There are other qualifications besides GCSEs.

I have in the past been accused of an obsession with GCSEs and also of ignoring all the other qualifications out there, such as Open University courses. This is quite an interesting point, because my daughter herself almost went along this path. She did a few units of an OU course when she was eight, but in the end it was decided that International GCSEs were a better bet.

There are quite a few things to be said in favour of GCSEs and some things to be said in favour of OU courses. As far as GCSEs go, they are a standard measure of education. I don't want to get into a debate about whether they have been 'dumbed down'. We chose not to do ordinary GCSEs, partly because the coursework was a problem and partly because the IGCSEs are more rigorous and highly regarded; very much like the old GCE. When taken purely as examinations, there is no scope for the sort of cheating which has been endemic in the GCSEs for over twenty years. Everybody understands the yardstick being used for a reasonable education; five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including English and mathematics. This is the sort of standard measure which will allow you access to study A levels at a college and which many employers regard as the bare minimum level of education which they require for people applying for jobs. Universities too, often want to see good GCSEs in addition to A levels. Really, they are most useful and apart from those who cannot afford them, I can't imagine why anybody would prefer her child not to have them.

Mind, I don't personally think that five GCSEs at C, is what the government seem to imagine it is; the infallible mark of a teenager who has had a good education. Their lack, after a child has spent eleven years in the educational system certainly tells you something, but unless a child has learning difficulties, it would be hard to see how she could avoid scraping a C at five subjects. This again, gives IGCSEs an edge over the standard GCSE.

Open University courses are another way of gaining qualifications. We saw this year that a child who had gained a certain number of points at the OU was able to get a place at Exeter university to study law. They certainly can be used in this way, although it is rather more difficult than using GCSEs and A levels. The problem is partly that when everybody else is using one measure, it is bound to be a little harder to get them to accept something a little different. Getting into university in this way is not particularly common. Still, not everybody wants to go to university and this is another difficulty. Most employers are not familiar with Open University points as a way of judging the educational attainment of a teenager. How many points on what course works out as five GCSEs at A*-C? What is the equivalent to a couple of A levels? As I say, my daughter was doing fine getting a few points at the OU when she was eight. The only thing is, that although she was doing all the work herself, there was no way of checking this. It might have been like a coursework scam and I might have been doing it for her. This makes some course of this sort a little less reliable than if a child actually sits in a room under moderated conditions and takes an examination. The IGCSEs show that she is capable of certain level of work at mathematics; they show that she herself can perform calculus. Points on an Open University course do not necessarily demonstrate the same thing at all.

There is something a little quixotic about the determination of so many home educating parents to avoid GCSEs. It is as though they are set on making life for their children just that little bit harder as they grow up. Everybody else is using an accepted scale of measuring something and they are hell bent on using something quite different.

None of this has anything to do with whether one believes or not that GCSEs or IGCSEs are actually measuring anything or saying anything worthwhile about the intelligence or education of a teenager. It is a matter of realpolitic; this what everybody believes and this is the system which is generally accepted. That being the case, it is hard to see any justification for engaging our children, who are not old enough to make an informed choice in the matter, in opposing the system. Certainly as adults, we can choose to make our lives difficult by being bloody-minded, but it is hardly fair to encourage our children to adopt a similar frame of mind as they deal with the world. Why would you do that, anyway?

A curious case of apparently autonomous education

I am often accused of ignoring evidence for successful autonomous education, although this is not really true. I examine everything in this area closely whenever I get the opportunity. So I was intrigued a couple of days ago when somebody posted the following here;

' My AS child took science GCSE's as a way of consolidating her knowledge, and was very disappointed when she realised that her knowledge already far exceeded that which was necessary for the GCSE course. She got A*s without doing a stroke of work. She is completely self-taught, and was teaching me by the age of 11.'

What are we to make of this? Firstly, it is apparently being touted as a case of autonomous education without any teacher being involved. ' She is completely self-taught' certainly suggests strongly that she taught herself without anybody actually teaching her. For most people, this would indicate that she has not been attending school. Also, this comment was posted following a discussion of autonomous education and home education. The implication is plain. This is certainly the impression which others gained as well. The next comment was;

' well done to your daughter for learning so much without a course, Simon really has no idea, does he?'

This person too seems to have got the impression that the child passed the GCSEs without actually studying a structured course, either at school or anywhere else. She already knew more than enough to pass the GCSEs and barely needed to glance at the syllabus. A clear triumph for the autonomous method.

I found this all very interesting for several reasons. Firstly because I give advice and assistance to some local parents who have withdrawn their children from secondary school. They all want their children to take GCSEs although this is very difficult because of the problems of coursework and practical investigations. If it is possible to take ordinary GCSEs without following a distance learning course or attending school, this would be pretty exciting. Most find GCSEs almost impossible to do out of school unless they have a few hundred pounds to spare on a distance learning course, which these people don't. Science is particularly tricky, because of the practical work. The second point is the use of the plural; ' science GCSE's ' , ' She got A*s '. Obviously, this person's child did not take the usual double award science but instead opted to take separate sciences; biology, physics and chemistry. Now I have to say that I have never heard of any home educated child managing to do this with the standard GCSEs, due to the problems about authenticating coursework and carrying out the practicals in the laboratory. I don't say it has never been done, simply that I have never heard of it, either in those home educators whom I know or on any of the lists. Naturally, I wanted to know more about the business.

Most home educated children who wish to have qualifications in sciences take the International GCSE or IGCSE. This gets round the problem of practical work in the laboratory. There is simply an extra paper which replaces the practical. This is how my daughter took her examinations in physics, biology and chemistry. My daughter of course did not attend school for a single day of her life, nor did she ever follow a distance learning course or anything of that sort; a genuine case of home education.

Now one of the people who commented about this may well have thought that, ' Simon really has no idea, does he?'. I understood this to be a reference to my supposed inability to appreciate the efficacy of autonomous education. Actually, I did have an idea; the idea being that there was more to this case of a child apparently being completely self-taught and breezing through separate sciences at GCSE than met the eye. So it proved, because when I asked about the circumstances, I was told, 'To answer your question on yesterday's post, my child did GCSE's at school.' This is pretty breathtaking. After claiming that the child was, ' completely self-taught, and was teaching me by the age of 11.' we are now told that she actually attended school and took her GCSEs there like everybody else.

It's a good job that I took the trouble to ask about this because otherwise people might have gone off with the impression that here was a child who simply taught herself science by the age of eleven and then passed science GCSEs without studying any course or syllabus. Let's hope that this scotches at least one little myth in the making. In fact this is just the sort of anecdote which many parents of ordinary schoolchildren tell all the time and nothing to do with home education. I have lost track of the number of parents who have told me, 'My daughter is so bright. She already knew everything that the teachers tried to tell her and she didn't do a stroke of work; just sailed through her GCSEs. And she got A* for them all'. My daughter did actually get all A* for her IGCSEs, but it took some pretty hard work by me teaching and her studying! I couldn't truthfully say of her that 'she didn't do a stroke of work'! See;

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/efnews/4569389.LOUGHTON__Home_educated_girl_gets_eight_A_s/


Shortly after this discussion on the comments, somebody posted a link to a GCSE course in Coventry which they thought might be suitable for home educated children;

http://www.covcollege.ac.uk/courses/Pages/Types/Course.aspx?@ID=882


I followed this up, but it is really aimed at overseas students from whom fees may be extracted. The person to whom I spoke at the college was surprised at the idea of a teenager without any experience of previous GCSEs starting the course and did not think it very likely. Back to the drawing board I fancy on this one.