Claims that students would be limited to sitting eight GCSEs and unable to take the three sciences separately were rejected in the States.
Education president Paul Montague assured the Assembly that such limitations did not feature in his new committee’s plans to drive up standards.
‘We are focusing as a committee very strongly on making sure that our more able students are genuinely stretched and can do as many GCSEs as they want, with the proviso that more does not always mean better,’ he said.
‘It is not the case that students will not be able to take nine GCSEs. It is not the case that any student will not be able to take three separate sciences.’
Citing figures from one secondary school, he said that 13% of students had sat 10 GCSEs and 34% had sat nine, although he added that there was now less focus on encouraging students to take as many courses as possible unnecessarily.
He also challenged the claim that it was always necessary to perform well in all three sciences at GCSE to go onto science courses at A-level.
This summer’s GCSE results showed an improvement in maths, narrowing the island’s gap with England, but there was a significant decline in English results.
‘Analysis is under way and early signs suggest written work is weaker than reading in earlier years,’ said Deputy Montague.
‘For the first time, students sat an Ofqual-approved GCSE, which excludes coursework, and this may have exposed weaknesses that were less visible under the previous qualification.
‘Improving written work in primary schools is therefore a key focus. Early adoption of the new approach shows higher standards and we anticipate wider improvement as it is rolled out. In secondary schools, Ofsted has already praised the English curriculum as strong.’
Deputy Montague was unable to answer a question about the percentage of students obtaining grade four or above in both English and maths this year, a figure which is no longer released by Education in line with recording changes elsewhere, but said he would circulate it next week.
He said that benchmarking results locally against England was difficult but that the Education Office was working on the task and he committed to publish more data as soon as it was available.
In June Education signed a new four-year agreement to continue inspecting States schools. Ofsted was first appointed in 2018 and has inspected schools since the pandemic.
Deputy Montague said it was important to note that no school or setting in any phase had been graded as inadequate, and comparisons gave ‘genuine cause for optimism’.
‘But we need to be clear there is so much more progress to be made. Our next step must be to increase the proportion of schools receiving excellent grades. As we start the second cycle of inspection visits, self-evaluation suggests several schools are close to meeting the criteria to be judged as excellent in a range of areas.’
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