Another private school head has added its weight to a growing independent school campaign pushing for GCSEs to be replaced with broader, alternative courses.
Magnus Bashaarat, the headteacher of Bedales School, where pupils sit a core of five GCSEs alongside alternative coursework focused Bedales Assessed Courses, said he hoped GCSEs could be replaced, and was “ready to lead a coalition” of schools into “innovative non-GCSE courses.”
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“If we can replace them with a much more learner-focused curriculum that is assessed meaningfully, then that is all to the good,” he said.
Mr Bashaarat’s concerns about GCSEs reflect a growing number of heads in the independent sector who hope to replace them. He added that he welcomed comments reported in The Times today from Jenny Brown, the headteacher at the private City of London School for Girls (CLSG), who said: “If we were brave, we would be much more focused on getting rid of GCSEs”.
Mr Bashaarat noted that the CLSG website included the fact that many girls achieved strings of A*s with one student “awarded a remarkable 12 A*s” according to the school’s website, but added, “I support anyone who is authentically getting behind us and saying there is a better alternative to GCSEs.”
“So I think it’s a good thing a selective school in London is challenging the validity of these exams - the better because they have been historically the drivers of GCSE inflation because girls do so many of them.”
But he added: “If you’re doing thirteen GCSEs, I’ve no idea what you could possibly do with the time left in your day - what on earth does the rest of the curriculum look like? I can’t see how you can get a broad and balanced curriculum around that.” He also noted that he recognised the kinds of parental pressure selective London day schools might be under when it came to exam results.
“Jenny Brown of City of London Girls’ School is right to call for a coalition against the oppressive and dispiriting GCSE experience,” he said.
“Scrapping GCSEs does not mean abandoning meaningful assessment, or accepting that students will be less motivated.”
“The value of rote memorisation and speed-writing is dead. As long-standing proponents of a broader approach, Bedales stands ready to lead such a coalition, alongside schools such as Sevenoaks and St Edward’s in Oxford, who have already taken the plunge into innovative non-GCSE courses.”
Mr Bashaarat said it was “affirming” that CLSG was joining this group in calling for alternatives, adding “the average number of GCSEs taken by girls at City of London is 10, at Bedales it’s five, so creating a parallel curriculum to the GCSE pathway at City should be the next step.”
Stephen Jones, warden of St Edward’s School in Oxford, where pupils can now sit three of the school’s alternatives to GCSEs alongside seven or eight GCSE courses, said he also agreed with scrapping GCSEs.
“I am an advocate of changing the sector and replacing the exams,” he said.
“If GCSEs have such a narrow mode of assessment, the learning practice ends up being focused on that narrow criteria. What we’re good at as an independent school is broadening education instead,” he said.
However, he added that replacing GCSEs altogether required an overhaul of the school inspections system and university admissions.
“Were we to do that [scrap GCSEs], we would want to talk very carefully with Bedales about how it affects their university entrance.
“Universities I spoke to were happy with seven or eight [GCSEs], and the smallest number they were happy with was five, but we do live in a competitive environment and part of our competition is ensuring our pupils get to good universities.”
Matthew Albrighton, deputy academic head at St Edward’s, said: “We are not short on ambition in terms of what we are trying to do, we are trying to profoundly change how education is viewed, that it is not a series of two-year courses.”
“Would we favour getting rid of GCSEs in their current form? Absolutely, we really would, we’re just caught in a fragile market. To change and go with the alternative requires the government to understand that you can trust schools to do a good job, but you would need a different inspection framework. You tear up the idea that GCSEs are a proxy for educational quality.”
He said Ofsted would need to change how they judged schools, ending the practice of viewing GCSEs as a marker of educational quality, and said a system of post-qualifications admissions - where pupils apply to university after completing their A levels - would also allow schools to get rid of GCSEs.
