A dangerous medicine
Robert
Frost wrote that “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without
losing your temper or your self-confidence.” I am in danger of losing
both. Having promised myself I would not this time write about governments,
league tables or qualifications, the recent assault from Mr Gove in the form of
the EBacc (English Baccalaureate) leaves me incredulous, angry and a traitor to
my promise. Lest any of this sound defensive, it is worth noting that
Birkenhead School is in a position of strength. Rated 43rd in
the U.K. in the Telegraph’s EBacc tables, our next competitor on the Wirral was
at position 91, with the others a long way behind.
The
EBacc is a new qualification which the government has introduced this year.
The purpose of the qualification is in many ways a laudable one: to recognise
achievement in a balanced, yet rigorous set of subjects at GCSE. Having
bemoaned in the last issue the farce of some schools in the maintained sector
taking ‘easy’ ICT qualifications which were ‘worth’ four GCSEs, I recognise the
problem which Mr Gove is trying to address. This particular
medicine, administered to all to cure the ills of a few,
has the potential to cause some dangerous side effects.
Incredibly,
the EBacc has been introduced retrospectively so that students from last year,
who took their exams in Summer 2010, have been measured against this award
without ever knowing that they were studying for it! I have already been
asked by some of the small number of current Lower Sixth who did not qualify
for the EBacc – usually because their subject choices did not fit the narrow
requirements – whether this will adversely affect their university
applications. The answer of course is emphatically ‘no’, but this has not
prevented them from feeling some needless concern.
Most
worrying is the potential distortion of students’ future subject choices.
There is already evidence that some schools are rapidly redesigning their
curricula to suit this new ‘plat du jour’. Ancient Greek is in, Religious
Studies is out, German is approved and Music is
not. Schools which have recently trumpeted new ‘freedoms’ rush to follow
the tune of this new piper. Left behind are the children, starved of the
choice they once had, following a diet described generously as traditional, but
with little scope for the creative or unusual.
A
brief blip in self-confidence saw us consider following along, but this would
betray one of our most important values. We pride ourselves on knowing
our students well, advising them carefully and, as best we can, tailoring a
curriculum to their interests, abilities and passions. Students who are
making their choices now will know that, unlike most schools who work with
pre-determined blocks, we write our timetable blocks after they have made a
free choice of subjects. In contrast to the new trend, our tradition is
very much ‘à la carte’.
We
remain, of course, an academic school. We have no intention of
sacrificing History for Hospitality or Maths for Media Studies. We do
expect the sciences, a modern language, Maths and English at GCSE. We
will continue to advise children on the balance and breadth of their choices as
well as keeping a close eye on the requirements of universities. But we
will not be distorting our advice or restricting choice simply to satisfy the
latest preference of a whimsical Mr Gove; fortunately
we need neither his funding nor his favour.
Mr
Gove says that he wants to “give teachers the freedoms that their
professionalism deserves”. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.
Ralph
Barlow
February 2011