Posts Tagged ‘GCSE’

« Older Entries

English Literature IGCSE

Friday, August 13th, 2010
sculptural relief by H.H. Armstead of 'Literature' in portland stone, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Whitehall, London

H.H. Armstead, 'Literature'

Oxford Home Schooling is pleased to announce that we now have an exciting new course for IGCSE English Literature.

The new course is designed to match the Edexcel 4ET0 specification for examinations in June 2011, June 2012, or later years.

Candidates are required to sit two written examinations, one on prose and drama and one on poetry. There is no coursework.  The specification is designed as ideal preparation for A-level English Literature study.

The selected texts for detailed study are Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.  For the poetry paper, Edexcel has produced an anthology of sixteen poems including a number of popular favourites like Kipling’s ‘If’, Blake’s ‘Tyger’ and Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, and a range of international poets including Alice Walker and Gabriel Okara.  The OHS course covers all sixteen poems in considerable detail.

As well as the three modules on the two set texts and the poetry, there are also two introductory modules, one on literary analysis and one on essay technique. The Edexcel requirements are a little more “academic” than the equivalent GCSE, but our course aims to make the study of English Literature lively and engaging for students of all abilities.

English Literature IGCSE forms an ideal complement to study of the main English IGCSE course or as part of a full range of IGCSE studies.

GCSE or IGCSE?

For the home-educated and distance learners in general, 2011 is the last year in which it is possible to stake a “standard” GCSE in English Literature. From 2012, GCSE students are required to undertake a controlled assessment which is not practicable unless you are in a supervised classroom. So IGCSE is the only viable choice in this and and a number of other subjects.  But there are plenty of IGCSE exam centres up and down the country so it is relatively straightforward to enter the exams, especially with no coursework involved.

IGCSE qualifications are accepted as at least the equivalent of GCSEs in all sixth form colleges, FE colleges, universities and other HE institutions.

If you are looking to study IGCSE English Literature outside the UK, there is no need to visit the UK to sit your exams.  With exam centres world-wide, Edexcel IGCSE is the obvious choice for international candidates.  Visit Edexcel International to find your nearest exam centre.

If you are interested in studying this or other IGCSE programmes with Oxford Home Schooling, please contact one of our Student Advisers today.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Distance Learning, English, English Literature, Examinations, GCSE, Home Education, IGCSE | No Comments »

IGCSE and State Schools

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Today’s Guardian includes the headline: ‘International GCSE offer rejected by the majority of state schools’.  Jessica Shepherd’s report notes that only 16 state schools have signed up to teach IGCSEs from this autumn despite the fact that they are now free to do so (after the announcement in June by the schools minister, Nick Gibb).

The report is midsleading in a  number of ways.  Only 16 have told the Cambridge board (CIE) that they will be offering the exams but Cambridge is not the only board offering IGCSE. Edexcel has designed a set of IGCSE specfications which are intended to be better suited to the needs of UK state schools.  It is also rather too early to tell how many schools will offer IGCSE this autumn as there is no requirement to notify a board in advance and many are still making plans.

But the Guardian does not make the obvious point. State schools are in no position to offer IGCSE programmes because those programmes are not funded. Only when IGCSE courses are funded at the same level as GCSE courses will we see a large scale shift away from GCSE and towards IGCSE. The government has not yet told us whether (or when) IGCSE programmes will be funded. Until that happens, IGCSE will remain the preserve of the private sector. But the very fact that so many private schools intend to offer IGCSE this year is clear evidence that IGCSEs are seen as a better and more demanding preparation for A-levels and university courses.

Martin Ward, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has said that the low figure shows state school teachers have “clearly decided that there is no virtue in their pupils taking IGCSEs”. This is complete nonsense and he knows it. There are some schools where the teachers are aware of the IGCSE option who have decided that it would be too tough for most of their pupils and that it represents a risk to their GCSE rankings, but most have not considered IGCSE at all because of the absence of funding.  A party divide has opened up on this issue and it is clear that the ASCL is toeing the Labour Party line.

But there are much wider issues at stake here. Should we compel state schools to deliver a National Curriculum which is carefully controlled by the government? Or should we trust exam boards and universities to set the exams that students, schools and universities want? IGCSEs are currently unregulated but there is no doubt that they are harder than GCSEs. If they become state-regulated, will exam boards start competing (as they have done with GCSE) to make them ever easier in order  to attract a higher proportion of state schools? It may be some time before all these issues are satisfactorily settled.

Dr Nicholas Smith,

Principal, Oxford Home Schooling

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Distance Learning, English, Examinations, GCSE, Government Policy, Home Education, IGCSE, Mathematics, Uncategorized | No Comments »

AS levels to be scrapped?

Monday, July 5th, 2010

AS levels will not be scrapped. The sensationalised headlines do not reflect the proposals that have currently been aired by Michael Gove, the new Education Secretary.

What Gove is suggesting is an alternative qualification for the more academic, university-bound student. Indeed, as he says, such an alternative already exists, in the form of the Cambridge pre-U, although it is available only in a small number of subjects and in a very small number of state schools. It is an invitation to other university-led institutions to put together rival qualifications, just as there are a number of rival boards for GCSE.

It is a broad hint that in the fullness of time, such alternative qualifications will not only be allowable in state schools but also funded in the same way as A-levels.  Until funding is in place, the take-up and public awareness of such qualifications will remain limited.

We have already seen the same government strategy applied to GCSE-level qualifications where it has already been announced that the IGCSE qualifications shunned by the last government will now be acceptable in state schools. IGCSEs, e.g. those set by Edexcel, will appeal to many schools because of their academic rigour and because they do not entail coursework. Coursework is very fiddly to administer and it is believed that coursework favours girls rather than boys so boys-only schools will be keen to adopt specifications that do not entail coursework.

Has the modularisation of A-levels also favoured girls and enabled them to overtake boys in terms of A-level achievement? While no alternatives exist, it is difficult to evaluate this theory. A bigger problem with modularisation has been the opportunity to re-take modules in order to get a better result. To many, a Grade C achieved at the third attempt is not really worth as much as a Grade C achieved after a single year of study, without any retakes, but there is no obvious mechanism to differentiate between the two. Certainly, universities would find it much easier to distinguish between candidates if they have all taken exams once only at the end of the course.

To many, IGCSEs are O-levels by another name and the new qualification proposed by Gove is a return to the old A-level system. Many educationalists see this as elitist and retrogressive but others will argue that after two decades of “dumbing down” in school qualifications, in order to keep students of widely varying ability in school to the age of 18, it is about time, we gave more able students the chance to prepare for university in a way that the universities themselves want.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in A Level, Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Educational organisations, Examinations, GCSE, Government Policy, IGCSE | No Comments »

Different exams set for girls and boys?

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

The Guardian has reported that one of the country’s biggest exam boards is developing different GCSE courses for boys and girls.

The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) is looking into creating a science GCSE with more coursework in it for girls, and one which gave more weighting to exam marks for boys. This idea has been debated at some length on the AQA blog for teachers and science specialists.

Studies suggest that girls perform better in coursework than boys, while boys do better in exams.

The courses in English, maths and science “could” be available from September next year. But there are a number of questions that would need addressing before that can happen.

Would a non-coursework version of the specification be open only to boys? This would be very unfair on those girls who felt it also offered them the best chance of higher grades. Such a restriction would, I think, be unjustifiable and possibly even illegal.

So any variant specifications will be open to all, but “targeted” at different groups. As coursework has always been hard to manage, mark and moderate fairly, and is becoming even more so with the introduction of controlled assessment, the fear is that, given the choice, very few schools would take the coursework option. Coursework would largely disappear.

This would fly in the face of decades of government education policy. Right now, every science GCSE must include controlled assessment and there are no exceptions even for distance learners and the home-educated.  Will the government now bow to pressure and allow non-coursework Science GCSEs?

The situation is complicated by the fact that the new government has decided to allow IGCSEs to be taught in state schools. IGCSEs generally have coursework options but most candidates prefer the exam-only options.  AQA does not have a range of IGCSE courses – they are only offered, at present, by AQA’s rivals, Edexcel and Cambridge.  It is plain that AQA fears being left behind and wants to do within the GCSE system what their rivals are doing elsewhere.

Bill Alexander, AQA’s director of curriculum and assessment, told the Times Educational Supplement: “We could offer a route for boys that is very different to a route for girls.” But will the government agree to it?

John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said it was “extremely dangerous” to get into gender stereotyping. “There are lots of boys who like the investigative element of coursework as well,” he said. This is true but it is also possible that AQA are using the gender theory as a convenient excuse to justify the introduction of non-coursework GCSEs.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says it is a “wild generalisation”  that boys do better in exams, while girls perform better in coursework, but that it has “more than a grain of truth” to it.

At Oxford Home Schooling, we welcome the introduction of non-coursework GCSEs because controlled assessment has made GCSEs impossible for most, if not all, the students we support. But there have been enough changes to the educational system in recent years and most of all we are looking for clarity and stability.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Distance Learning, Educational organisations, Examinations, Government Policy, Home Education, Science | No Comments »

Wimbledon Hopefuls and Home Schooling

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Wimbledon is upon us!  Here at Oxford Home Schooling we have a number of young high performance tennis players who are studying our KS3, GCSE and A level courses, hoping that they too will one day be Wimbledon players. As members of the LTA, they receive a 10% discount on all our materials.

With high demands made upon their time, studying by distance learning is often the only option flexible enough to accommodate the players’ coaching commitments and tournament schedules, as well as being able to achieve formal academic qualifications. At some stage in their future, whether due to injury or retirement, it may be important to have qualifications to fall back on.

Currently 18 High Performance Centres (HPC’s) and 4 International HPCs such as Gosling Sports Park, Welwyn Garden City  provide a high quality performance training environment for players predominantly aged 16 and under. These ensure they have access to tools needed to fulfil their potential, which includes being able to combine education and full time tennis. There are also a number of Independent Tennis Academies that provide a combination of an intensive tennis programme and academic study.

Players often study through distance-learning programmes offered by Oxford Home Schooling. They may benefit from a dedicated study environment at the tennis centre, with sessions carefully structured into their weekly schedule. An academic mentor or manager may oversee the programme.

The tennis players study the structured course materials (predominantly KS3, GCSE and IGCSE’s) provided by Oxford Home Schooling and will also have the advice and support of their subject based tutors, who can be contacted by telephone and email and who mark assignments on a regular basis. There is also ample support and guidance given on any coursework requirements and the examination procedures. Summer exams can prove difficult if they clash with tournaments, but IGCSE exams can also be taken in January.

Laura Robson has studied and taken her English GCSE through Oxford Home Schooling. Yesterday, the 16-year-old gave Jelena Jankovic, the World Number 3, one heck of a game, banging down numerous aces and coming within a couple of points of taking the second set. We feel sure she will be a star in years to come but a well-rounded education will also help her career.

A number of other students who excel in specialist areas such as drama, dance, music, golf, swimming and show-jumping, also study through Oxford Home Schooling as they do not have time to attend full time education. Distance learning offers them the most flexible option.

Sue Ray
Home Education Co-ordinator
Oxford Home Schooling
01865 798022
sue@ool.co.uk

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Distance Learning, Educational organisations, Home Education, London | No Comments »

IGCSE and GCSE: what’s the difference?

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

The recent announcement by Education Secretary, Michael Gove, that state schools will be able to offer IGCSEs (International GCSEs) from September 2010 raises a couple of key questions: ‘what’s the difference between a GCSE and an IGCSE?’ and ‘why has the government given the green light to IGCSE qualifications in state maintained schools?’

What’s the difference between a GCSE and an IGCSE?

General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations (GCSEs) were introduced in 1986 and replaced the previous GCE ‘O’ Level and CSE systems by merging them together.   Coursework became a new feature of assessment, one that teachers rightly regarded with scepticism.  The recent introduction of controlled assessment for coursework attempts to overcome the issue of coursework authentication by making coursework supervision compulsory.

While many employers only recognise A*-C grade GCSEs, others have criticised the qualification as lacking in challenge for more able pupils.  With more and more students achieving A grades, the GCSE exam is widely perceived as getting easier and easier, and lacking an ‘absolute standard’.  GCSEs are offered in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland with Scotland offering its own system of qualifications.  Click here for a full account of the background, controversies and national statistics for GCSE.

IGCSEs were introduced in 1988 and are internationally recognised qualifications. Candidates can sit IGCSE examinations all over the world.  Offering over 70 subjects, IGCSEs are taken in over 120 countries. IGCSEs do not include coursework.  Similar to GCSEs, they are perceived by some as academically more rigorous, and for this reason have recently been adopted by over 300 independent schools in the UK.  In Febuary 2009, 16 Cambridge IGCSE syllabuses received accreditation from Ofqual, the government body that regulates qualifications, exams and tests in England.  IGCSEs are widely accepted by universities and colleges as part of their entry requirements.  IGCSEs are offered by Cambridge and Edexcel exam boards and you can find more information about them on the webpages linked here.

Why has the government given the green light to these qualifications?

As part of its shake up of national qualifications in which academic diplomas are to be dropped, the government is to allow IGCSEs to be taught in state schools.  Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, said that

“schools must be given greater freedom to offer the qualifications employers and universities demand, and that properly prepare pupils for life, work and further study.”

“For too long, children in state maintained schools have been unfairly denied the right to study for qualifications like the IGCSE, which has only served to widen the already vast divide between state and independent schools in this country.

“By removing the red tape, state school pupils will have the opportunity to leave school with the same set of qualifications as their peers from the top private schools – allowing them to better compete for university places and for the best jobs.”  (BBC News, 7 June 2010)

Where can I study for IGCSE qualifications?

IGCSE qualifications are ideal for those wanting to study for national qualifications by distance learning.  Without all the administrative problems that encumber GCSE coursework, IGCSEs offer a practical way forward for those studying at home as assessment is by written exam at test centres world-wide. If you need qualifications to go to college or university, apply for a professional or vocational course, or need say, Maths or English GCSE or IGCSE to apply for a job, then IGCSEs will help you achieve your goal.  At Oxford Home Schooling we offer IGCSEs in

  • Maths
  • English
  • History (Modern World History)
  • Geography
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Accounting
  • Business Studies
  • Economics

Our new courses in Biology, Chemistry, Human Biology, Physics and Science will become available by the end of 2010.  Contact us if you would like to talk about the qualifications you need to move forward.  Your call is free.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Distance Learning, Examinations | No Comments »

IGCSE and State Schools

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has just announced that state schools will be able to offer IGCSEs (International GCSEs) in all subjects from September.  As he says, this will allow pupils at state secondaries to compete on a level playing field with their privately-educated peers.

At Oxford Home Schooling, we welcome this development, but it is only a first step. It provides implicit acknowledgment of the academic credibility of IGCSEs but this was rarely in doubt within universities and colleges. Yet until IGCSEs are funded on the same scale as ordinary GCSEs, no state school will, in practice, be able to take the plunge. They cannot offer courses with no funding, however superior they seem, especially when the costs of re-training staff and re-educating parents are included.

Equivalent funding needs to be granted as soon as possible. The fear for many in the state education sector is that a two-tier system will develop, like the old split between CSE and O-level, and that GCSE will become increasingly marginalised.  But the difference between GCSE and IGCSE is not just one of academic rigour;  it is also a matter of convenience and accessibility. The controlled assessment required for most new GCSEs has disenfranchised whole categories of students, including home learners and distance learners, and it is vital that a practicable alternative like IGCSE, without all the coursework baggage, is suitably recognised and validated.

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says that IGCSEs do not meet the rigorous standards of normal GCSEs.  I know of very few disinterested educationalists who share this view. Anyone who has compared an IGCSE specification with the equivalent GCSE specification in any subject (and I have looked at many) has come to the conclusion that IGCSEs require equivalent breadth and greater depth across the topic areas. This is easiest to judge in subjects like Maths and Science where IGCSE specifications (e.g. set by Edexcel) include all the  “normal” GCSE topics, plus a range of extra topics that most state school pupils do not encounter till A-level.   My impression is that IGCSEs offer much better preparati0n for A-level and higher education.

I believe that most teachers share this view and would like to make the switch to IGCSE. The pressure will grow on the government to ensure that IGCSEs are funded on the same scale as GCSEs but no one knows for sure what impact this will have on GCSEs. Some interesting times lie ahead!

(Dr) Nicholas Smith,

Principal, Oxford Home Schooling

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, Distance Learning, Educational organisations, Examinations, GCSE, Government Policy, Home Education, IGCSE, Mathematics, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Oxford Home Schooling welcomes students from all over the world

Monday, April 12th, 2010

At Oxford Home Schooling we routinely dispatch courses to students from Scandinavia to South Africa, Croatia to China, Russia to New Zealand, the Channel Islands, the Falklands, and tiny Scottish islands.  All over the world students are studying for GCSEs, IGCSEs and A level qualifications using our course materials in print and online.  With test centres around the world, IGCSE has never been closer for those wanting to achieve qualifications to jobs or further study.

We also send courses to the forces by BFPO: GCSE and A Level Maths and English are popular choices among army and RAF servicemen posted overseas.  A British family based in the jungle in Borneo are teaching their children using our Key Stage 3 course materials.  And in Norway, a prisoner is seeking to improve their education by studying one of our courses.

In the last month courses have been dispatched to Hungary, France, Zambia, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Ireland, Cyprus, Turkey and Portugal, as well as across the length and breadth of the UK.

Even if you live round the corner but feel a world away from study opportunities through dyslexia or special visual needs, we can provide you with courses in large font or on coloured paper to help you on your way.

Distance is no object for those who want to study with Oxford Home Schooling, and our doors are open to everyone who wants to learn.  If you would like to know more about distance learning, home education, home study, open learning or correspondence courses, then contact us.  We look forward to welcoming you to our world of learning.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in A Level, Examinations, GCSE, IGCSE, Qualification | No Comments »

Have GCSE exams got easier?

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Have GCSE exams got easier? Every year, we learn that higher numbers of children have gained 5 GCSEs or that there are more A-grades than ever before. Politicians and the odd Head Teacher come blinking into the light to say “no, it’s because of the wonderful educational policies of this government, the rising quality of teaching and the fact that kids are working harder than ever before (delete as appropriate). Of course the exams aren’t easier!”.

Meanwhile the general public and anyone without a vested interest remain convinced that exams have got easier.

The truth is that some GCSE exams are easier and some harder, but this hardly matters as far as results are concerned. Grades are entirely dependent on where grade boundaries are set.   You can set the boundary between an A-grade and a B-grade at 99% so that almost no one gets an A-grade. Or you can set the boundary at 10% of the overall marks and, lo and behold, almost everyone gets an A-grade. It doesn’t mean the exams have got easier or harder.

Decisions about GCSE (and A-level)  grade boundaries are entirely arbitrary, no matter what anyone says. Because the government has annexed almost total control of the system and exam boards must do their bidding if they are to survive, those decisions have been about one thing and one thing only, politics. Each government wants to convince us  that it is doing a good job with the educational system and that standards are rising.  So grade-boundaries are massaged, long after the papers have been marked, to achieve the impression that standards have risen.   This is the simple cause of the grade “inflation” which has afflicted our educational system for decades.

The consequence is that today’s results simply cannot be compared effectively with results from ten or twenty years ago. Without detailed scrutiny of a long series of grade-boundary decisions it is impossible to be certain, but it is possible that eight grade-A’s at GCSE today is the equivalent of four grade-A’s a few years ago – but no one knows for sure.  It’s possible that students today really do work harder than we did (although one doubts it!), but there is no evidence at all (at least, in the rising grades) that this is the case.

It is rare that the internal processes of massaging the grade-boundaries are made public. This weekend, long after the event, we learn of government intervention through Ofqual to quell the “excessive” rise in science grades last year, but we can be sure that there are plenty of other interventions. Most of the time the exam boards make the adjustments quietly behind the scenes and no more is said.

As long as we judge governments by the  grades that children are awarded, this situation is unlikely to change.   Only if we move to qualifications outside government control, like IGCSE, is there a theoretical chance to maintain comparability between the C-grade of today and the C-grade of 10 years ago or the C-grade in 2020.  But even there, grade-boundaries still have to be set and there are numerous incentives to show a gradual “improvement” in student achievement, so there are no easy answers to this conundrum.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in GCSE, Government Policy, IGCSE | No Comments »

The Future of Controlled Assessment

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

One major legacy of the current government will be the introduction of controlled assessment across the GCSE range. This has profound implications for the future of education in this country.

Controlled assessment replaces the relatively “relaxed” regime of coursework which has been a big part of GCSE exams for the last 24 years. There is a belief that too many parents were, in effect, writing coursework for their children and that something needs to be done about this in order to shore up the academic credibility of the GCSE system.

Rather than get rid of coursework altogether, the government’s “solution” is to turn coursework into something like another exam.  Now it must be timed, supervised and carefully regulated at all stages of preparation, so that parents and other helpers are unable to load the dice.

Although this seems well-intentioned and sensible, it has a number of catastrophic side effects. It means that most GCSEs have become almost impossible for distance learners and home-educated students, indeed virtually everyone outside mainstream education. This, in turn, may damage the educational prospects of many different categories of learners.

Although the government understood that this would be a consequence of controlled assessment, they refused to allow the exam boards to offer alternative GCSE specifications without coursework or any other leeway for unsupervised candidates.

One consequence has been a rise in popularity of IGCSE courses precisely because these do not entail coursework. So far the government has refused to allow IGCSE courses to be funded or included in the National Qualifications Framework but fortunately colleges and universities understand that IGCSEs cover the same ground as GCSEs and are, if anything, more academically rigorous. So an IGCSE is “worth” every bit as much as GCSE. Nonetheless, this is a highly unsatisfactory situation.

A further consequence of the insistence on face-to-face supervision is to stall the introduction of new teaching media. Who would want to study online if they were unable to pass any examinations that way? Thus the UK risks falling behind its competitors because it insists on a single mode of teaching and learning (i.e. face to face) at the expense of more sophisticated methods.

I believe a new government will review controlled assessment and do one of two things. It will either allow the exam boards to make alternative arrangements for candidates who can’t (or don’t want to) do coursework, or it will bring IGCSE into the mainstream, monitor it and fund it properly. Then we can return to a situation where there is genuine educational opportunity for all, not just for 14-16 year olds in mainstream education.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Controlled Assessment and Coursework, GCSE, Government Policy | No Comments »

« Older Entries