It “may make sense” for schools to drop a GCSE for some students because of the amount of learning lost due to the coronavirus crisis, Ofsted’s chief inspector said this morning.
Amanda Spielman acknowledged that schools have got “tough decisions” to make but also warned them against slicing “chunks” out of the curriculum
She was being asked about reports that some schools may ask pupils to drop subjects in the arts, languages or humanities next year to boost their GCSE scores in English and maths.
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Speaking on Radio 4‘s Today programme, Ms Spielman said: “I very much hope that nobody will be jumping to decisions to stop any subject across the board for all children; what’s important is that schools concentrate on doing as much as they can.”
Coronavirus: Small minority ‘could drop a GCSE subject’
She added: “No two ways about it, a lot of teaching time has been lost for some children, so schools have got some tough decisions to make, but those should be made in the interests of each individual child, not in a blanket way to do what’s convenient for the school.
“It may make sense for a small minority of children, perhaps, to drop a subject that they might otherwise have been doing, or for schools to decide that they would provide a curriculum that has slightly less scope in primary school in some subjects to make sure that the core English and maths do get fully back on track, but that’s very different from wholesale slicing out of chunks of curriculum.”
Her comments are in line with Department for Education guidance for schools for next term, published last week, which says: “In exceptional circumstances, it may be in the best interests of a Year 11 pupil to discontinue an examined subject because the school judges that, for example, they would achieve significantly better in their remaining subjects as a result, especially in GCSE English and mathematics.”
Ms Spielman was speaking on the day Ofsted announced its plans for visits to a sample of schools next term, which will include a focus on blended learning.