What changes would you make to GCSE`s

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If you could make any changes to gcse`s what would they be ?

What subjects would you remove from the curriculum and what would you add ?

1-9 is absolutely ridiculous. My DDs cohort feel like 6/7 is a bit shit which is crazy and putting them all under enormous and unnecessary pressure. Go back to A-E with U for a fail. Who cares if you don’t distinguish between the top three grades, honestly it’s doing a lot more harm than good.

I would get rid of the marking categories. No more grades, just the raw score. 97% 50% etc.

Have a pass/fail skills test in numeracy and literacy. Can take anytime from 14, and can take as many times as needed, into adulthood if necessary, instead of a GCSE C/4 in maths and English being seen as the "standard". Based in the real life skills actually needed. The pass/fail mark being consistent, how ever many people have reached that level.

@noblegiraffe yes it's inforced if they are in official education or training - but not every 16 year old will be.
16 year olds can still just go and get a job and do "on the job" training - not an official apprenticeship or getting a qualification at the end. Just training how to do the job - which all new people in a job should be doing anyway.
There are restrictions on 16 year olds working like the amount of hours, no night working etc and if on minimum wage it will be a low wage.
But they can still be "done" with school and never have to do a maths lesson ever again at 16.

The curriculum needs to be more relevant.
I find it odd that pupils choose subjects at Yr8 and then limit their knowledge further at Yr11 to around three subjects.

More emphasis on life skills and general knowledge. Too much irrelevant detail is studied in most subjects.
We need students to be equipped with a good grounding in many areas of learning .

GCSEs need to be ditched, as should A Levels.

A good all round education should be a priority and degrees would be accessed based on individual interests which would be highlighted within their individual scores for each subject.

What would you include in your well-rounded education, @SpamFrittersYouSay ? People often talk about making the curriculum more relevant, but more relevant to what and whom? Without the level of detail we currently have in the subjects taught at GCSE, surely the level at A Level would be lowered, and then the level at university as well? There's surely no getting around the fact that the more subjects you continue with, the less depth will be possible?

I'm not sure I even agree about life skills. If we taught all the life skills that MNers seem to want schools to teach, we'd have no time to teach anything else!

Back to A-E grades which everyone understands.

None of this if its not a pass you resit bollocks. Its a snapshot day for testing, you've no idea what is in the paper, teen issues round teachers etc. Nerves, being rubbish at it no matter how you try hard.
Just suck it up and resolve to do better.

We've all been 16 and we all know exams at 16 don't really mean much as time rolls on. Otherwise what's the point? Is life over at 16? No. Its not.

Well@AllProperTeaIsTheft
I don't really know where to start.
We should be looking at how other countries perform at 16+

Being restricted to just three subjects sounds very restrictive.

As to life skills... students can't cook. Certainly my young adults learned from me but they were lucky. My children's only experience of 'cooking' was to design a pizza , design a sandwich and to study the outdated healthy eating plate.

No knowledge of how banks work, how the economy works etc...

But my children like most , had to study ( and mine had to waste a day visiting!) an oxbow lake. Why ever for?
Adverbial phrases in yr1 or 2 is pointless.

I could go on but as you're a teacher I shall bow to your superior intellect.

@NeverDropYourMooncup I agree with everything you say!

This - in a nutshell

Maths is my biggest bugbear at GCSE. There is such a disparity between the lower and higher papers when the reality is that most people sit somewhere in the middle. The idea that those who are capable of a bit more than the lower paper, take the higher but are only able to access some of that paper and answer a fraction of questions to pass is ridiculous and disheartening.

Make lower maths a foundation skills module for numeracy and functional skills including financial literacy, middle maths to build on this including algebra and more complex topics including economics and higher level and advanced maths as students want to go on. Allow students to take the modules at their own pace - it might be that it takes someone 5 years to pass the foundation or it might take another student 2 years so they can then progress at their own pace.

It's not a question of my intellect, @SpamFrittersYouSay . I'm not against change. It's just that so many potential curriculum changes would suit half the kids but not the other half. And things you think are pointless might be things that other people think are very valid.

People also talk a lot about how kids would be more interested in learning if the curriculum were more about things that would be relevant in everyday life. I seriously doubt it. I can just imagine how enthralled they would be to hear about how banks work and how to pay their taxes. Arguably the most 'relevant to real life' stuff they do in school is in PD / PSHE. They pretty much universally hate it and find it hugely boring.

@SilverGlitterBaubles There used to be intermediate tier until someone got rid of it.

I would spread the exams out, half one at the end of the first year and take some off the pressure off the final exams.

Coursework will be scrapped over the next few years, as AI will make it impossible.

Stop trying to trick them with obscure questions from the darkest corner of the specification

Just ask them the actual stuff they've spent months revising for

Different exam boards asking completely different questions esp when one asks normal questions and the other goes for shitty obscure ones. It's just not fair

Some pupils just don't get maths and feel like crap when they keep failing. There's got to be a different way for them

Get rid of the memory test that is the anthology in English. Let them learn great poems and analyse an unseen one. And scrap comparisons of them.

Personally I would scrap all exams and have coursework/teacher assessed at 16 and exams at 18.

“Without the level of detail we currently have in the subjects taught at GCSE, surely the level at A Level would be lowered, and then the level at university as well? There's surely no getting around the fact that the more subjects you continue with, the less depth will be possible?”

@AllProperTeaIsTheft in Ireland we do way more subjects for the equivalent of the A levels. I had to do 7 Leaving Cert subjects and I believe they do even more now. You get points for the top 6, which is what they base Uni entry on.

Most degree courses in Ireland are 4 years rather than 3, since we don’t narrow down and go into as much depth at such an early age. I think it works quite well, but I can’t see it catching on in the UK (well, England and Wales). Now that there’s fees, I don’t think people would want to pay for an extra year of University!

I can just imagine how enthralled they would be to hear about how banks work and how to pay their taxes.

Funnily enough, I run courses on that exact topic for teenagers in my spare time. I can tell you the answer is not very enthralled for the most part. Some of the students are amazing and parents like the course, but many students do the bare minimum,

I think there's a place for purely academic learning. Vocational options should be offered post 16 but there's still a value in academic education. My kids can speak another language (ish), construct a balanced argument and understand how the human body works. They've not chosen those subjects for A Level but they're still useful skills to learn. Other countries seem to value academic education more than we do in the U.K. at times.

I agree with PP. It's ridiculous having an exam that 25% or 30% of children must fail, (English/,Maths GCSE) and then making that qualification a gateway for everything.
Anyone in danger of not getting a GCSE should do Functional Skills at the same time so they at least can leave with a qualification showing they have the basics and not be tied into endless resits that have a very low pass rate.

I agree that having a Maths qualification which gave a meaningful pass, by which I mean access to college, would be very beneficial. To me, the way to achieve that would be a stripped down syllabus.

Children I work with don't have time to master things that might be useful to them because there are so many dozens of topics in the Maths GCSE. So, they're not learning percentages because they're doing dozens of things like box and whisker diagrams, standard form and the nth term, which, however easy they may be, might only be needed if you're continuing Maths or Physics many of which are only a mark or two in the exam.

I can think of many of children in our new year 7 who already don't stand a single chance of getting a grade which will allow them to go to college Maths. Others who are the same with English as the GCSEs now stand. Many of them have already shown me great qualities, like the girl who can't go beyond the 2s in the times tables but has obvious leadership qualities. What exactly is there in school for for them?

Sorry for the typos there.

I believe there should be more practical subjects for kids today, engineering, light vehicle technician, health n social care, hairdressing, beauty, horticulture, agriculture, with more work experience than just a one week block.

Such subjects like English literature should be optional, languages.

More day to day topics need to be covered, pensions, mortgages, savings accounts, money management, life insurance etc

Stop basing everything on results as some top companies take the higher result achievers for apprenticeships which leave the ones whom could've done an apprenticeship out in the cold. Results DO NOT define you.

More day to day topics need to be covered, pensions, mortgages, savings accounts, money management, life insurance etc

As I said earlier, I agree these are useful but it's hard for some adults to understand them, let alone 15 and 16 year olds. My experience is that the ones that do tend to be the more numerate ones, not the kids that already struggle with maths.

I don't agree with the mass replacing of academic options with vocational options pre 16. Basic maths and English is useful in most careers. There's not many advanced economies that don't see the value of a basic academic education.

But the exams should be accessible in a way that doesn't make the less academically able kids feel they've failed. Perhaps more regular, modular exams rather than all at the end of the two years.

Bring back tiered papers so that weaker pupils can access the papers.