Add Q&A element 
to E-Bacc 
exams says head

Leo Winkley, Headmaster of St Peter’s School in York, has welcomed the Government’s decision to scrap GCSEs which he said had become a “lame duck qualification”.

Education Secretary Michael Gove announced this week the exams they would be replaced by English Baccalaureate certificates in the core subjects of English, maths sciences, history, geography and languages.

Resitting modules will also be abolished and coursework will be scaled back with pupils instead being tested in end-of-year 
exams.

Mr Winkley praised the decision to scrap in-course assessments which he said would leave “teachers free to teach and learners to learn”, but urged Ministers to transform the way end of year exams are sat by also testing pupils’ ability to communicate.

“The coalition Government is right to be sounding the death knell for GCSEs as we know them,” he said. “These qualifications are out of date and out of touch... The fact that most people in education seem to agree about this is good news. It means we can have a complete re-think of what assessment is.

“The demise of controlled assessment would be a good thing because such things interrupt the flow of learning and teaching. The spirit behind assessing coursework was to recognise continuous performance – the dogged marathon as well as the glorious sprint but the flaws of this approach have been widely exposed.

“A one-size-fits-all terminal exam has its flaws as well – but it is not the only other option. A system of assessed interviews would give a more genuine sense of what pupils can do.”

The head of the historic private school believes an oral exam would not only assess whether young people had a broad understanding of a subject area but would also better prepare them for the world of work.

“Life is conducted in conversation, in dialogue. We assess the competence of our work colleagues, and indeed our friends, in good measure on how they talk about what they do and how they communicate knowledge.

“We need to assess our pupils’ ability to explain and engage in discussion, to respond to questions, to persuade others and to offer comment. Assessing such skills may be complex; but judgment of these skills would be far more relevant and informative. It would also allow different kinds of pupils to shine – those who have developed a genuine feel for the subject, but cannot always convey this in the formal setting of the exam hall.”

Mr Gove has warned that under the GCSE system schools were narrowing their curriculum and “teaching to the test” in order to achieve exam success.

A leading academic has, however, blamed successive governments’ obsession with “standards” for turning the education system into a “race for grades”.

Prof Bill Boyle, chairman of education assessment at Manchester University, said: “Pupils are expected to accrete ‘levels’ or grades so schools can be held accountable for progress against politically invented ‘standards’. Standards arbitrarily imposed which have no basis in learning research or pupils’ learning journeys.

“This is not learning, but a process which has been turned into a race for grades which does not take into account the complexity of individuals’ learning styles.”

If the reforms are approved, the first E-Bacc certificates in English, maths and the sciences will be taught from 2015 and tested for the first time in 2017 meaning pupils starting secondary school this month will be the first to sit them.

History, geography and languages will follow and Ofqual will be asked to look at replacing the entire suite of GCSEs.