http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7982716/English-Baccalaureate-to-combat-drop-in-academic-GCSEs.html

Michael Gove is now suggesting an English Baccalaureate for GCSE level students. There are problems with this:

1 He's flogging a dead horse if he thinks those already put off languages, science etc will be enthralled by having a new way of being put off.

2 He's just demolished (and public money has been wasted on set-up, development and redundancy payments) the infrastructure around the 'academic' 14-19 diplomas, which could have been re-oriented towards this proposal.

3 Because he's wedded to league-tables, he's going to remove a lot of vocational education from 14-16 which actually keeps students in schools and colleges because it's cheating. This is a tail wagging dog situation if ever there was one.

All this, together with small sixth forms in academies, free-schools, new adjustments to monitoring league-tables etc will cost new money.

So where's it coming from? Can we see his costing?

Well probably not, as education while not 'ring-fenced' is somewhat protected, and as Cameron and co seem to think he's been pivotal in their rise and is one of the few with a vision, he is for the moment untouchable. Unfortunately his vision is combined with inability to handle detail (cf school buildings). 

Will other spending Ministers will rein him in?

blackpepper:

1 He's flogging a dead horse if he thinks those already put off languages, science etc will be enthralled by having a new way of being put off.

How would something that gives them extra recognition put them off? Besides, if schools are now going to be judged on this in league tables, surely most schools will make it compulsory, so the pupils won't have a choice anyway?

blackpepper:

2 He's just demolished (and public money has been wasted on set-up, development and redundancy payments) the infrastructure around the 'academic' 14-19 diplomas, which could have been re-oriented towards this proposal.

That's because the diplomas work much better in vocational subjects. I agree it's a shame that so much money was wasted on them, but blame Labour for the daft idea, not the current government for trying to put it right.

blackpepper:

3 Because he's wedded to league-tables, he's going to remove a lot of vocational education from 14-16 which actually keeps students in schools and colleges because it's cheating. This is a tail wagging dog situation if ever there was one.

I don't think he's going to remove vocational education altogether, it just won't count for the purposes of league tables, and as most of the kids who schools steer towards vocational courses are weak academically, they probably wouldn't pass this English baccalaureate anyway, so they'd still be offered vocational alternatives.

blackpepper:

All this, together with small sixth forms in academies, free-schools, new adjustments to monitoring league-tables etc will cost new money.

So where's it coming from? Can we see his costing?

Well probably not, as education while not 'ring-fenced' is somewhat protected, and as Cameron and co seem to think he's been pivotal in their rise and is one of the few with a vision, he is for the moment untouchable. Unfortunately his vision is combined with inability to handle detail (cf school buildings). 

Will other spending Ministers will rein him in?

I have no problem with small sixth forms. I know they cost more money, but if they offer some students a better educational experience with more individual attention, teachers who know them well etc, it seems worth it. The same applies to free schools really- that if they work, they will be worth the money, but I'm reserving judgement on whether or not they work until some have actually been opened!

It's hard to cheat at MFL isn't it?  English you can draft and redraft, subjects with lengthy mark-heavy projects you can control, ICT you can do for them, but MFL (and Maths) - either you understood what was said or you did not.

If I were desperate for results, I'd ditch MFL.  As our school was, and did :)

One of the reasons it was dropped at ours was because no-one opted for it.  When the majority of your cohort has English as their second, very recently-encountered language, the prospect of yet another seems not to appeal!

Horses for courses.

I agree with Middlemarch that languages must always be available at GCSE for anyone who wishes to study them. I also think that a proper university under-graduate (as opposed to the plastic ones undertaking useless courses) should have english, maths, a single science, a language and a humanities subject.

It has been criminal how a false application of 'equivalence' has seen the death of academic subjects, especially in poorer areas where very intelligent working class children simply cannot follow an academically rigorous curriculum. In a typically self-serving public sector manner, schools have protected their positions in the league tables by promoting nonsense like Health and Social Care (4 GCSE equivalent in 2 years with comparatively high pass rates) against the likes of languages and physics (1 GCSE after 5 years with comparatively low pass rates).

This lack of opportunity has merely aggravated the class divide and eroded the chances of working class children. After all, they are too stupid to understand subjunctives and energy aren't they?