TIMES.KY

Cayman Islands, Caribbeanand International News
Saturday, Jun 03, 2023

How an Oxfordshire school created its own enriching baccalaureate

How an Oxfordshire school created its own enriching baccalaureate

Wood Green school is pioneering a new approach that aims to reward pupils for debating skills, teamwork and community service as well as academic success
At Wood Green school in Witney, Oxfordshire, a group of year 7 pupils are trying to convince classmates that scientists have taught spinach to send emails. Next door another class is being challenged to speak for 40 seconds, along the lines of Radio 4’s Just a Minute, on the subject “what is under the bed?”

Their peers might be doing a public speaking class, a session focusing on their own health and wellbeing, or taking part in community service or a Duke of Edinburgh award, which all pupils are expected to complete.

The lessons in how to spot fake news, in oracy, debating, teamwork and emotional intelligence aren’t attempts to undermine the Gove-ite traditional curriculum. Pupils at Wood Green do all the expected academic subjects and take public exams such as GCSEs and A-levels.

Many schools offer these enrichment opportunities. But at Wood Green the school’s leadership team is pioneering the idea of assessing pupils’ achievements in all these areas and awarding its own “baccalaureate” as part of a campaign launched this month aiming to radically change the way secondary education is organised in England.

Baccalaureate awards aren’t new. Wales already has one and the international baccalaureate is one of the most successful global qualifications, celebrated for its promise to develop “a broad range of human capacities” and requiring pupils to complete projects in creativity, activity and public service as well as achieving academic success.

Wood Green’s headteacher, Rob Shadbolt, realised he wanted something similar to this for his school years ago after a meeting with local employers and the then local MP and prime minister, David Cameron.

“I asked how the education policy of the government created young people with the skills that these employers wanted. He [Cameron] replied that what employers needed was employees with good maths and English,” said Shadbolt. “Although no one disagreed with the importance of numeracy and literacy, the employers in the room said they prioritised young people who could communicate, work well with others and by themselves, and who showed initiative.

“Turning out grades 4 or 5 in a maths or English GCSE, although important, isn’t enough. Broader opportunities are built into education in private schools. Why shouldn’t every child have that entitlement? This is about social justice as well.”

Shadbolt’s thinking prompted him to join the National Baccalaureate Trust, an offshoot of the Headteachers’ Roundtable thinktank, which came together on Twitter 10 years ago out of frustration at Michael Gove’s “English baccalaureate” idea.

Critics argue that Gove’s Ebacc, which judges schools on how many pupils achieve a good pass in a small number of academic subjects, is nothing like the real thing, and Tom Sherrington, a former headteacher and founder member of the HTRT, has been working with other heads since then to devise a qualification more aligned to the IB than the Gove model.

The national baccalaureate would be a final qualification at 18 and include pupils’ results in GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications, as well as other achievements in the arts, sport, project work and civic activity. Crucially, campaigners believe, this would help to minimise the status divide between academic and technical routes by unifying them under one award.

“Young people’s educational careers are too defined in terms of a collection of exam results, with too little regard for technical education, creative learning, and personal development,” says Sherrington. “So many of those judged to be at the lower end of the attainment range are denied the opportunity to leave school with a fair record of their successes and achievements, however hard they work. We believe a successful education encompasses so much more than this.”

The proposal, which has been subject to a lengthy consultation with professionals, was launched last week on the website Rethinking Assessment, almost 20 years after a similar idea for an all-encompassing diploma at 18, crafted by the former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Mike Tomlinson, was rejected by the then prime minister Tony Blair.

But after the saga of exam cancellations, failed algorithms and controversial teacher assessments during the pandemic, and a growing unease about the extent to which exams dominate the education system, some campaigners are keen to go faster than a new qualification that still includes GCSEs and A-levels.

The Tory MP and chair of the education select committee, Robert Halfon, has proposed abolishing GCSEs altogether and replacing them with a baccalaureate qualification at 18. Peter Hyman, the former Downing Street adviser and now co-director of the Big Education academy trust, has called for a final pupil “transcript”, which would give credits for a range of projects and skills over a pupil’s entire school life.

The Conservative One Nation group also supports the baccalaureate idea and believes it would contribute to the government’s levelling up agenda. The Conservative MP Flick Drummond said she didn’t believe the existing curriculum was fit for purpose.

“We need to have a 14-18 curriculum with one set of exams/assessment at the end, at 18, which would include both academic and vocational qualifications, including apprenticeships, and give young people a wide-ranging portfolio to present to the next stage, whether that is university or work,” she said.

“I am particularly concerned that we are putting so much emphasis on passing exams that are not engaging young people. They should be relevant and useful. By waiting until 18 to assess young people, they will have the maturity to understand the relevance of what they are doing, and we should make sure that vocational qualifications are seen as on a par with academic ones.”

Sherrington thinks the time may not yet be right for the outright abolition of GCSEs. “A baccalaureate is a really good way to talk about exams because you don’t have to talk in binary terms about having them or not. You can include them in a wider award that assesses pupils in other ways. And have far fewer exams that aren’t as high stakes.”

At Wood Green school, Shadbolt agrees that a first stage would be to put a baccalaureate framework around what schools are already doing. “We are crediting all learning and personal development in our school, but we would welcome external accreditation that valued a wider range of attributes, and unified academic and vocational qualifications. A government commitment to this would be such a transformational step forward for schools.”
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.KY
Close
0:00
0:00
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
Elon Musk Meets Chinese Finance Minister in Beijing
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
If you donated to BLM, you got played
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Last Walmart in North Portland Closing Down
Florida's DeSantis seeks to disqualify judge in Disney case
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines calls the British monarchy "an absurdity" he wants to remove in his lifetime
King Charles III being crowned.
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
US Congresswoman threaten Twitter Files journalist with arrest
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slams New York Times' pro-government stance and treatment of sources
Enough is enough: it's time to end the war in Ukraine. While Russia may be to blame for starting it, Russia is not the one refusing to stop it
Fox News Settles their case with Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787.5 MILLION
AG decries scapegoating and rushed lawmaking by government
The land of the free violence
×