Have schools stopped pupils taking GCSE's early?

FBaby

poet123 wrote: »

Even straight A's are no guarantee of a place at med school these days. A friend's son had 5 A's at A level and failed two years running to get in, so we are under no illusions that he will make it.

I read and heard that work experience is key. DD its already taking about volunteering in an old people home next year. The local hospital its 10mns walk from us and hospice 15 mns so she intends on trying to get something there too as work experience. Her school is know to have excellent links with local industry and placing students on job experience.

poet123

FBaby wrote: »

I read and heard that work experience is key. DD its already taking about volunteering in an old people home next year. The local hospital its 10mns walk from us and hospice 15 mns so she intends on trying to get something there too as work experience. Her school is know to have excellent links with local industry and placing students on job experience.

Yes, I think that is true. My son has the opportunity to shadow a GP/Medical Lead and I think he will do that next summer. It is a hard area to get work experience in due to obvious issues.

sheilavw

poet123 wrote: »

I have reservations about sitting AS level in year 11.

A group of 12 including my son were asked to do this and we advised against it. We believed it would spread him too thinly, possibly to the detriment of his core subjects at GCSE. Additionally, the AS level was to be studied for just 2 hours a week after school at the local college, and the first exam was in the January as the course began the previous September. We felt it was simply too much time pressure and academic pressure.

Our son was adamant that he wanted to do it, so we accepted his decision. Of the 8 who did take the exam, only 2 passed and I know for certain that for at least two of the others it did affect their core GCSE results. Maybe our son was lucky and had an aptitude for the subject or maybe he worked harder, but it did work out ok for him and he now has the extra UCAS points under his belt. I still feel it is a dangerous strategy though.

We too were unsure. They didn't put any out of hours in, just the time when they normally would have had English they did the AS. The ones who didn't just went in the library and I suppose got on with something else (or just chatted) . They all passed the AS, just one girl got a D , the rest A to C so she has no regrets. In fact some of the girls who took the AS were able to go straight in and do the A2 first year of their 6th form.

Dunroamin

FBaby wrote: »

Unfortunately not very frustrating. We have very good primary schools, good high schools but it is downhill afterwards!

Do you mean that your high schools don't have sixth forms?

Have you considered a state run grammar school with boarding for sixth form?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_boarding_schools_in_England_and_Wales

Mrs_Ryan

My A-Levels would likely strike horror into some of you.. I did English Language, German and Law. I went to a good uni and it didnt seem to phase them! If I had stayed in 6th form I wouldn't have been allowed to do A-Levels at all as I only passed 6 of my GCSE's but I went to one of the top performing state schools in my area. Far as I know no-one did GCSE's early at my school- funnily enough when I went to college it seemed to be those at the private schools who had been entered early for their GCSE's.

securityguy

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

My A-Levels would likely strike horror into some of you.. I did English Language, German and Law. I went to a good uni and it didnt seem to phase them! If I had stayed in 6th form I wouldn't have been allowed to do A-Levels at all as I only passed 6 of my GCSE's but I went to one of the top performing state schools in my area. Far as I know no-one did GCSE's early at my school- funnily enough when I went to college it seemed to be those at the private schools who had been entered early for their GCSE's.

The world has changed in the (at least) five years since you did your GCSEs.

The number of early entries has seen huge increases between 2008 and 2010 (in 2007, approximately 5% of the English and mathematics GCSE cohorts entered the exam early. By 2010, this proportion had risen to around 25% of the cohorts).

(...)

The prior attainment of the school seems to be an important factor in the number of early entrants at the school. Lower attaining schools are more likely to have early entrants, and are more likely to have a large proportion of their pupils entering early. Independent schools were least likely to have early entrants. In 2010 almost half of the below floor schools had at least 50% of pupils entering mathematics early. This is against a figure of 20% of all schools.

And since that paper was written, it's exploded even further.

The use of early entry has exploded in English and mathematics in the last few years, with only limited use in other subjects. Some schools enter all of their students early in one or both subjects. In 2011, 458 schools entered 99% or more of their students early in English and 321 did so in mathematics.

Whereas early entry was initially targeted at groups of highly able students, now all, or nearly all, the students in many schools are entered early for English and mathematics.

(...)
The use of early entry is found across all types of school but is much less common in schools with higher levels of attainment on entry. Schools with low standards and that have been judged in inspections to be no better than satisfactory, appear to be using early entry more extensively.
(...)
schools with students who have high levels of prior attainment at Key Stage 2 are much less likely to have high levels of early entry for both mathematics and English. Schools with over 90% of the students on roll having reached Level 4 or above at Key Stage 2 use early entry much less than those with more middle and lower attainers. The same pattern is seen for both subjects but the trend is much more pronounced for English than for mathematics. Many schools with lower levels of attainment on entry are, therefore, more enthusiastic about taking up early entry than higher attaining schools; as we have seen from the schools surveyed, there is little evidence of pressure from parents or students to take examinations early, and it is also an unpopular practice in the independent sector.

Emmarillo

My daughter has just taken a GCSE in year 9 and was very disappointed to have got a C. I think nerves played a huge part, and also she didn't have a clue how to revise. Of her friends nobody got higher than a C.

securityguy

Emmarillo wrote: »

My daughter has just taken a GCSE in year 9 and was very disappointed to have got a C. I think nerves played a huge part, and also she didn't have a clue how to revise. Of her friends nobody got higher than a C.

GCSEs are meant for sixteen year olds to take at the end of five years' secondary education, two of them focussed directly on the GCSE syllabus. They are not meant for fourteen year olds who have completed less than three years of secondary education. Taking them early is not in the child's interests unless they can get an A*, and even then it is questionable if there is any benefit.

Parents: your school is not doing your a favour with early entry. They are not giving your child opportunity. They are not rewarding success and hard work. Unless your child is confidently predicted an A*, and there is a credible programme of work to follow afterwards which gives some advantage to the early entry, then you should try to avoid it.

This goes double for A2/AS exams, where universities want to see three good A Levels taken at the same time, to prove you can cope with the workload. ASes taken before Y12, or A2s taken before Y13, will often be ignored.

CKhalvashi

securityguy wrote: »

GCSEs are meant for sixteen year olds to take at the end of five years' secondary education, two of them focussed directly on the GCSE syllabus. They are not meant for fourteen year olds who have completed less than three years of secondary education. Taking them early is not in the child's interests unless they can get an A*, and even then it is questionable if there is any benefit.

Parents: your school is not doing your a favour with early entry. They are not giving your child opportunity. They are not rewarding success and hard work. Unless your child is confidently predicted an A*, and there is a credible programme of work to follow afterwards which gives some advantage to the early entry, then you should try to avoid it.

This goes double for A2/AS exams, where universities want to see three good A Levels taken at the same time, to prove you can cope with the workload. ASes taken before Y12, or A2s taken before Y13, will often be ignored.

However, having done the exams over 2 years (instead of 1), then A-Levels in a year, I was at Uni before I otherwise would have been?

FBaby

Dunroamin wrote: »

Do you mean that your high schools don't have sixth forms?

Have you considered a state run grammar school with boarding for sixth form?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_boarding_schools_in_England_and_Wales

No, no 6th forms

Thanks for the link. I have to say that I had never consider boarding, made my heart jump when I opened the link, but realistically why not? At least it is another option to consider.