Curriculum News following Government Announcement (7 February 2013)
Following the recent Government announcement about GCSE as a qualification please be aware that there will be no changes to our Pathway approach to our new Year 10 Curriculum (September 2013).
The Government has decided not to replace the GCSE qualification with the English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBC) and will instead update and refine aspects of the GCSE. As we know there have already been changes to the GCSE for our current Year 10 students ready for examination in 2014. These include removal of modular exams, implementation of linear exams, fewer opportunities for controlled assessments and a focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar.
The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) ‘wrapper’ is still being followed by the Government to indicate where students have achieved an A* - C pass in GCSE English, Double Science, Maths, either History or Geography and in a Modern Foreign Language. This suite of subjects is still the measure being used by some Universities to indicate a broad and balanced curriculum at Key Stage 4 to enable students to have the required skills needed for University. By studying these subjects at GCSE, students are then able to continue to study them at A Level. These subjects are termed Facilitating Subjects by The Russell Group of universities and two Facilitating Subjects are required for entry to their universities.
The Government also intends to extend their performance measures for schools to a new eight subject measure, which will include the subjects listed above plus other subjects across the range eg creative and performing arts and the technologies. As we get more information about this we will keep you informed and in the meantime, make sure that our curriculum is as broad and wide as possible.
If you have any further questions about this, please do not hesitate to contact me at the school at jane.fletcher@warblington.hants.sch.uk.
J Fletcher, Assistant Headteacher |