Rugby High School only has '3'% achieving English Bacc???

[hermanmunster]

I think it can just happen in thway that schools present the options.

at DS GS they limited the number of poss GCSEs to about 10 ish. Was possible to do Maths, 2 Eng, 3 science, 2 languages + latin, RS and DT or whathever and miss out on the humanities - however at DDs next door where they do 12 ish it was much more difficult to miss out on the EBacc as all did 3 science 2 maths 2 english a language and either His or Geog... also they all do engineering .

If they had limited their numbers (and sometimes I wish they would... ) their EBacc level would be as low as the boys

(Boys got 44% - Girls 77%)

[mike1880]

If you look at how many GCSEs they take at LSS I think you'd be entitled to ask "how come ONLY 77% of pupils get the EBac?". What subjects exactly ARE they doing that they can't manage 2 sciences, a language and a humanities amongst the equivalent of more than 15 GCSEs each (and nearly 14 actual GCSEs)? Per similar comments elsewhere, some schools manage to achieve 90+% EBac off 10 GCSEs, it seems difficult to comprehend how a school can take 14-15 and still not manage it.

IMHO that's the simple beauty of Ebac, but sadly it won't last. At the moment it sharply identifies which schools are focussed on getting a good spread of solid, respectable, academic GCSEs for their pupils and which are screwing the league table system for maximum points. As soon as schools have got their GCSE options lined up behind Ebac that simple insight will vanish.

Mike

[Rugbymum]

If you look at how many GCSEs they take at LSS I think you'd be entitled to ask "how come ONLY 77% of pupils get the EBac?". What subjects exactly ARE they doing that they can't manage 2 sciences, a language and a humanities amongst the equivalent of more than 15 GCSEs each (and nearly 14 actual GCSEs)? Per similar comments elsewhere, some schools manage to achieve 90+% EBac off 10 GCSEs, it seems difficult to comprehend how a school can take 14-15 and still not manage it.

IMHO that's the simple beauty of Ebac, but sadly it won't last. At the moment it sharply identifies which schools are focussed on getting a good spread of solid, respectable, academic GCSEs for their pupils and which are screwing the league table system for maximum points. As soon as schools have got their GCSE options lined up behind Ebac that simple insight will vanish.

Mike

The vast majority of boys at LSS do 10 GCSEs and these must include 3 sciences, at least 1 language and 1 humanity as well as English, Maths etc.

[DarkEnergy]

I would not worry about the ebac, as there are still some proposed changes in the pipelines and it is not fixed yet. There is consideration that it should include both History AND Geography, there was a suggestion a year ago that they might bring ICT into the ebac (this has gone quiet now). Odd things may be ironed out like the fact that Latin is included (a dead language) yet Italian is not. Whatever happens, it is not yet fixed.

I am incredibly cynical on the ebac and see it as a measuring tool that politicians will use for their own ends. For example, it was brought in too soon (after options had been chosen) and this gave a very low figure for most schools (eg 3% RHS). So currently, schools will change the option process to suit the ebac. This will improve ebac figures over the next few years. In the future, government can then say that "schools were bad and now they are better, look at the improvements in the ebac results. Aren't we such a good government for looking after the education of your children". I am convinced that we will see this sort of message coming out just before the next election. In my opinion the ebac was created by the government to make schools look bad and the government look good, while actually doing absolutely nothing.

Actually, I think it is a clever move, as if they keep on saying it, people will start to believe them. When all is said and done, employers will ask applicants how many and what grade GCSE's did they get, not did they get the ebac.

DarkEnergy

[Guest55]

Totally agee DarkEnergy - this is a meaningless measure.

The first year was AFTER the children's results came out and 2011 was after the choices had been made.

I just cannot take this measure seriously - it does not value music, technology or RE.

[mike1880]

Odd things may be ironed out like the fact that Latin is included (a dead language) yet Italian is not.

Wrong:

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... ations.xls

I am incredibly cynical on the ebac and see it as a measuring tool that politicians will use for their own ends. For example, it was brought in too soon (after options had been chosen) and this gave a very low figure for most schools (eg 3% RHS).

The 3% figure for RHS is incorrect (although the actual figure is nothing to write home about).

I was very cynical about it to begin with and couldn't see what it would add to the 5 GCSE measure but in fact it's been surprisingly useful. It's precisely because the Ebac was sprung on schools without warning that it's had a transient value. For the couple of years it's taken schools to align their GCSE options it's served as a very useful indicator of which schools have been providing a broad range of solid academic options and which ones have been playing the league table system. I agree it has some shortcomings, like the absence of an arts component and the laughably narrow definition of "humanities".

When all is said and done, employers will ask applicants how many and what grade GCSE's did they get, not did they get the ebac.

Correct, and so they should; but perhaps it might help those in less highly achieving schools who want to continue in education and in the past might have been steered into options that would make that harder to achieve.

Mike

[DarkEnergy]

Gove back in 2010 "The Education Secretary told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that he was "very attracted" by the baccalaureate systems operated by many European and Asian countries which deliver a broader educational curriculum than the current system in England.
He said: "I would like to explore setting up a sort of English Baccalaureate. What that would involve is saying to students, 'You should be thinking about studying GCSE English, maths, a science, a modern or ancient foreign language and a humanity like history, geography, art or music'."

Italian was not in the original list, but has now been added. What has happened to other subjects like art, music, RE, drama, technologies etc. These are not the supposedly 'easy options' that Gove was attacking a few years ago. At various points I hear that they may be included and then not... still a confusing mess.

And you haven't seen anything yet. The next one coming out is the change to a 2 year KS3 (years 7 and 8 ) followed by a 3 year KS4 (Years 9, 10 and 11). It may not mean a great deal to many, but to the students and teachers it will have huge effects and in my opinion will narrow the options taught in schools and not broaden them.

[solimum]

I have to agree that it was imposed as a narrow retrospective measure and will mean schools in future squeezing pupils into a narrower range of options - of my 3 DCs only the youngest (currently doing A2s) would actually have achieved the narrowly defined Ebac: the two oldest both chose Business Studies rather than History or Geography (the school had a very good Bus Studies teacher) , one did Art and one Music, both did 2 languages and a full range of sciences and they both seem to me to have had a perfectly well rounded education (one now half way through an engineering PhD, the other nearly finished an Oxbridge Maths degree). Perhaps a very small overall % might suggest that the "traditional" humanities have not been very well taught in the past in a particular school, as one would expect a such subjects to be attractive to many pupils, but 100% would imply a narrowing of choices