What’s Wrong with a Plain Old GCSE?

Ask your parents, and they’ll tell you that the golden age was when you did o-levels, a-levels and had to study latin. And at this point in time, I’d almost agree with them. Nowadays, you can get more qualifications than you can shake a stick at: ‘Cambridge Pre-U’s’, ‘Diplomas’, ‘B-Techs’, ‘AS-Levels’ and god only knows what else.

I’m doing my GCSE’s at the moment, and my school is forcing me to take additional exams I don’t even want to do! It’s one thing to still force me to do a language, (which, after much campaigning, I managed to drop) it’s another thing to force me to do I.T ’short course’ (which I’m still not sure why it’s called that because it still takes 2 years to do!) but then, just before we go off on study leave, the lovely new deputy head told us he’d entered all of us for 2 additional exams. This may sound good to some, because that’s 2 additional GCSE’s isn’t it? Short answer: No. These are the still-being-tested maths and IT function skills. There’s also an Engish function skills exam but we weren’t doing it. I spoke with the Engish department and they said they refused to teach it because it “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on”.

So, what are these function skills exams? I hear you all cry. Well, I wasn’t sure myself, so I searched the internet looking for what they were, and what they were worth. I found lots of “they boost the childs mathmatical skills” and “they prepare for the jobs of the future” but not actually what they were. Then I stumbled upon an article about them, which pretty much summed them up. They’re for people who can’t get 5 GCSE’s, and need an additional qualification. So why was a grammar school entering all their pupils?! (I’m not allowed to mention which grammar school, because the head teacher prowls the internet looking for articles/videos featuring the schools name, and then threatening the pupil to take it down) Unfortunatly, I have no answer to this question. The responces I got were something along the lines of “why not?” Interesting fact to know, the deputy who entered everyone also changed the lessons so year 10 and 11’s lessons were all double. Imagine, with the looming threat of GCSEs hanging overhead, how much attention gets paid in a 100 minute lesson. The head teacher also dropped drama and shows clear signs of autism, being untaturally obsessed with uniform. Getting the idea of what kind of school I go to?