Rishi Sunak's idea for a "British Baccalaureate"

It concerns me as it will put some students off continuing their education. My DD has a degree from a Russell Group university and an MA, but I doubt she would have coped if she had been obliged to study maths till 18 - she failed GCSE maths 3 times, and has no idea about mathematical concepts - it is a total block. I fear she might have been less inclined to go for A-levels if she had been shackled to repetitively flog this subject to death that she simply could not do. And then she would have missed out on all that further educational success.

Her 6th form college agreed to let her stop trying for it as they could see it was a lost cause.

She is of course numerate in the sense of coping with every day life, but abstract mathematical concepts are a complete blank space on her brain. There is no point in her studying them.

Studying maths to 18 would have done my DD no good at all. She failed maths at GCSE, and was subsequently tested and found to have discalculia.

They more or less do that here but they grade the maths into three different categories so those who love it can do the 2 higher categories and the others do the general one. Everyone has to do English. I think maths is optional but very highly encouraged.

I could be your daughter in this situation Luckygirl. I can navigate mortgages, pension schemes and work out the price of a carpet after measuring a room, but I failed my maths O level. I had been put in a group to take maths and English at 15, and whilst I walked through the English exam it was obvious that I was in the wrong class for maths, and when I rejoined the ‘take it at 16’ class I was behind, as the curriculum was different.

I have 3 degrees (two postgrad ones) and one of them involved advanced statistics - I am not innumerate - but I doubt I would have achieved any of that if I’d had to take advanced maths to pass an entrance exam. I don’t think that being able to do maths in a theoretical context makes someone better educated - it’s just a different skill, and all subjects should have equal value. I have no problem with raising standards but I think that education should be inclusive not exclusive, and insisting on maths would exclude a lot of people.

Doodledog - I so agree. A lot of school maths has no practical application in the real world for the majority of students, so should be on a need-to-know basis for those who struggle with the subject.

My DD used to make us all laugh - we were laughing with her not at her - as very occasionally she would get a problem right, using her strategy of multiplying, dividing, subtracting, adding at random ... by the law of averages she occasionally got something right!

She could just about do arithmetic, but anything more abstract was lost on her. I am guessing that nowadays she would be classed as having dyscalculia.

I am proud that she is entirely open about her inability at maths and does not pretend to be able to do it ... she is confident in her own skin and feels no need for pretence. She asks for help when she needs it with no loss of face. Good for her!

I agree leave well alone. A levels allow for a deeper study of a subject which indicates something of their ability to study at the higher level that most universities require. Of course a good general education is something that we hope to acquire but by 16 surely the chance to explore and work at subjects of special interest is likely to assist in the acquisition of study skills which are necessary for the more focussed learning required to assist in future work ambitions.

This seems another ill- thought out wheeze by Sunak, which will have no legs and disappear along with all the other panic induced ideas he is coming up with in the hope one of them will help turn the tide of his plummeting poll ratings.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

You sometimes wonder where they get ideas like this. Sunak is an expert educationalist ? I don’t think so.

It sounds like reinventing the wheel and over-egging it at the same time.

"In my day" (1971) everyone had to take Maths, English and A Foreign Language to 'O'-level. I think 'O'-level Maths and English was required for university entry, regardless of the subject to be studied.
I think this gave us a basic breadth.

I'm entirely numerate, I enjoyed Algebra because it felt like code-breaking, and I even use basic Geometry in real life, occasionally, but more advanced Maths would have been a total penance.

If I could have stood on my head, I could have learned any number of foreign languages, still can (the languages, not the gymnastics).

I stopped at O level - zero-interest.

He is totally out of touch with the world that most of us live in. What we really need is decent technical courses for the young people who struggle at school but are more than capable of finding their feet once they are in the world of work. He'll be suggesting that Latin is taught in primary school next. We have an IB which is great for able kids, absolutely no need to waste money on changing the exam system once again, the only people who would want that is the educational publishers!

Absolutely agree - lots of stuff to worry about in schools without Mr Sunak airing his pet peeves. Locally, the schools offer a choice of the IB or A levels. Leave the teachers and students alone for a while, PM - get in with a few(?) other jobs you have in your in tray. The bee in your bonnet can wait for another day .

Hmm foxie - wasn't it a minster a few years ago pushing Latin in schools as students studying Latin were less represented in the group of teenage pregnancies... no! honestly!

I am sick of governmental micro-management in education - and by people who know b****r all about it!

Ideas written in the back of an envelope that hark back to the public school attitudes shared by many in government. Much of it flies in the face of teacher/educationalist advice.

They need to butt out and let teachers teach.

Get the Education system, teachers pay and funding sorted for the current system we have before you make a ‘sound bite’ introducing something that will only work if the basics are sorted first.

I’m not sure about maths at Baccalaureate standard, but I do think some sort of ‘functional’ maths qualification, the basics needed for everyday life, is a good idea. But doesn’t such a thing already exist, apart from maths GCSE?

As for English, the general standard of SPAG is enough to make many of us despair. Why on earth is it so hard to teach children e.g. where to put an apostrophe? I had no trouble teaching such things to classes of mostly speakers of Arabic.

And I strongly disagree with anyone saying or thinking that nobody cares about such things any more. IMO it’s doing children and young people a great disservice to let them think any such thing. Just for a start, basic mistakes on a CV are all too likely to have them ending up in the bin - I know someone far younger than I am, who readily admits to this as an initial ‘weeding out’ of basically very similar CVs, and I wouldn’t mind betting that she’s far from alone.

I don’t think RS is going to be PM going forward so his ideas seem pretty irrelevant.

I don't see the problem. It has always been this way in European countries.

So that makes it ok? That's strange logic.

I’m not sure about maths at Baccalaureate standard, but I do think some sort of ‘functional’ maths qualification, the basics needed for everyday life, is a good idea. But doesn’t such a thing already exist, apart from maths GCSE?

I agree that qualifications should exist, so that those who are good at the subjects can have that recognised; but I don't think that not having passed in one subject (whatever it is) should bar someone from studying a different one. It could equally be argued that History is an essential subject, as it teaches people to make parallels between the past, present and future, to produce reasons why things happened and to present them in a structured argument, but you never hear people say that you shouldn't be allowed to study Engineering unless you have studied History to A level. To me, saying you need Maths to be allowed to study History is exactly the same.

Until 16 yes, but not until 18.

Some pupil leave school at 16 to take up college courses, apprenticeships etc and will be taking Maths appropriate to their career choices, not necessarily the type which would be included in a Baccalaureate.
Practical Maths of the kind required for everyday life is a good idea but what is his plan?

Pupils in Wales can take a Welsh Baccalaureate alongside GCSEs; it is considered to be equivalent to one 'A' level but taken at 16.

Chocolatelovinggran

Hmm foxie - wasn't it a minster a few years ago pushing Latin in schools as students studying Latin were less represented in the group of teenage pregnancies... no! honestly!

😃

I loved Latin - is that why I was an elderly primigravida?
I never connected it previously