Choosing GCSE options and the EBACC etc etc

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

My daughter is choosing her subjects for her last two years at school and her GCSEs.
I had a letter from the school saying that she is bright enough to nail an EBACC and that it is something that we should consider.

For all their information sent out, I can't quite see how many subjects she is actually allocated, and despite their "just contact us about anything" mantra, my emails to the office get forwarded (no reply) or the standard teacher emails just don't work.

What I am a bit confused about is that it seems most school / kids take 9 or 10 exams
The school mentions in letters and documents that there are eight subjects, (I assumed English and maybe science were split into two exams making the 10 GCSEs)

I figured maths, English, Science and one Humanities are compulsory. That's 4. Then french if you want the ebacc. 5. That leaves 3 subjects to choose from (four if you don't ebacc). . . . But the pdf I had from the school mentioned only 2 free subjects (one if you ebacc). The schools pdf specifically said "pick four subjects in order of preference and we will try to get you the first two if we can, if not it moves down the list".

Maybe I am reading it wrong, but my wife and daughter can't figure out where the 'eight' is coming from and neither could the teacher I spoke to. . "I don't know, I think all the information is in the PDF".

The pdf they sent had three different quite confusing diagrams, mentions 'the magic eight' but doesn't clarify anything. At best I count seven.

Anyone who has been though this have any ideas? Do kids get three or four, or one or two of their own choices?

 

[weepiper]

I can only speak for Scottish schools but here it depends on the school how many subjects they take. At ours they do eight NAT 5s which is our GCSE equivalent or five Highers in the next year and three Advanced Highers in the last year, and they don't generally do the Baccalaureate til the final year. For NAT 5s English and Maths, a modern language and a science, history/geography/Modern Studies are compulsory choices and the rest is free choice from a sort of column system.

 

[spanglechick]

It’s nine.

2x English
2x science
Maths

Hums
MFL

2x free choice.

 

[spanglechick]

Magic eight is possibly a reference to progress eight, by which school league tables measure attainment and progress in the best eight subjects per student. It’s meaningless to the students, though. As is whether or not their subjects put them in the ebacc category. Ebacc isn’t a thing. You can’t put it on your cv. It’s just something schools are measured by (the proportion of students doing trad subjects).

 

[pseudonarcissus]

It’s nine.

2x English
2x science
Maths

Hums
MFL

2x free choice.

MFL? Mother fucking Latin?

 

[Pickman's model]

MFL? Mother fucking Latin?

I thought it was modern foreign language but your expansion of the abbreviation makes much more sense

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It’s nine. 2x English 2x science Maths Hums MFL 2x free choice. Mfl is language right? My daughter only seems to have one free choice if she takes a language, but is allowed to not take a language.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

I thought it was modern foreign language but your expansion of the abbreviation makes much more sense

Ah, thank you. So where back to what it was like in my day with minimum matriculation...maths, English language and a language etc to apply for a university.

 

[Poot]

My son had to take 2 x English, 1 x maths and 3 x science. The rest were free choice more or less. I was surprised by compulsory 3 x science (my idea of hell!)

 

[MickiQ]

Youngest Q (19 in less than a week) did EBACCS, she had to do English Lang, English Lit, Maths and at least 2 sciences (she actually choose all three) History or Geography (she choose History) and a language choice of either Spanish or German (she choose Spanish) for some odd reason due I suspect to availability of staff, French was available but ONLY if you also did Spanish or German. She couldn't have it as a first choice and it was the only 2nd choice (she couldn't pick Spansh and German) She rounded it off by doing Computer Science which was really her only totally free choice.
The school (where her mother still teaches) encourages all kids that can to do the EBACCS since it reckons it gives them an edge when it comes to getting into Uni,

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

OK

I think I get it now. It's just been laid out in a pointlessly confusing way, (I think perhaps to favour EBACC? I'm not sure).

It seems in my daughters school they are not forced into EBACC so they can actually choose to not take a language or a humanities (maybe).
There are four things that my daughter wants to choose, and French definitely isn't one of them. Being fluent in Japanese it is possible that she can take the GCSE and get the EBACC without any extra lessons. . . however her teacher is currently unclear if it will count towards it come 2023 when she takes the exams. There is currently a motion to ask parliament to include Japanese in 2023, but I don't know if that is because it is currently not included or that it is going to be dropped if someone doesn't step in.
This would be great as it frees up another subject, but a bummer because she may not know before she has to make her final choices.

 

[Cid]

OK

I think I get it now. It's just been laid out in a pointlessly confusing way, (I think perhaps to favour EBACC? I'm not sure).

It seems in my daughters school they are not forced into EBACC so they can actually choose to not take a language or a humanities (maybe).
There are four things that my daughter wants to choose, and French definitely isn't one of them. Being fluent in Japanese it is possible that she can take the GCSE and get the EBACC without any extra lessons. . . however her teacher is currently unclear if it will count towards it come 2023 when she takes the exams. There is currently a motion to ask parliament to include Japanese in 2023, but I don't know if that is because it is currently not included or that it is going to be dropped if someone doesn't step in.
This would be great as it frees up another subject, but a bummer because she may not know before she has to make her final choices.

It's currently included, see the doc linked here. I'd be surprised if the rules changed for students who are already on a particular pathway, as that would be ludicrously unfair. But then, education policy is er... yeah.

 

[Cid]

It does explicitly say it will count in 2023.

 

[baldrick]

Ebacc is good for schools (it's a performance tables measure) but makes no real difference to students imo. If the options are flexible enough she should just pick subjects that she really wants to do with half an eye on the future. English maths and science are all compulsory anyway.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It's currently included, see the doc linked here. I'd be surprised if the rules changed for students who are already on a particular pathway, as that would be ludicrously unfair. But then, education policy is er... yeah.

I can't open those documents on my Mac so I will take your word for it.

It does explicitly say it will count in 2023.

OK so that is great!

Maybe the languages teacher who rang me had got it mixed up with something else? I did think I heard her say 2013 and not 2023 as well so who knows.

This is fab news. According to her teachers the Japanese GCSE is so easy I might even be able to pass it, so my daughter would be able to destroy it easily even now (though she is not allowed to take it yet).

 

[Cid]

I can't open those documents on my Mac so I will take your word for it.


OK so that is great!

Maybe the languages teacher who rang me had got it mixed up with something else? I did think I heard her say 2013 and not 2023 as well so who knows.

This is fab news. According to her teachers the Japanese GCSE is so easy I might even be able to pass it, so my daughter would be able to destroy it easily even now (though she is not allowed to take it yet).

Definitely don't rely on my interpretation of that doc, but it does seem pretty clear. The first link is an open doc file, second is excel, so if you have something you can open either of those with you should be able to have a look. spanglechick or someone may be able to confirm. It refers specifically to the Edexcel/Pearson GCSE... It might be worth getting in touch with some official third party to check.

 

[Cid]

And yeah, there was a bill in 2013 that suggested Japanese should be included.

 

[spanglechick]

Mfl is language right? My daughter only seems to have one free choice if she takes a language, but is allowed to not take a language.

Oh. Eight then. Eight is fine, though. I went to a grammar school and everyone did eight GCSEs.

Regarding Japanese, I wouldn’t like to say. gaijingirl would be the best source. It’s fairly common for schools to facilitate community languages, though. Kids with Turkish/Polish/Portuguese speaking homes are most common at my school, but the process for entering the student is the same regardless.

I cannot stress enough, though. Ebacc is totally meaningless to your daughter’s future prospects. I’m deputy head of sixth form at my school. University entrance is my specialty, and beyond a preference by some unis for A level subjects being predominantly taken in trad academic subjects, and the ebacc gcse subjects providing the foundation to study those in sixth form, there’s zero inherent value in doing ebacc subjects at gcse. The only uni courses that even really look at gcse subjects or grades are medicine and veterinary science, who do expect high grades across the board in y11, and will even discount any retake grades. But even then, so long as the A level subjects are correct (chemistry/biology/maths preferred. Physics or other fourth subject entirely optional), predicted grades are minimum AAB, and the student scores highly enough in the MCAT, it doesn’t matter what the subjects were at gcse.

 

[gaijingirl]

I no longer teach Japanese but it does count towards the EBACC. If your daughter definitely doesn't want to do French (which I do currently teach), I wouldn't force her to do it. As Spanglechick says - the EBACC is irrelevant to the students. Her school should allow her to sit Japanese through them - it works in their favour. As spanglechick says most schools will facilitate community languages (sadly the list of community languages represented at GCSE massively decreased a few years ago - but that's another story). The only reason they might not want to do this is the difficulty in getting someone to conduct the oral exam and potentially assess writing skills to ensure the student is suitable to be entered. However, most schools can find someone (I end up doing this most years - and will again this year for a nearby school without Japanese teachers).

By the way, Japanese GCSE may be easy if you are a near-native speaker or married to a native speaker or otherwise have lots of exposure to the language, but it certainly isn't easy in context (ie no easier than French/Spanish/Mandarin etc).

 

[Edie]

What is EBACC?! I’ve had two kids who have done/doing as we speak GCSEs and I have never even heard that abbreviation!

My lads school had to do:
English x2
Science x2 (unless you were considered bright enough then you could do x2 single sciences)
Maths

You could then choose the other 4. Language discouraged unless you already spoke it (urdu mainly) or were good at it (neither of mine were good enough). You didn’t have to do a humanity (Geog or History).

A lot of the girls did level 2 BTEC Health & Social care (my sons girlfriend) or performing arts, and the boys (inc mine) did iMedia and Business Enterprise.

 

[maomao]

According to her teachers the Japanese GCSE is so easy I might even be able to pass it, so my daughter would be able to destroy it easily even now (though she is not allowed to take it yet).

GCSE language exams are a piece of piss if you speak the language involved at even a basic conversational level.

 

[Sue]

GCSE language exams are a piece of piss if you speak the language involved at even a basic conversational level.

Not sure how it is these days but in Scotland there used to be different Gaelic exams for learners and for native speakers which seems fair enough really.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I no longer teach Japanese but it does count towards the EBACC. If your daughter definitely doesn't want to do French (which I do currently teach), I wouldn't force her to do it. As Spanglechick says - the EBACC is irrelevant to the students. Her school should allow her to sit Japanese through them - it works in their favour. As spanglechick says most schools will facilitate community languages (sadly the list of community languages represented at GCSE massively decreased a few years ago - but that's another story). The only reason they might not want to do this is the difficulty in getting someone to conduct the oral exam and potentially assess writing skills to ensure the student is suitable to be entered. However, most schools can find someone (I end up doing this most years - and will again this year for a nearby school without Japanese teachers).

By the way, Japanese GCSE may be easy if you are a near-native speaker or married to a native speaker or otherwise have lots of exposure to the language, but it certainly isn't easy in context (ie no easier than French/Spanish/Mandarin etc).

Talking to the head language teacher at her school the Japanese exam does sound fairly easy (we are getting an old paper to look at just to make sure).
She is reading and writing at her equivalent Japanese grade and has attended school in Japan with students her own age.

French is not a subject my daughter enjoys, (but is doing well at). I think she would rather free up an extra choice for something she wants to do, especially as we were warned that French becomes rather a lot of work and isn't an easy exam.

 

[gaijingirl]

GCSE language exams are a piece of piss if you speak the language involved at even a basic conversational level.

It's certainly easier but I wouldn't go so far as to say a piece of piss. Especially since the GCSEs were overhauled a few years ago. In particular, many near-native and even native speakers often struggle with grammar and in particular the writing exam. I have a student this year who speaks French beautifully (and French is spoken at home) but his family have chosen for him to do French rather than Spanish because they recognise that his written French is not great. Additionally and controversially many questions at GCSE now are not just about understanding the language but inferring meaning which is really very tricky - it often has language teachers debating mark schemes online.

It becomes especially obviously when learners reach A-Level where it's not uncommon for near native speakers to fare worse than their peers.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

GCSE language exams are a piece of piss if you speak the language involved at even a basic conversational level.

I was warned that other students that speak the language fluently have failed in the past. Bad grammar, written work and slang etc. My daughter will be fine though as she studies Japanese in the same way we study English and English Lit at school.

 

[gaijingirl]

Talking to the head language teacher at her school the Japanese exam does sound fairly easy (we are getting an old paper to look at just to make sure).
She is reading and writing at her equivalent Japanese grade and has attended school in Japan with students her own age.

Like I say - of course it's easy for your daughter for the reasons you, yourself, outline. In general terms, it's not.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Like I say - of course it's easy for your daughter for the reasons you, yourself, outline. In general terms, it's not.

Oh yeah sure, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just showing off.
I'm curious the see the old paper they are dropping off for her. . . I bet I would fail hard. Might be the push I need to get some daily learning back in my life. It's insane, my wife and daughter talk in Japanese all the time so it's all I have heard during lockdown (they watch Japanese TV all the time too), it's been the perfect opportunity. . . . but of course I spend more time pointlessly watching skateboard videos than I do studying Japanese (and I can't do that very well either).