English baccalaureate – first exam paper published
1. Why the delay? Discuss.
The EBAC or EBC won’t be taken until 2017 – for English, maths and sciences. It’ll be possibly 2018 for most languages, history and geography. The Lib Dems won on this. If it had been up to Michael Gove and the Tories the new exam would be up and running in Autumn 2014. The Lib Dems were nervous of the Whitehall machinery’s ability to get things done and had allies in Whitehall, which doubted its own ability too. Tories wanted to get things done, crank up and stretch the machine. The Lib Dems won.
2. Could Labour actually scrap them if it came to power in 2015? (5 marks)
The coalition thinks not. English GCSE was due to “go modular” in September 2010 and the coalition was told it could do nothing to halt it after coming to power in May that year because the train didn’t have time to stop. They hope they’ve created similar problems for a possible Labour government.
3. Is continuous assessment banished for all time from all 14-16 education? (Your answer should refer to relevant government documents and articles from the Mail newspaper group)
It appears not. The coalition accepts that certain subjects might require assessment outside a three hour exam after two years – design and technology and art, but others too. The department is also saying that if exam boards come back insisting that continuous assessment can play a part in exams the government will listen.
Some of Michael Gove’s pet foreign systems run continuous assessment. But his instincts are profoundly hostile. This is one to watch. The government also acknowledges that for a proportion of the 20 per cent or so of the school population that struggles with GCSE/O-level standard English and maths, there need to be other arrangements and these could include a series of continuous assessments or, as Michael Gove called it, “enhanced provision of detailed records of achievement in each curriculum”.
4. Will pupils who struggle with the core subjects be allowed to take them over three/four years rather than just two years? (Your answer should refer to Singapore and Finland for maximum marks – in fact, for all answers you’d do well to cite these countries.)
Yes. They may do different assessed modules which it’s hoped will ease them into a later entry into the EBC or EBAC. There will not be an alternative exam game in town if they fail, even with the extra time, to hop on the EBC exam bus.
5. Is Labour opposed to or sympathetic to the reforms as outlined?
Stephen Twigg kicked off by attacking the two-tier exam outlined in June’s leak to the Mail. Sources close to Michael Gove insist he didn’t really want two tiers and the Mail jumped the gun. I believe there may have been some tensions in Labour high command about whether the party should oppose the reforms as published without the mooted GCSE/CSE split and if so how stridently.
Mr Twigg ended up attacking the removal of all course work which Michael Gove insisted he wasn’t completely abolishing. Labour thinks parents will worry about the pressure on their kids of a one-off exam and Stephen Twigg said it showed Mr Gove was out of touch with the modern world. Mr Twigg asked for the proposals, which now start a 12- week consultation, to be shelved pending a consultation.
6. How decentralising is all this? Discuss with reference to the mantra “headteachers know best” and explain how it is compatible with Michael Gove’s statement that headteachers and exam boards connived in “a corrupt effort to massage pass-marks.”
Michael Gove says sometimes you need centralisation and sometimes you need autonomy.
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