Timing of the changes
Making the current GCSEs linear Back
29.The changes affect two-year courses starting in September 2012 and they apply from the summer 2014 examinations. However, we do know that many schools teach GCSEs over three years. It will be the case, therefore, that there are some candidates who started their courses in September 2011 who will be required to sit all their examinations at the end of the course (in summer 2014). There is therefore an urgent need for us to be able to provide schools with clear information about how the rules will change and any exceptions that might be made.
30.We will need to accredit revised specifications from the awarding organisations, against the revised Qualification Criteria (2007). Once the criteria are published, awarding organisations will be able to submit revised specifications to the regulators.
not ’some’ but ‘many’ students will have taken advantage of acceleration now that KS3 SATs are meaningless. You greatly underestimate the magnitude of the problem.
If you are going to fiddle with the specifications, then please, for the sake of teacher time and school funding, merely alter the examination timings and NOT the specification subject content.
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I support this comment. We have spent a great deal of time and money implementing the current, and fairly new, GCSE syllabus. To tinker with content or the style of exam questions now would dramatically increase our workload. It is bad enough that the opportunity for students to resit has been tantilisingly allowed for a few precious years for history, and is to be ripped away again.
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The timing is particularly bad for GCSE sciences where centres will have just adjusted to the new modular courses for the 2013 cohort then need to make yet another major adjustment for the 2014 cohort. The sciences are also particularly affected by the “acceleration” issue raised above; many students currently in Yr9 have effectively already started GCSE courses for which the assessment is now completely uncertain.
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I have to agree with Graham Hartland. You seriously underestimate the problems caused by the late introduction of the latest science specifications. Even now we aren’t clear about which specifications will count towards the Eng. Bacc. You won’t be able to assess the impact on the last change before you introduce the next ‘bright idea’. If all you are doing is insisting that examinations become terminal, do you really need to mess about with the specification content again ? I’d like to feel that each subject has been thought about individually and examined on its own merits and that you were not just, as it appears, introducing a rather naive ‘one size fits all’ solution.
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The proposals seem to indicate that all exams for students who will be in Yr11 in the summer of 2014 (current year 9) will have to sit all their exams in the summer of that year if they are to count in the schools points total. Many of our students in the current yr 9 have just started a three year programme in triple science (with some exams sat early) and others sit Maths at the end of year 10 or part way through year 11. In fact from next year over ½ of our yr9’s will be starting a 3 year KS4 programme with exams being taken at various points during those three years. This curriculum offer has been designed to meet the needs of all our pupils by offering greater choice, flexibility and pace. No consideration seems to have been made for students sitting exams ‘when ready’.
We have a curriculum model and programmes of study already in place that facilitates early entry and provides the opportunity to sit additional qualifications. This model is currently being taught to our Year 9 students. I understand the move to linear exams and terminal assessment but what is new to me, and I suspect many others, is that exams have to be sat at the end of the students 16th year – year 11. If my understanding is correct this has far reaching implications on curriculum design, the curriculum offered to students and in particular our current Year 9 students and the subsequent Examination results of the school.
I strongly feel that pupils should be able to sit GCSE’s early if they are able and want to. As someone else has commented – it seems its back to ‘one size fits all’
This hasn’t been thought through.
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I think comments on here highlight the problem with this consultation. My understanding following a phonecall to OFQUAL is that this consultation is about ending modular (which I think should stay) and not about ending early entry. I have been assured that end of course means that and not end of Y11.
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Has anyone consulted with the students who will be bearing the brunt of these frequent changes? Whether they would prefer sitting 10, 12 or 14 exams all at the end of year 11 or they would rather sit them as and when they are ready so as to spread their workload and stress over a period of time.I am happy about the resits change but not sure if the change from modular to linear is entirely for the good of the students.
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