Have schools stopped pupils taking GCSE's early?

poet123

Dunroamin wrote: »

They may tell them their intentions but they're unlikely to tell them their motivation.

If your family doesn't have an academic background then the assumption will be that the school knows best and is always acting in the best interest of the individual student, which is often not the case.

Actually, I don't think it is ever the sole reason.:(

poet123

peachyprice wrote: »

I do think also that the schools prey on the vanities of the parents as is obvious from several posts here. Unsuspecting parents who trust the school and have no knowledge or previous experience wouldn't necessarily question their motives.

I wonder how many parents would be so pleased if it were put to them that their child has been chosen to take the GCSE early, even though they haven't covered the curriculum and are unlikely to get a great grade but the school are taking a punt for their own benefit, rather than the approach that some schools take of 'look, isn't your child clever, so clever we're going to give them the privilege of taking this exam early.'

I think you have hit the nail on the head there. It is put forward that way, and it is easy to think that if the school is doing that they are doing it with the best of intentions and are confident that the child will achieve. And most often they do, a B or C, but that same child would most likely get a grade higher if the exam was taken at the correct time.

Erinnire

My sister has just had to do GCSE's in year 9. Which I think is disgusting. Far too much pressure on someone who has not long turned 14.

pavlovs_dog

poet123 wrote: »

I doubt whether any child sitting an exam early is going to show their full potential

Therein lies the nub. Selecting children for fast tracking is not an exact science. We make the decision based on academic performance up to that point, attitude and application in lessons, and professional judgement (/gut instinct). But many factors have a bearing on the child's performance up to that date. Some are late to blossom. Perhaps they've had a particularly good/poor relationship with their class teacher(s) to date which has had a knock on effect on their approach to their studies. Some knuckle down because they like the prestige of being in the top set. Others take their foot off the gas because they object to having a fast tracked qualification foisted upon them.

Year in, year out we saw some thrive, some disappoint, and some who missed selection far outshine some of those who made the cut in an error of judgement. It is nigh on impossible in a secondary setting to come up with a just and effective way of going about fast tracking.

The problems also filter down to those who aren't in the FT class, because it makes it much harder to change the sets of the pupils in the other classes without having a detrimental effect on class size. Unless we can do a swap (one pupil up, one pupil down), they often have to stay put. Then there is the impact on class sizes. My year 9 set 3 class last year was just one pupil smaller than my set 2 class. Bearing in mind there are only 4 sets per year, the kids who find themselves in set 3 are not usually the ones who thrive in classes of more than 20, yet my class had 33 pupils, many of whom had a whole host of additional learning needs.

In my school, it is the finances that hold us to ransom. We have the skillset amongst staff and spare hours in the department to put on an extra set, so that the truly gifted could be fast tracked and remaining classes could be kept at a manageable size. However from a whole school perspective, the sums don't add up. Once our departmental hours have been assigned, any leftover hours are filled by addressing shortfalls in staffing in other departments. We cannot afford to employ subject specialists for the subjects with a staffing shortfall which would allow our department to use our surplus to meet the needs of pupils in our subject.

The biggest irony? All the while, the teaching profession are constantly being slated in the media for not doing X, not being good enough at Y, being told to work miracles on ever decreasing budgets while politicans who have never entered a classroom in any capacity other than as a pupil constantly move the goalposts in a bid to fix the system.

*climbs off soapbox*

sheilavw

My youngest Daughter who is now 20 did her English Lang and Lit in Year 10. The process started at the end of Year 7 when she was identified as being good at English and we signed to say she wanted to take them early. In Year 8 she did her English SAT, in year 9 they did coursework and then the GCSEs in year 10. She got 2 As, in fact 26 out of the 30 got 2 A or A*. She then did the AS Literature in year 11 and got a C grade. She would have preferred to do Language. Some of the students chose not to do the AS but it gave her 40 UCAS points so she was glad afterwards she did this.

mumps

I think it varies alot. At the school my children attended they only did maths or IT early. IT wasn't a full GCSE as far as I know, it was a one year course and they all did it. They only did maths early if they were sure of an A* or A at least and if they were likely to go on to do A level maths and further maths as it gave they an extra year of A level maths. Two of mine did it early one got an A* and went on to get A in maths and further maths, the other one got an A and was happy with that as he didn't want to continue maths and got A* in all his othr GCSE's so it didn't seem a great loss.

When I was at grammar school in the 60s we only did 8 O levels, not like now when 12 or more seem common. If you were identified as high ability in English, French or Maths you could take them a year early. I did English early but my French and Maths were another story. English and history were my favourite subjects and I would have gladly done history a year early. At my sisters grammar school, just down the road, they didn't let them take exams early, much to my sisters annoyance as I got my English O level at the same time as her and she was much brighter and more academic than me.

poet123

sheilavw wrote: »

My youngest Daughter who is now 20 did her English Lang and Lit in Year 10. The process started at the end of Year 7 when she was identified as being good at English and we signed to say she wanted to take them early. In Year 8 she did her English SAT, in year 9 they did coursework and then the GCSEs in year 10. She got 2 As, in fact 26 out of the 30 got 2 A or A*. She then did the AS Literature in year 11 and got a C grade. She would have preferred to do Language. Some of the students chose not to do the AS but it gave her 40 UCAS points so she was glad afterwards she did this.

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.

pavlovs_dog

The vanity of parents causes plenty of problems for us as a school. Our school has a wealthy catchment area and 'pushy parent syndrome' is rife. It is heartbreaking to see parents push their children towards inappropriate qualifications, or refuse to believe our professional judgement when we tell them that Tarquin simply isn't capable of A* grades, no matter how hard he tries.

We offer very little in the way of vocational subjects post 16 despite being a comprehensive school. This is because many of our parents actively steer their children away from them, resulting in low class sizes which are then deemed not to be financially viable. Given that a significant chunk of our funding comes from sixth form students, this is a major problem for us. We spend year 12 effectively dragging many of these students through courses which are simply beyond their academic capabilities, often having to police behaviour issues that the more able students who can access their curriculum don't present. When these pupils perform poorly in exams, it impacts our grading in banding/league tables, which in turn goes on to affect not only how much funding we get from the LEA but also our ability to attract pupils from other schools into our sixth form (which would push our funding up). It is a horrible catch 22 that is growing worse with every passing year. As the economic situation has worsened, there has been a marked rise in pupils being accepted back into year 12 who would have been shown the door in previous years due to their misdemeanours in KS4. A growing rise in the number of pupils accepted back for courses that they simply cannot cope with.

It isn't just an issue at KS4-5. September every year is spent fielding phone calls from parents questioning the sets that the KS3 children have been placed in, many of whom don't seem to realise that their child's performance is measured against that of the other 240+ children in the year group. If there are 35 spaces in a class and 35 children who have outperformed their child, then their child simply won't make the cut. Whilst I fully welcome and encourage parents taking an active role in the education of their children, some parents just don't know where to draw the line. We've had people become verbally abusive towards staff over setting, and the level of abuse and frequency of it seems to grow year on year.

FBaby

FBaby appears to be reasonably well educated, and to be doing quite well socially-economically

In my case, the issue is that I was educated abroad under a totally different system. However, this is not exceptional, I believe that up to 10% of pupils at my DD’s school were either born abroad or have parents who were born and educated abroad. This in addition to the parents who didn’t take gsce’s or who did but never got offered to take them early and it does leaves quite a large proportion of potential ‘clueless’ parents who don’t know how to best support their children.

So triple science, which depending on exam board usually includes modular exams can be sat early, giving opportunity to resit lower modular results and can be sat in year 10 or 11, if the terminal exam for that subject is in year 11 the student's final result will count in league tables, if it was taken in year 10 it won't, but in this instance, where there are modular exams then what matters is when the final exam is taken which counts.

As an experiment, in my department we have begun the controlled assessment module with our year 9 pupils in the summer term this year, as there simply isn't enough time to finish the course in KS4 (we are not given the full compliment of contact hours that we need to deliver the course).

These are the kind of comments that frankly might have well been written in Chinese… How is one who has never been involved with gsce’s expected to know what ‘modular exams’ or ‘controlled assessment module’ are?

However, all parents are told what the intentions of the school are and can ask for further information or make an appointment to see the Personal Tutor to discuss any reservations they have.

This is not the case with our school, probably because this information will be provided at the time that most students will be starting to think about gcse’s, not when a few are selected early. As to making an appointment, of course, that’s what I plan on doing now, but how are you supposed to have reservations about the decisions the school has made on behalf of your child and/or assume they only care about the benefit to the school and couldn’t care less if your child is going to benefit from it?

They are not doing it for the benefit of the child but as a sop to the all important stats.

They certainly don’t tell you that… Now that I do know (being lucky that this thread came about just now), I certainly will make that appointment and question things in detail, although still feel I don’t really know what to ask or will understand the responses (as above).

Thank you neverdespairgirl and peachyprice for your advice. I think you are right in what the school is probably doing. The thing is, I thought I could ask a friend of mine who happens to be Head of the language department at her secondary school, but her response was that she couldn’t say because all schools are different and hers only offers one language anyway. She did say though that if the school offered a second language, it would be on the assumption that the pupil would take it gsce.
This thread is actually depressing me. I seem to have foolishly assumed that I could trust the school to some extent that whatever they suggested for my daughter was for her best interest. It is quite sad that not only they are clearly failing in providing me with information to make a decision on behalf of my child, but that they might actually be suggesting way forward that could hurt her education. Not a great image for British education L

mumps

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

There are means of stretching able pupils with resorting to a relentless barrage of examinations.

This point really strikes home with me. My DD did SATS in year 9, GCSE maths and IT in year 10, her other GCSEs in year 11 plus two AS level maths modules. In year 12 she completed her Maths A level, and did AS in Further Maths and 4 other AS levels and then in year 13 completed her A levels. She then started a 4 year degree and had exams every year, just completed a post grad year and is so looking forward to next summer when she will be 24 and the first time without significant exams since she was 13, well if you count her SATS in year 9. Talk about being on a treadmill. She is talking about further study but it will be nice for her to have a year off from exams.