|
T H E E N G L I S H N A T I O N A L P R O G R A M M E
|
 |
|
|
T H E E N G L I S H N A T I O N A L P R O G R A M M E
|
|
This British public exam is always known by these four letters, which stand for ‘General Certificate of Secondary Education’. It marks the end of compulsory education in England, and, like the baccalauréat in France is normally taken in a range of subjects. Students in English schools comparable to the Lycée often take 9 or 10 subjects at GCSE level. Each subject is examined separately; there is no ‘overall’ score, as there is in the baccalauréat.
GCSE is thus the proof of a certain level of general education. Pupils in Britain who stay at school after GCSE specialise, currently taking three to five subjects at AS then 3-4 at A2 (advanced) level. British universities currently base their admissions policy both upon GCSE and AS/A2 level results. Most university courses expect or require passes at grade C or above in at least five subjects at GCSE. This requirement does not apply to pupils in the Programme, who prove their level of general education by taking the baccalauréat.
QCA (The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) oversees the organisations known as examinations ‘boards’, ensuring that standard practices are used by them. The Programme acts as an examination centre for one large board: Edexcel (formerly London board). This means that we can enter candidates for GCSE examinations, which our candidates will sit here within the school. The GCSEs offered by all examination boards are equal in value, but the detailed content of the syllabus varies from board to board.
The main exam taken by English National students is the French baccalauréat. This is enough to gain entrance to English universities (although conditional offers may well demand a certain level of performance). But we offer GCSEs at the end of 2nde, two years before the baccalauréat, for a number of reasons.
All GCSEs are graded on the same series of letter grades. A* is the highest possible and G the lowest pass. UK universities and UK education statistics focus on passes at grade C or higher. Proportions of students gaining a given grade vary from school to school, of course, but national statistics are published each year, allowing us to compare our pupils’ performance with that of all pupils in England and in Wales in the subjects we offer. We cannot compare ourselves with overall school performance, because we offer so few GCSEs.
The GCSE results of our pupils are published (along with other examination results) in the annual Newsletter published by the ALA-ELP Association, normally in December. Current results and an archive of all recent results can be seen on the Exams results page of this website. We publish English/Welsh national GCSE results for comparison.
Our results are consistently well above the national averages. This may be seen as something to be expected, given the socio-economic profile of the school’s catchment area. On the other hand, a high percentage of our GCSE candidates are not of true mother-tongue standard, speaking English only as their second (or sometimes third) language. It should also be born in mind that our students study in English for 6 (or 8) hours only per week, all other subjects and teaching being in French. Keeping these factors in mind, we feel that our students’ results at GCSE are very good.
All GCSE courses should be two academic years in length. Thus some preparatory work is already done within the Programme in 3ème classes. This preparation covers certain skills, as well as some of the syllabus content.
Our student population has a very high turnover rate, so that it is quite common for us to have a large intake of new students at the beginning of the Lycée - that is, at the start of 2nde. These students arrive from a variety of schools: some British, some North American, some French or Swiss. We sometimes accept francophone students who have simply spent a year on an exchange programme in the USA and want to maintain their new, higher level of English.
Our main GCSE course therefore has to be seen as a one-year course, with a certain amount of preparation of most students during the preceding year. Doing coursework and much examination preparation in one academic year makes for an intensive course, which can make high demands on students’ homework time.
The Programme enters all its students in 2nde for both GCSE English and GCSE English Literature. Students who have chosen the Mathematics option in 2nde are also all entered for the examination. We do not try to improve our results by selective entry. Higher and lower tier versions of the examinations exist for the three subjects. The decision as to whether to enter students for higher or lower tier versions of the examinations is taken by teachers, with the student’s best interests in mind, by January of the 2nde year. Parents will be informed of which tier their child is to sit when examination entries are confirmed, and may discuss this with teachers at this point.
The Edexcel board issues and enforces stringent rules about the conduct of examinations. The Programme must follow these at all times, and may be inspected without warning by the board to ensure that examinations are properly run. A poster explaining all the regulations that apply to examinations is on display on the Examinations Notice Board outside room L31 in the Collège. A copy will also be on display outside and inside examination rooms. Teachers and those invigilating examinations will ensure that all students understand these rules and are reminded of them. Our Examinations Officer, Mrs. Clare-Gray supervises application of these rules and all other aspects of running of these examinations.
All examination boards in the UK charge fees for entries. The Programme passes on to families not just these costs, but also the costs of running and administering the examination centre, and the costs of engaging qualified invigilators to supervise examination sessions. The cost will be stated when families are asked to confirm entries before Christmas in the 2nde year. Such examination charges are included in the second ENP bill.
GCSE papers normally start in mid-May and go on until mid-June. A general calendar giving the dates of the GCSE papers is issued by the board some months before the examination sessions. This is displayed on the Programme's Examinations notice board (outside L31 in the Collège) as soon as it arrives. Candidates should check this board and note dates of papers carefully. Subject teachers also communicate these dates to pupils. Later in the year, an individual candidate calendar arrives and is distributed to pupils . Candidates are asked to keep this carefully, to note the dates of papers and whether these are in the morning or the afternoon, and to check details such as spelling of names. Any problems should be signalled immediately to the Examinations Officer, Mrs. Clare-Gray.
All candidates must ensure that they consul the Examinations notice board in the Collège for dates, start times and rooms for all GCSE examinations. Papers are taken in special examination rooms, not in normal classrooms. Students must be at the examination room at least 10 minutes before the start time. Some papers may take place in June after the Lycée has closed and buses have stopped running, so that it will be necessary to make special arrangements for transport to and from school.