GCSEs dumped by school for being "too easy"

Top private school dumps 'too easy' GCSEs

• Reforms seen as making exam less challenging
• Move to IGCSE opens gulf with state system

Pupils at Manchester grammar school, which has dropped GCSEs in all subjects except art

One of the country's leading private schools is to abandon GCSEs after claiming that reforms planned for this year will mean the courses are no longer challenging enough for its students.

The overhaul is the biggest single change to the qualification since it was introduced in 1988, removing coursework and introducing a modular system, allowing pupils to retake chunks of the course.

Manchester grammar school is to drop the government's GCSEs in all subjects apart from art and replace them with the International GCSE (IGCSE), an alternative more similar to the traditional O-levels. The move raises fresh questions about the fragmentation of the national exams system. New figures show that the number of pupils in private schools doing IGCSEs trebled last year, prompting fears that a gulf will open up between the qualifications sat in private and state schools.

Christopher Ray, high master of the highly selective £9,000-a-year boys school, said: "The decision is really what challenges the higher ability students we educate. The view within is that the new GCSEs will present even less of a challenge to the more able candidates than at present. They may well provide a very good answer for very many boys and girls, but not for our boys."

The Independent Schools Council says the number of pupils taking IGCSEs in the fee-paying sector grew from 15,000 to 40,000 last year. Schools including Winchester and St Paul's are considering further expansion of the IGCSE, but Manchester grammar is the first high-profile private school to ditch GCSEs on a wholesale basis.

Ray said: "The entire GCSE syllabus is rather like getting able students through a combination of dressage and a low hurdle race. You have to explain to them how they put their feet very carefully over low hurdles so they will not irritate the examiner. It's not challenging at all."

Under the reforms, GCSEs will be made largely modular, allowing pupils to resit each part after as little as a term's work. Coursework will be scrapped in favour of in-class projects. The IGCSE allows schools to bypass coursework.

In a letter to parents, Ray claimed the new courses would lead to even more testing of pupils. The letter said: "Having learnt that students in England are amongst the most tested in the world, the government appears to have decided that nothing less than an entry in the Guinness Book of Records will suffice. Our primary aims at GCSE are to ensure that our boys are well-prepared for their sixth-form careers and to lay down the foundations needed when they go on to the very best universities. The new GCSEs threaten our ability to do those jobs well."

Geoff Lucas, secretary of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, which represents 250 private schools, said his members were losing confidence in GCSEs. "There are a number of changes which will make it less than attractive ... The omens are not good," he said.

Martin Stephen, high master of St Paul's school in Barnes, west London, said: "The new GCSEs are appalling for the most able students. They are simply pap, they are baby food, they are examination rusks in too many subjects, and they do not stretch and challenge the most able." The school offers IGCSEs in maths, science and music and is considering expanding them.

Ministers have refused to fund the IGCSE in state schools and its results are barred from school league tables, meaning that state schools are not able to offer it, although that decision is under review.

A spokesman for the exam watchdog Ofqual insisted the new GCSEs would be stretching for pupils. He said: "The revised GCSEs, which begin in September 2009, have been accredited by Ofqual against strict subject criteria. The qualifications have also been reviewed to ensure that the content supports the revised secondary curriculum."

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "We do not agree that the IGCSE is in any way superior to the GCSE. It is aimed at international students and therefore does not major on English cultural or historical concepts and achievements. It does not include compulsory study of Shakespeare or any other classic author - which are protected in the national curriculum."

Gandalf wrote:It's funny you should say that Eighty, on GWR (Bush, Troy and Paulina) this morning they asked three maths questions:

If Tommy had 10 pies in a cupboard, he took 5, ate 2 and put the rest back, how many pies are left?
A woman went to a pub at 6pm, she drinks a glass of wine every ten minutes. How many did she have by 7:30pm
Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

Believe it or not, Bush got one wrong and that Paulina bird didn't get on right?!

TigaSefi wrote:

Gandalf wrote:It's funny you should say that Eighty, on GWR (Bush, Troy and Paulina) this morning they asked three maths questions:

If Tommy had 10 pies in a cupboard, he took 5, ate 2 and put the rest back, how many pies are left?
A woman went to a pub at 6pm, she drinks a glass of wine every ten minutes. How many did she have by 7:30pm
Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

Believe it or not, Bush got one wrong and that Paulina bird didn't get on right?!

8 ?
9?
5.50pm ?

Gandalf wrote:

TigaSefi wrote:

Gandalf wrote:It's funny you should say that Eighty, on GWR (Bush, Troy and Paulina) this morning they asked three maths questions:

If Tommy had 10 pies in a cupboard, he took 5, ate 2 and put the rest back, how many pies are left?
A woman went to a pub at 6pm, she drinks a glass of wine every ten minutes. How many did she have by 7:30pm
Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

Believe it or not, Bush got one wrong and that Paulina bird didn't get on right?!

8 ?
9?
5.50pm ?

Yes
Yes
No

Gandalf wrote:Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

5.50pm ?

No

Gandalf wrote:

TigaSefi wrote:

Gandalf wrote:It's funny you should say that Eighty, on GWR (Bush, Troy and Paulina) this morning they asked three maths questions:

If Tommy had 10 pies in a cupboard, he took 5, ate 2 and put the rest back, how many pies are left?
A woman went to a pub at 6pm, she drinks a glass of wine every ten minutes. How many did she have by 7:30pm
Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

Believe it or not, Bush got one wrong and that Paulina bird didn't get on right?!

8 ?
9?
5.50pm ?

Yes
Yes
No

Gandalf wrote:It's funny you should say that Eighty, on GWR (Bush, Troy and Paulina) this morning they asked three maths questions:

If Tommy had 10 pies in a cupboard, he took 5, ate 2 and put the rest back, how many pies are left?
A woman went to a pub at 6pm, she drinks a glass of wine every ten minutes. How many did she have by 7:30pm
Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

Believe it or not, Bush got one wrong and that Paulina bird didn't get on right?!

Cuttooth wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

5.50pm ?

No

Eh? Am I missing something?

Memento Mori wrote:

Cuttooth wrote:

Gandalf wrote:Two guys arranged to meet at 5:30pm. One was ten minutes late, the second was 20 minutes late. What time did they eventually meet?

5.50pm ?

No

Eh? Am I missing something?

20 minutes late for a 5.30 meeting would be 5.50 .

TigaSefi wrote:See my later edited thought. The questions are unfairly written and this makes them still not challenging just obtuse .

Cuttooth wrote:

TigaSefi wrote:See my later edited thought. The questions are unfairly written and this makes them still not challenging just obtuse .

Unless Gandalf meant to write "arrived 20 minutes later" then I don't see how you were wrong.

TigaSefi wrote:

Cuttooth wrote:

TigaSefi wrote:See my later edited thought. The questions are unfairly written and this makes them still not challenging just obtuse .

Unless Gandalf meant to write "arrived 20 minutes later" then I don't see how you were wrong.

And for the woman in the wine bar, I counted from 6pm cos what person sits in a pub for 10mins and THEN have a drink!!!

And if these are the type of questions you get in a state school then I might just have to save up to send my son to a private school where the questions are tough and fair.

TigaSefi wrote:So that's still 5.50pm

Bloke 1 turns up at 5.40pm. Realises bloke 2 hasn't turned up so hangs around a further 10 mins till 5.50pm when bloke 2 finally turned up. I am sorry but that I can see in that question.

Gandalf wrote:Jesus Christ lads….did you want every tiny speck of detail?

Tommy took 5, ate 2 and put the other 3 back in the cupboard. No mice, no out of date pies….

Yes, the woman started drinking at 6pm, she didn't need to have a piss and wasn't sick either…

Meeting at 5.30. Chap 1 turned up 10 minutes late after 5.30pm, chap 2 turned up 20 minutes late after 5.30pm