The English Baccalaureate - a flawed measure?

In his first year as the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has been keen to implement a raft of new initiatives and ideas. One idea that caused a good deal of protest was the English Baccalaureate or EBacc. The principle is a laudable one: to provide a measure of how many of our school children have achieved a reasonable standard in a particular range of traditional subjects. Mr Gove chose the following – English, Mathematics, 2 GCSEs in Science, a modern foreign language and a humanity. There’s not much to argue about there is there? As ever, the devil is in the detail. Science must cover all three areas of Science, that is Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Achieve A* grades in Chemistry and Physics and it simply doesn’t count. Humanities only covers History and Geography, Religious Studies isn’t counted despite the howls of protest from church leaders amongst others. If RS doesn’t count as a humanity, what does it count as?

Most schools these days, state and independent, tell you they cater for the individual child. This isn’t an empty promise and it makes sense for schools to allow pupils an element of choice as they begin their GCSEs. If a pupil is a talented artist then why wouldn’t a school encourage them to study art? Whether you agree with league tables or not, it is sensible for schools to allow pupils to choose subjects they enjoy and where they have an aptitude. At my own school, we give the girls four option choices although we strongly encourage one to be a humanity, one to be a language and one to be a creative subject. Encourage is the important word here. Each year there are several girls who, with the best will in the world, struggle with a language. In consultation with the girl and her parents, I will allow her to forgo a language and choose another subject. The result is a happier, more fulfilling and ultimately more successful experience for the individual girl and her teacher.

One of the joys of leading an independent school is our very independence. We can choose to participate in new state school initiatives, choose parts of them that we can see will work well with the pupils we teach or opt out completely. Results tables published by the government last Autumn retrospectively imposed the EBacc measure on all schools. State schools who had not made a language compulsory for their pupils were thus awarded artificially low pass rates as students not taking a language were deemed to have failed. In my school our percentage rate was artificially depressed by the number of girls choosing RS over History or Geography. By the EBacc measure their A* and A grades were a failure. Schools where pupils studied iGCSE Maths or Science were given zero ratings.

The EBacc has been a topic of discussion amongst teachers and heads in GSA schools. The feeling seems to be that whilst the idea is one of some merit, until the anomalies are worked out of the system, this measure of a school’s performance is of little or no value. It is not a qualification in itself so universities are paying it no attention and the DfE seem to have no intention of making it a formalised qualification.

If Mr Gove is serious in his assertion that he wishes to place more trust in teachers, he should listen to their advice, make the tweaks necessary and ensure that the EBacc is worth taking notice of.

Zara Axton
Manor House School

See our related articles :
A parents’ guide – The English Baccalaureate
Why some subjects are more equal than others…