No GCSEs at Latymer Upper

[DonkeyKon]

What do people think about this?

theoretically I agree with the premise.

practically , I worry that with everyone else having gcse results, it will disadvantage LU students when applying for universities.

All private schools in London, even the not very selective ones, are oversubscribed. It means very little. Parents hoped and trusted that Latymer had the clout to make it work for their pupils when they leave. Turns out they didn't. If Latymer didn't, no schools can do this realistically, can they? Maybe if Westminster, St Paul's boys and girls and Eton all got together and agreed a strategy it might be possible for it to trickle down to less selective schools but realistically that is never going to happen.

Private schools having their own special selection procedures for universities whilst the plebs take GCSEs is just not going to fly in this day and age.

Eh? No they don’t - hence why they had to drop this hare brained scheme.

I just don't understand how they thought this would be a good idea? I would understand it if they moved away from GCSEs/A-levels to IB. That's an internationally recognised qualification that all universities will accept but to move to a completely made-up school-specific qualification is just bizarre.

I was responding to the previous post.

Apologies - misread your post!

Years spent explaining why GCSEs were no longer fit for purpose. Years spent claiming that universities would accept the replacement. Years spent predicting that other leading schools would follow.

None of that happened.

Universities never gave the certainty Latymer expected, all other schools stayed with GCSEs, and plenty of strong prospective families have voted with their feet. In the end, Latymer went back to GCSEs - what it doesn’t believe in.

For a school that claims to pride itself on intellectual rigour and foresight, this is an astonishing failure of judgement. The most remarkable thing is that the project appears to have been abandoned for exactly the reasons critics identified from the start.

The papers are full of articles about GCSEs not being fit for purpose and indeed Mumsnet is full of people saying the same thing. And most academic schools say the same thing. It’s not a new thing. At least they tried to bring about a bit of change. They can still believe that GCSEs are not great but accept that they still need to be taken.

Has somebody in a high position been instrumental in this ended up 'retiring' Maybe around the same time as one or more Governors?

It sounds as though it could have been one person's personal hobbyhorse fully bought into by the more influential members of the BoG, only to end up with a change in leadership with an accompanying reality check where some of the more ridiculous ideas got swiftly dumped once the 'old days' were replaced by 'Are you actually insane You are aware that we won't get bums on seats if we can't even get them into a minor Russell Group, aren't you?'

Latymer challenging GCSEs was never the issue. The issue was the solution it chose — and has now abandoned.

This was never primarily a curriculum question. It was a network-effects problem. Creating a new qualification is one thing (and frankly the easy part); persuading universities, admissions systems, employers, parents and other schools to recognise it is quite another.

A more strategically minded institution would have for example first built a coalition with other schools more academic and influential (such as Westminster, Eton, St Paul’s, as a previous poster mentioned) and leading grammar schools, secured explicit commitments from universities, offered an internationally recognised pathway such as the IB, or piloted the qualification alongside GCSEs for several years before rolling it out. Any of these approaches would have reduced execution risk.

Instead, Latymer chose to go it alone, seemingly assuming that recognition and adoption would follow somehow.

They never actually developed a qualification though. There was no external assessment, no alignment to existing regulatory standards. And there could have been - there are plenty of organisations out there that would have helped develop such a qualification, and know how to get it ratified - Pearson for example.

Helen Williams tried to do something similar at SPGS in the early 90s. There was a parental outcry and she ended up leaving.

I guess Latymer tried to mitigate this kind of thing by putting it out there up front that if your child joins from now on they won't be doing GCSEs. But I also guess that they have seen a significant drop in applications, in acceptances and possibly even in the quality of applicants this year. Parents who can see their child isn't going to struggle with 10 GCSEs or whatever may well have voted with their feet and chosen other schools.

And we already know that even at more selective schools, universities aren't particularly interested in self-developed courses - even those that are academically rigorous and externally assessed. What they want is a simple way of comparing applicants to other applicants and if most of the applicants are doing GCSEs they'd much rather compare GCSEs to other GCSEs.

Where children come from abroad not having done GCSEs that is very different since they are likely to be paying overseas fees (could be up to twice what home students pay) and it's worth the universities' time to assess these students (and there will be clearer information on what the transcripts or whatever mean from a country that doesn't do GCSEs since it will be possible to compare these students with national figures from that country). It's not worth their while to get to grips with the content and assessment of a course that only 200 students a year are taking.

I’m guessing Latymer thought many more independent schools would join with them but it didn’t materialise.

They were a bit crazy not to have secured at least one or two other schools prepared to do the same thing before announcing it, IMO.

They require an ENIC statement of comparability - which a back of a fag packet 'oh, we'll just offer our own certificates' wouldn't meet the Lisbon convention criteria for, meaning not only Russell Group would say no (as they have), overseas universities and employers would have seen the teenagers as entirely unqualified.

Hence prep schools advising against applying there and numbers dropping more than anticipated even taking cost of living, cost of housing and cost of VAT into account.

Basically, the idea could well lead to the school's failure altogether - especially as the announcement is so close to the beginning of next term when payments should be rolling in.

They might recover a bit next year. But they will, I think, suffer some reputational damage over this.

I don't think they'll fail entirely. It's an old school with, I assume, significant assets. So they have time to regroup.

A friend was at the welcome evening for new y7 joiners a couple of weeks ago for her third child ( has 2 already at the school). Said there was the usual number of joiners and from all the usual Prep and State schools. Lots of siblings. Said there wasn’t actually that much chat about the GCSEs stopping but a couple of people were a bit wary but willing to go with it as loved the school. Certainly don’t think reversing the decision will lead to the school collapsing- will be business as usual. Sounds like they're still
going to try and do some internal courses as well so will be a bit a relief from the gcse grind.

The internal courses are essentially a bit pointless. My kid did similar at another nearby school and studied some random things that were very interesting but actually didn't do much for her beyond her now being fantastic at cryptic crosswords. Dropping a GCSE or two will free up only a few hours a week in the curriculum.

I appreciate that current parents may want to see the positives but actually it's just a misstep from Latymer.Nothing substantive has been gained from this. Parents now know that the leadership team is not on the ball and has had to backpedal.

I am a parent to a Y7 (just finishing the year). I understand the reasons for the change and am fine about the situation. They are well used to delivering a strong GCSE offering so nothing to be concerned about. It’s a fantastic school and we are very happy with it.

Isn’t that due to VAT?

Some of it is due to VAT, but school fees in recent years have had some steep rises even before VAT.

It’s energy costs, removal of business rates relief and teacher pay.

And NI

And increased pensions costs

It’s in Hammersmith . Any issue with building asbestos