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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

GCSE's - school not covering all of course?

18 replies

mumoverseas · 29/03/2009 12:56

My DS is doing his GCSE's over the next few months and has been told that with regards to the history exam, they have not covered all the course and will not have time to before the exam. It appears that several largish areas have been missed. Surely this can't be the norm? Shouldn't teachers have planned all this in advance?

OP posts:

janeite · 29/03/2009 12:56

This is shocking!

What is the school intending to do about it?

magentadreamer · 29/03/2009 14:40

You'd have thought they would have! Are they running any revision classes where the areas that have been missed could be taught? Have you spoken to the head of the dept regarding this?

TheFallenMadonna · 29/03/2009 14:48

Have they really been told that? Because I had a parent come in to school and say that she'd heard we weren't going to finish teaching our syllabus before the exam, and of course it isn't true. God knows how that little rumour started.

Ask.

choochoochaboogie · 29/03/2009 16:01

We're having that problem, it depends on subject and ability group. We are coping with it by spending a fortune on private tutors grrr

JudithChalmers · 29/03/2009 16:07

GCSEs
No need for an '

roisin · 29/03/2009 16:09

I don't know the history syllabus personally, but for some subjects they routinely don't teach everything as there is such a wide range of questions available to choose from in the exam.

So it is possible to not teach everything and still have plenty for students to earn top grades.

This happened to me eons ago certainly in Geography and English literature, and possibly other subjects too. I got top grades in everything.

bloss · 29/03/2009 16:10

Message withdrawn

Original poster

mumoverseas · 29/03/2009 16:48

we heard a few weeks ago that they might not have finished all the syllabus but it has now been officially confirmed that they won't have time to cover the United Nations which apparently is a huge part of the course. They were also told they wouldn't be able to cover the Spanish Civil war but they started that today.
Its definitely not that he is doing a shortened syllabus as he is a predicted A/A* student. I think its just bad planning as they've had a few changes of history teachers over the last year or so.

I just wanted to know if this does sometimes happen. DS is my eldest and therefore no previous experience of this.

I guess he will be taking his history books on holiday next week

OP posts:

scienceteacher · 29/03/2009 16:54

I don't think it is a normal or acceptable to not finish the teaching of the specification. I can see that there are valid excuses in your DS's school's case, but it is very bad planning. You would expect that they would make sure the top set had everything covered. I suppose it depends on the school's priorities - are they more interested in making sure they get 5 A-Cs, rather than stretching the more able pupils?

At minimum, I would expect the History Dept to muck together to get the spec finished in lunchtimes, after school, and during the Easter holidays, and during study leave. That's what my school would do in the unlikely event we mucked up to that extent. Basically, we would pull out all stops - there is still a lot of actual time before the examinations.

TheFallenMadonna · 29/03/2009 16:59

God yes, they should certainly cover it all somehow. I took over a class part way through the year and found out that although they had covered one topic, it had been pretty inadequately done due to having cover teachers etc, so I have taught it again after school over 12 weeks. Now obviously this isn't ideal and you can't force the students to come in their own time, but at least the opportunity is there.

Karam · 29/03/2009 17:55

Depends on the type of the exam and how the questions are set. I regularly do not cover all of the syllabus - I leave topics out to allow myself more time to cover other topics. But on my students' exam papers, all topics are guaranteed to come up and they can choose the questions they want to answer. Last year 50% of my students got an A and 80% got an A or a B grade at 'A' level. It is not necessarily a problem. Speak to the school and find out!

scienceteacher · 29/03/2009 18:02

Obviously in a subject such as history, there are optional topics - they don't cover the whole of world history from the year dot, but rather concentrate on a few periods/events.

I gather from the OP's concern that they haven't covered what they normally would in that school.

I find that in these subjects, the students are taught at the start of the course which topics the cover and which topics they don't (so that they don't panic when they read the spec and look at past papers).

Karam · 29/03/2009 18:16

"I gather from the OP's concern that they haven't covered what they normally would in that school."

Yes, but I sometimes make those decisions too. If a class has struggled to understand particular topics, then I sometimes choose not to teach the whole of the course, but rather to focus down and ensure that they thoroughly understand the topics they do cover, rather than gaining superficial knowledge on all of them. But the way the exam paper is laid out allows me the freedom to do this. I couldn't do this if I taught my subject for either of the other 2 major exam boards. As I say, it depends on the exam board and style of the exam paper. The OP needs to ask the school.

scienceteacher · 29/03/2009 18:36

Wouldn't you write to the parents in that situation, Karam? We inform parents at the start of the course exactly what we cover. If we were to cut back, we would write to them to explain why and how it benefits their children.

Karam · 29/03/2009 23:13

No. I teach at a FE college - so only teach 'A' levels and if we get behind, then I give the students the choice. But as I say, every topic is guaranteed to come up, so it does not actually disadvantage them to not cover all of the syllabus. Some teachers I know actually only ever teach parts of the course. They study 8 topics and have to write essays on three. Each topic will come up in the exam - they just don't know what aspects of that topic will come up. So it is easy for me to drop topics without disadvantaging my students. I personally believe that it is better that they have solid knowledge in the few topics they do cover than a superficial knowledge in everything. And as I dropped a topic last year and still got 80% A-Bs from a non selective college, its a strategy that works!

Original poster

mumoverseas · 30/03/2009 10:46

Thanks for your input ladies. Not sure whether its worth trying to take this up with the school as when I made a complaint about something last September they pretty much ignored it, even after over 10 letters were sent. A big problem is that they have had no principal for over a year and the new one that has just been appointed starts in September, when thankfully my son has left.

Looks like he will be doing a lot of extra studying over the easter holidays

OP posts:

twinsetandpearls · 31/03/2009 21:00

I would certainly contact the school and want some very specific answers to how they are going to solve this. You should not be paying for tutors to make up for what the students have missed because of staffing problems.

It could be that the intention was never to cover the whole course but to teach certain units in great depth so the students could get the best grade.

In the GCSE course I teach the students have to anwer on 4 topics from 10. The students are taught 4 topics, sometimes 5 depending on the set. It is just not feasable to cover all ten topics in the time given and do them justice enabling students to get those As and A*.

A good state school is not just interested in A-Cs by targets as a teacher are to do with the number of A* I achieve not A-Cs.

mumblecrumble · 02/04/2009 22:41

You could ask to see scheme of work/term plan?

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