11 Plus Exams Forum

These have been published this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12162495" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Think the English Bacc and also the inclusion of Maths and Englaish in the 5 A*-C is interesting - shows up the schools inflating the GCSEs by choice of subject. Local school had gone up to 75% A-C last year after being around 40 ... poss due to diplomas etc. Now they are back at 40% A*-C in M&E and 7% in the Bacc.

Some GS struggling with the Bacc as kids can do quite academic set: eg Mat Eng (2) science (3) French German Latin RS and still get not the ticket...

Think the scores will change drastically as the choice becomes a factor ... be the history and geog departments will be happy - but classics and RS likely to lose out further.

The Ebac results are causing quite a stir. In my area a high proportion of schools have 0% passing in the core academic subjects. Many of these have been hiding behind 70%+ passes 5 A*-C GCSE under the old system.

It's quite shocking really!

This table is misleading and I take little notice of it. It ranks schools according to aggregate points and that generally pushes up schools that do a homongorous amount of GCSE. Its based on quantity not quality. Telegraph had a useful one which ranked schools according to A*/B but it seems they have updated it with the new one today which is more misleading. Henrietta Bennett had the best GCSE results but if you look on the BBC table its quite some way down and yet there are some grammar schools which perform nowhere closer to it which are ranked above it.

Quick scan shows two school in my area near the top yet there are nowhere near there. One has children doing 14 GCSE so pushing up aggregate score, another a local indie is very good at getting C grades, a couple of Bs and a sprinkling of As is near the top too and my guess is they also do a massive number of GCSE.

I personally would take more notice of the English Bacc results as they show a much clearer picture of who is at the top and not hiding behind soft subjects. Infact I really like the Eng Bacc, its a much better reflection of how school perform in my area. Its not 100% correct but its much better the useless agg point and 5 A/C which tell very little story about the subjects choices. Some of the worst in our areas is a grammar school coming down from 96% to 27%, a comp from 88% coming down to 13% and another from about 49% to ZERO (and rightly so). The argument by schools is that some arent geared towards more academic subjects but from a parent's point of view that should be reflected in the results for me to have a better informed view. I am loving the new Eng Bacc

It's very revealing for core academic subjects.

The new English bacc measure of schools is included in the table which ranks schools on the proportion of their pupils achieving A*-C passes in five subject areas specified by ministers: English; maths; two sciences; ancient or modern history or geography; and a modern or ancient language.

mitasol wrote:It's very revealing for core academic subjects.

Exactly, it was something missing in the old league tables and very useful for us parents but not so for the schools that have been damned.

With the scandals that was happenning in some schools of drilling maths and english just for league tables, now they have to drill 5. Much better than 2

It's mildly interesting but as far as I can see all it does is provide very slightly finer grain to the old measure of 5A*-C incl. English and Maths which was already a very solid guide to academic focus, in B'ham at least - there aren't any surprises.

Mike

It is interesting but it is still just as useless, if I understand it correctly.

EG. In my DSs GS, they have to do 3 sciences as well as RS and a MFL. So if a child choses to do 2 MFLs and then say Art and IT, and they get A-C in these, then their results are not counted. Whereas in another school children might do all the subjects included in the EB, and a number of softer GCSEs and their results would count.

yes, having seen the RS curriculum and the work done I would say that it is as academically challenging (and useful) as His and geog and maybe ought to be included. (no personal interest DS would get Eng Bac - did His and RS )

sherry_d wrote:I personally would take more notice of the English Bacc results as they show a much clearer picture of who is at the top and not hiding behind soft subjects. Infact I really like the Eng Bacc, its a much better reflection of how school perform in my area. Its not 100% correct but its much better the useless agg point and 5 A/C which tell very little story about the subjects choices. . I am loving the new Eng Bacc

I too like the idea of the English Bacc - i have been of the opinion for a long time that taking History OR geog should be compulsory - as is taking Religious studies. It does show a solid grounding. However my dd1 took her GCSE's a year ago and when she made her choices it seemed they were all made for her! She only had two extra options, she chose a MFL and graphic design - So she would not have made the list even though she achieved A*'s and A's in Eng, sciences and maths - as well as graphics. If the school had allowed 3 choices she would have chose geog as she was a level 7a -

Sometimes its a case of not being able to fit in these Eng Bacc subjects - and the schools will need to address this somehow if they want to perform in this area.