Did YOU pass the English Baccalaureate?
I have a confession to make - forty years ago this year, I failed the English Baccalaureate. Of course, the English Baccalaureate didn't exist forty years ago - but it still didn't exist last summer when, the government tells us, tens of thousands of teenagers failed it. So this petty objection can not negate my failure.
At the time, I wrongly regarded my GCE O-level record as a success - seven subjects (English Language; English Literature; French; German; History; Mathematics; Music) taken and all passed (equivalent to GCSE A to C grades), with a further two (Additional Mathematics and Latin) taken and passed the next summer.
However, look at the subjects: English? Yes (English Language only counts if you take English Literature as well, but I took both). Maths? Yes (with a second Maths O-level the next year). Languages? Yes (French, German and, the next year, Latin). Humanities? Yes (History). But science? No. So - FAIL!!!
Interestingly, thinking back to the subjects on offer then, I suspect that the grammar school that I attended had a worse success rate in the English Baccalaureate in 1971 than the 29% that the comprehensive it became (in the 1971/2 school year) had last summer. The requirement in English is only one GCSE, but if so it has to be in both language and literature - otherwise, as already mentioned, you have to take both English Language and English Literature, though you only have to pass English Language. The requirement in Science is for a double GCSE or two single GCSEs if they are general science - but if you take GCSEs in individual science subjects, you have to take all three of Biology, Chemistry and Physics and pass two.
Guess what? In 1971, the school only offered English Language and English Literature separately, and it only offered Biology, Chemistry and Physics separately. So, to get the English Baccalaureate, any student would have had to take all five of these. And, as the school timetable was arranged on the assumption that students would be taking exactly eight O-levels, the other three subjects would have had to be Mathematics, one language (which would almost certainly have had to be French - German and Spanish were explicitly offered as second languages, and Latin only from the fifth form (today, Year 11) for pupils with a real interest and taken a year late) and either History or Geography. Rather a prescriptive combination and, I suspect, not even an encouraged one then - it would have been regarded as not specialised enough in either arts or sciences for anyone intending to go to University. Times change.
So that was me. What about you? Did YOU pass the English Baccalaureate?
At the time, I wrongly regarded my GCE O-level record as a success - seven subjects (English Language; English Literature; French; German; History; Mathematics; Music) taken and all passed (equivalent to GCSE A to C grades), with a further two (Additional Mathematics and Latin) taken and passed the next summer.
However, look at the subjects: English? Yes (English Language only counts if you take English Literature as well, but I took both). Maths? Yes (with a second Maths O-level the next year). Languages? Yes (French, German and, the next year, Latin). Humanities? Yes (History). But science? No. So - FAIL!!!
Interestingly, thinking back to the subjects on offer then, I suspect that the grammar school that I attended had a worse success rate in the English Baccalaureate in 1971 than the 29% that the comprehensive it became (in the 1971/2 school year) had last summer. The requirement in English is only one GCSE, but if so it has to be in both language and literature - otherwise, as already mentioned, you have to take both English Language and English Literature, though you only have to pass English Language. The requirement in Science is for a double GCSE or two single GCSEs if they are general science - but if you take GCSEs in individual science subjects, you have to take all three of Biology, Chemistry and Physics and pass two.
Guess what? In 1971, the school only offered English Language and English Literature separately, and it only offered Biology, Chemistry and Physics separately. So, to get the English Baccalaureate, any student would have had to take all five of these. And, as the school timetable was arranged on the assumption that students would be taking exactly eight O-levels, the other three subjects would have had to be Mathematics, one language (which would almost certainly have had to be French - German and Spanish were explicitly offered as second languages, and Latin only from the fifth form (today, Year 11) for pupils with a real interest and taken a year late) and either History or Geography. Rather a prescriptive combination and, I suspect, not even an encouraged one then - it would have been regarded as not specialised enough in either arts or sciences for anyone intending to go to University. Times change.
So that was me. What about you? Did YOU pass the English Baccalaureate?