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The new GCSEs: a home education perspective
GCSE or IGCSE?
Traditionally, IGCSEs are better for home educators than GCSEs because IGCSEs can be by final exam only whereas most GCSEs have controlled assessment or practicals. These can be impossibly difficult to arrange as an external candidate. However, as the exam boards switch to the new style GCSEs without controlled assessment, many home educators were hoping that this would open up more GCSEs. Unfortunately, for various reasons it turns out that this won’t really be the case.
Here is a quick run-down of the new GCSEs in some of the popular subjects:
- Maths, religious studies and psychology were all possible for home educators anyway, because they were exam-only and this will continue to be the case. It should however be noted that the new maths GCSE has been promoted by the Government as more challenging.
- English Literature and History will become possible as these are exam-only.
- Modern Foreign Languages will still have speaking elements so new GCSEs will still be problematic. However, parents should note that IGCSEs in these subjects also have a speaking and listening component. There is more information here on the Exams Wiki – http://he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/French
- English Language GCSE will still involve a compulsory speaking assessment, even though it doesn’t contribute to the final grade. This is not really an option for home educators.
- Sciences are tricky; on the one hand there will be no more controlled assessment and no practical component to the actual exams, but on the other hand the exam centre is supposed to keep a record of practical work undertaken and to sign this off for the exam board. This makes new-style science GCSEs more difficult than they may appear at first sight.
- There is a similar issue with the new style GCSE for Geography because the exam centre has to sign to certify that the candidate has completed some fieldwork.
Changes to re-takes: legacy subjects
Having said that changes to GCSEs won’t really open many more doors for home educators, it’s still worth being aware of what is happening.
One of the spin-offs for home educators is that as re-takes are reduced, Winter sittings for exams will increasingly not be an option, and specifically for candidates studying the ‘old-style’ or ‘legacy’ GCSEs, there will be a cut-off point for re-takes. This could make a difference between choosing a GCSE or an IGCSE for a less confident or able candidate.
The changes
The big idea behind the reforms is that students should not be able to build up their marks in stages, nor should they be able to re-take an exam to get a better marks. Hence all exams will have to be taken at the end of the course and that’s also why controlled assessment is being removed.
The other main change is switching the grade labels from letters to numbers 1 to 9, where 9 is the highest, roughly equivalent to A. English and maths will see the first change for exams in 2017, with other subjects to follow.
The effect of ‘Progress 8’
Alongside the new-style GCSEs, schools will be rated by a measure known as ‘Progress 8′ which is a calculation based on pupils’ results in English, maths and what are called ‘EBacc subjects’ (history, geography, sciences and a language). It is predicted that schools will offer a narrower range of subjects so as not to lose any ground with ‘Progress 8’. Conceivably this could mean that more school pupils take exams as external candidates elsewhere or that home educated young people going into a sixth form find a narrower range of A Levels on offer.
More about exams and home education here http://edyourself.org/articles/exams.php
Fiona Nicholson