, 1 Shakespeare & 2 other texts.

A 2 year English Lit course will cover the same, but in year 9 will also cover maybe another text and another Shakespeare and a couple of poems. So they build skills on 'practice' texts and then are more ready and able for the real GCSE texts. They have less time to be bored by them, and they have covered more literature. Sounds like a win-win to me to do 2 year.

TeenPlusTwenties - but my children studied extra texts and another Shakespeare play in year 9 which they will never be examined on. Just because it's called a 3-year GCSE and children are asked to make choices at the end of year 8, this doesn't actually mean the teachers are then obliged to crawl through the GCSE content. There is no law to say tachers are prohibited from teaching anything not in the exam syllabus.

Walkaround I personally wouldn't say that your English lit course was a 3 year one in that case.

So maybe we need to be clear:

• when are options selected
• when does teaching the GCSE course begin

Piggywaspushed - if the conclusion was that asking children to choose their GCSE subjects at the end of year 8 is the cause of a narrowing of the curriculum, then they would be saying no schools should do this, and they are not doing that.

TeenPlusTwenties -options are all made at the end of year 8. I don't care, tbh, which lessons are specifically covering GCSE content and which aren't, so long as my children are taught well, not bored, and the syllabus is completed in time.

walkaround , Lots are. Lots. Lots lots lots.

At my son's school, it was a mixture. They started the 3 science subjects in year 9, so they were definitely 3 year courses, but GCSE options were chosen mid year 9 to start year 10, so basically, all pupils did the first year of a 3 year GCSE course for the sciences, but many would drop a science at the end of year 9 and just continue with 2.

As said above, Maths and English are longer term anyway, so there wasn't really a formal "start" to the GCSE courses.

History was interesting as it was basically a 5 year course starting in year 7. Right from the first week at secondary, the pupils were doing exam style questions, i.e. "to what extent", etc - which was quite a culture shock I seem to remember as the pupils were more used to factual history questions such "what did was the magna carta signed", so quite a challenging first year really. Whether by accident or design, they also did a lot of the subject teaching in years 7-9 which formed the GCSE course, i.e. Richard & John, Crusades, Roses, Richard III, Normans, Henry, Elizabeth & the Charles, etc. With the core knowledge having been taught in years 7-9, they didn't spend much time in years 10 & 11 on the traditional British history topics so spend a lot of time on the other modules, such as Middle East and Weimar, so you could say that was a 5 year course too, especially as they didn't need to go back to basics for the exam question technique either.

Geography was a 2 year course and they didn't actually finish the course and had no time for revision either. That was with a super-organised teacher who barely missed any lessons, so it just highlighted how much content there was, basically too much for just 2 years. Apparently, they now do more of the core topics in years 7-9, so they don't have a 3 year course, but some of the content is covered before the formal teaching of the GCSE starts.

Piggywaspushed - lots are what? By the way, if you think I am arguing that the 3-year GCSE has not unacceptably narrowed the curriculum in a lot of schools, you are wrong. I simply find it offensive when smug-sounding remarks are made by people about how 3-year GCSEs are always a bad thing employed by less good schools. And unless challenged about it, that is clearly very much what you are trying to say.

if the conclusion was that asking children to choose their GCSE subjects at the end of year 8 is the cause of a narrowing of the curriculum, then they would be saying no schools should do this, and they are not doing that.

Ah, well that's different to our son's school, as the narrowing doesn't happen until year 10 - they still do the full range of subjects throughout year 9, just that in most subjects, they're doing GCSE work. They still choose their options mid year 9, after they've started doing GCSE style work, so it's actually beneficial as they get a better feel for the type/style/level of work needed.

Kazzyhoward - that sounds like an interesting approach. Are there many new subjects offered in year 10?

Are there many new subjects offered in year 10?

As far as I know, there were no new subjects at all. All the subjects offered at GCSE level were taught to some extent in years 7-9. I.e. they did a carousel in years 7-9 spending a term p.a. on Drama, Music & Art in each year. For languages, French was done by all in years 7 to 9, but they did a carousel in year 8 with German, Spanish and Latin all having a term, with a choice having to be made between them for year 9 which could then be dropped for year 10 if they didn't want to take it to GCSE. Similar with "tech", with a bit of woodwork, bit of metalwork, bit of electronics each year during years 7-9. Really can't think of any GCSE options that they hadn't already done for at least a term in earlier years.

Actually, I tell a lie. I remember DS being in a quandary because computer science was a GCSE option for year 10 but he'd not done any IT lessons beforehand. But that was only because the school had only just started to teach Computing/IT that year, so his year was the only year to have the option of GCSE with no prior lessons. It's now taught to all years 7-9, so subsequent pupils will have had normal lessons before they have to chose it for GCSE.

What about BTECS or, eg, business studies, or film studies, or dance, etc?

What about BTECS or, eg, business studies, or film studies, or dance, etc?

No, they don't offer any of that to GCSE.

I mean lots of schools do three year GCSE and evidence has shown that lots of these are the same schools who have narrowed the curriculum (it's like on of those maths diagrams). This is not me being smug . I don't want to argue but I am not the one using my children's school as the main evidence...

Anyhoo,...

Film Studies is my subject! I have no desire whatsoever to have three years in which to teach it.

But using my children's school is perfectly valid, Piggywaspushed, as I'm not the one attempting to argue a general point. I am merely arguing that you are very clearly desperate to imply that making subject choices at the end of year 8 is never a good thing and always severely limits the curriculum.

Schools that are able to offer dance generally do so from year 7 onwards though it might be on a carousel. A lot of schools don't offer btecs.