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The Latest Breaking News from GCSE

Fewer pupils in less affluent English schools taking languages, survey finds

Less than half taking foreign languages GCSEs compared with 69% in most prosperous state schools

The Guardian - UK

The foreign language that is now the most popular among GCSE students

The overall number of entries for this summer’s exams for both GCSEs and A-levels has decreased

The Independent UK

Spanish overtakes French as most popular foreign language GCSE, figures suggest

Ofqual has published the provisional number of entries for GCSEs, AS and A-levels in England for this summer’s exam series.

Evening Standard

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‘They are making young people ill’: is it time to scrap GCSEs?

They have shaped the fortunes of young people in the UK for four decades. But now even the former education secretary who introduced these exams wants to see them abolished ...

The Guardian - UK

Think you know a lot about Dickens? Then who’s this Herbert character?

This minor figure from Great Expectations has sown panic at the GCSEs. Be honest: have you even heard of him, asks Zoe Williams

The Guardian - UK

UK government urged to introduce GCSE in Ukrainian for child refugees

Children’s commissioner joins Kyiv in asking DfE to create new qualification to cope with ‘immense upheaval’ of fleeing war

The Guardian - UK

Genius Game: David Tennant’s brainiac gameshow is even duller than doing GCSE maths

Britain loves a gameshow. But the contestants here compete in puzzles so unthinkably boring and complex that you’re baffled from the get-go. Then someone gets locked in a cage …

The Guardian - UK

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Department for Education confirms launch of natural history GCSE

Campaigners have been calling for the qualification for years but plan stalled despite a curriculum being drawn up

The Guardian - UK

GCSEs harm our young people. Ministers should have the guts to abolish them – and start again

A report out this week highlights how destructive the cult of the exam is in Britain’s schools. But it doesn’t go far enough, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins

The Guardian - UK

Education Secretary says London’s falling birth rate brings ‘opportunities to think creatively’

Bridget Phillipson also tells the Standard that Government will ‘look at the evidence’ from Sir Sadiq Khan’s free school meal programme

Evening Standard

Launch natural history GCSE in England now, campaigners urge Labour

Environmentalists say new course could be delayed until 2030 because it is viewed as Conservative party initiative

The Guardian - UK

Would you drop Of Mice and Men from the exam syllabus? The answer isn’t black and white

The book will no longer be studied at GCSE in Wales because many find the racial slurs upsetting. That’s culture war fodder, but it shouldn’t be, says author and broadcaster Nels Abbey

The Guardian - UK

Starmer’s VAT hike will leave some GCSE students without a school by January, warns council

A council has warned that children withdrawn from independent schools because of the VAT hike in January will not be found places at state schools in the county

The Independent UK

‘Why should I study Russian?’ Ukraine lobbies UK to introduce Ukrainian GCSE

About 34,000 Ukrainian children have fled to UK since Russian invasion – yet are unable to study their mother tongue

The Guardian - UK

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Evening Standard

Of Mice And Men and To Kill A Mockingbird removed from Welsh GCSE curriculum

Both American classics have been criticised for their inclusion of racial slurs.

The Guardian - UK

Natural history GCSE on hold as qualification seen as ‘Tory initiative’, claims campaigner

New GCSE was announced under previous government in 2022 but now ‘sitting in limbo’, says Mary Colwell, one of its architects

Evening Standard

Primary school pupils should not have to sit ‘high-pressure’ tests – union

The current curriculum and assessment system is ‘outdated and unfit’, the leader of the largest education union in the UK has said.

The Independent UK

Government should review uninspiring and ‘mechanistic’ GCSE English – exam board

The Department for Education consultation into a review of curriculum and assessment closes this week.

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The Guardian - UK

‘It was a really lonely time’: Alison Moyet and Dave Stewart on making Is This Love?

‘The lyrics reflect the fact that I was in quite a dark place – but subverting it all, in a GCSE English kind of way’

The Guardian - UK

Experts raise concerns over ‘unreliable’ marking of GCSE English

Some high-achieving pupils in England received lower than expected grades that rose after being re-marked

The Guardian - UK

IGCSE maths preparation is easier than GCSE

Letter: Maths teacher Daniel Eglin compares the exams and the pressure they put on students sitting GCSEs and GCSEs

The Guardian - UK

There is no evidence that GCSEs are harder than IGCSEs

Letters: There are many reasons to be sceptical about private schools, but this is not one of them, writes Dr Nick Smith

The Guardian - UK

Where are writers of colour in the school curriculum?

Letters: Thishani Wijesinghe responds to an article by Nell Frizzell about the books she read at school and notes a lack of diversity

The Independent UK

Calls for major change to GCSEs after exam warning

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has commissioned a Government review into curriculum and assessment

The Guardian - UK

The real unfairness and scandal of GCSE exams

Letters: Readers including Corinna Jones and Mary Gildea respond to articles about last week’s GCSE results

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Katharine Birbalsingh

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