Newcastle North MP, Catherine McKinnell, has spoken up in the House of Commons this afternoon about the potential impact of the Government’s new ‘English Baccalaureate’ (E-Bac) qualification on some schools in her constituency. Speaking during oral questions to Education Ministers, Catherine raised her concerns that the top-down imposition of this new performance measure risks undermining the hard work that has taken place on improving standards in local schools over recent years.

Catherine said:

“As I said in the Commons this afternoon, schools like Walbottle Campus in my constituency have seen impressive improvements in GCSE performance in recent years – thanks to significant investment, and the hard work and commitment of staff, governors, pupils and parents. 40% of of Walbottle pupils in 2010 achieved at least five A-C* grades at GCSE, including in Maths and English and, whilst always striving to improve, it is a good increase on the 30% reaching this standard in 1997.

“However, only 5% of Walbottle pupils achieved the so-called E-Bac qualification last year and I am really concerned that this E-Bac by diktat is an attempt to diminish all the hard work and commitment of everyone involved with Walbottle in creating a broad curriculum that enables all students to thrive.

“In Opposition, the Conservatives repeatedly blamed ‘top-down targets’ for any failings in society, yet the Education Secretary has simply imposed upon schools a highly-prescriptive measure of performance which fails to value the arts, technology, religious education, business or economics – which are vital if we are to provide young people with a truly well-rounded education and real employability skills.

“By focusing solely on the E-Bac subjects we risk de-prioritising investment and attention in more vocational subjects, which many young people excel at and are indeed vital for today’s modern world of work”.

Notes:
1) The Department for Education’s White Paper (October 2010), The Importance of Teaching, announced the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (‘E-Bac’), as a new way of measuring pupils’ performance at GCSE level. In order to obtain the E-Bac, GCSE pupils need to achieve a grade A*-C in English, Maths, Science, a language and a ‘humanity’ (only History or Geography are included in this category).
2) An Addendum to the White Paper (December 2010) announced that the new E-Bac ‘indicator’ would be reported in the 2010 School Performance Tables, published in January 2011, despite pupils not knowing at the time of selecting their GCSE subjects that their performance would be measured in this way.