St Albans High School for Girls

[Caroline1852]

Last week I attended the SAHSfG open day and I'm wondering if any current parents have answers to the following questions. If not I'll ask the school.

Why do the entire cohort of St Albans High School for Girls sit double award science GCSE, even those who've done individual science subjects GCSEs?

Why are there so few girls who sit music GCSE?

Why is the Latin uptake at GCSE so tiny?

[Daogroupie]

The girls don't sit so many GCSE's so they don't have so much room. This means that subjects like Music and Latin lose out to core subjects that will lead to A level.

There are parents that don't consider these subjects important enough.

Almost half the girls in the year are directed towards double science which is odd for a school that is 100% selective.

DAO only has 65 selective places out of 200 but 85% of the year does Triple Science. DG

[Caroline1852]

daogroupie

No not half the year, the ENTIRE cohort sit GCSE double award science. Even the girls who sit individual science GCSEs. It's a very odd thing to do for an academically selective girls' school.

Girls who study and sit GCSEs in chemistry, biology and physics are also entered for double award science GCSE.

I'm just struggling to see why they do it?

Unless it's a misprint on the 2015 GCSE results sheet they enclosed in their prospectus at the open day. That seems to be the only reaosonable explanation.

[hermanmunster]

the website says:

Science - either as the double award or as separate sciences -

suspect the results sheet may be a misprint?

[Caroline1852]

hermanmunster - yes, it's the only reasonable explanation. Though I've just checked their website and it says the same thing. It shows the entire cohort (94) as having sat double award science. (The same number who sat mathematics, english language and english literature.) But 47 girls also sat chemistry, 47 girls sat biology and 47 girls sat physics GCSEs.

[hermanmunster]

I don't suppose there is some bizarre way in which they have been putting all the girls in for double science in year 10 then those that wanted to take it further did the additional modules in year 11 (not sure if this is possible - all the boards vary and of course everything changes every couple of years)

[Daogroupie]

I have a close friend with a dd in Y13 who got all A stars in Y11 and I know she did not sit any exams at all in Y10 so I think it must be a misprint. DG

[Jean.Brodie]

Some schools only or mainly do Double Science because they do not have the laboratory space. I have worked in such schools.

Triple Science would mean roughly half as much lab space again. ... And, of course, more Science Teachers.

[lotsakids]

I think you are mis-reading the results - there are 94 girls in the year (including my DD), 47 of those (ie those keen on sciences and likely to follow through to A level) have sat each of the individual science subjects (and pretty much all got A*/A), the other 47 have sat 'double science' and each have 2 GCSEs in 'Science'. The results for the double science girls are for 2 x 47 GCSE, ie 94 grades as listed in the results. Does that make sense?

The ones doing the individual subjects are taught separately to the double science girls (and have possibly have more lessons a week). All 94 girls take a 'core' paper in each science subject which would lead to the 'double science' grades. Those doing separate science also sit an 'extension' paper which combined with the result of the core paper in the subject gives the grade for the indiviual science. Half the year doing separate sciences seems about right, given they can only take 9 or 10 subjects, so if you were leaning to 'Arts' subjects, you might not want to take all three.

As to Latin - I think 11 doing Latin plus another 13 doing Classical Civilisation (I don't think you'd do both?) is actually quite a lot out of 94 girls.

Music on the other hand, does seem rather low...

I hope that helps!

[Catseye]

l still think that its odd that in a top indie school only 50% of yr11 would do triple science.

It sounds they are more interested in their own best interest than the child's best interest.

I think every bright child should do tripple sciences as well at least one MFL(or ancient language) and at least one recognised humanities subject (history,geography or R.E/R.S).

imo only non-selective schools should have candidates doing double science at (I)GCSEs.