Bac to the future for schools

At present schools are placed in league tables ranked by the number of students who achieve five GCSEs graded A to C, and then those who achieve with five including English and Maths.

Under the new system, the Baccalaureate looks at a student’s results in English, maths, two sciences, a foreign language and either history or geography.

Executive principle Mr Conn warned schools would see greater focus on those subjects and said: “The challenge would be to ensure this would not be at the expense of other equally valuable subjects.

“Some schools which traditionally excel when ranked on the percentage of students with five A to C grades have seen their results slip when ranked according to the English Baccalaureate requirements.

“Our number of students with five A to C grades is rising well, showing good progress, and we want to ensure that trend continues to rise.

“Achieving well with this new qualification would mean driving pupils towards a very specific range of subjects, whether it suits them or not. That has to be a concern.

“Ideally we want to allow pupils a free choice in their GCSEs, but that may conflict with the Bac. We will need to make a strategic decision as to what the priority is for Bexhill High.

“Modern foreign languages is an area which was highlighted in the league tables as needing to be a focus for us. In schools when foreign languages are not compulsory the Bac will be low.”