Education secretary reveals plans as part of wide-ranging white paper covering teacher training, discipline and accountability
The GCSE structure of frequent, piecemeal modular exams is to be abolished and replaced with a single exam at the end of the study period, Michael Gove, the education secretary, said yesterday.
A wide-ranging white paper, covering teacher training, discipline and accountability, which is to be published this week, will not contain the once-touted plans to allow grammar schools to expand – an omission that will upset Conservative traditionalists.
The radical plan to fund schools directly, and prevent local education authorities from top-slicing grants, was in late drafts of the white paper, but has also been dropped on the grounds that it runs against the government's decentralisation plans.
"We want to get rid of modularisation of GCSEs," Gove said. "Instead of GCSEs being split into bite-sized elements we think it's important that at the end of the GCSE course, the student should be examined on everything they have learnt at one time.
"So we'll have fewer exams but a concentration on a more rigorous approach at age 16. I think that balance between a greater emphasis on standards but also greater freedom for teachers to teach and less time and money being spent on examinations is a good thing."
Ministers believe splitting GCSE into four sections has contributed to dumbing down, because pupils are able to improve their marks by re-sitting exams. Multiple assessments mean children spend excessive time revising for the next exam, rather than simply learning, they claim.
Gove dropped his ambitious plans to bypass local government and fund state schools directly from Whitehall after a revolt by Conservative councillors and advocates of localism, including Liberal Democrats in the government. He said: "We will be funding schools through local authorities as we do at the moment."
The shadow education secretary, Andy Burnham, said: "The education budget is in a mess. Just this morning we have heard Michael Gove make a U-turn on the role of councils on schools funding and put a misleading spin on the pupil premium.
"Gove's position is changing from one week to the next. He's in a rush to reform and he's making mistakes. Schools know a charlatan when they see one."
For teachers, the white paper will end the "no touch" rules that prevent them from using reasonable physical force to restrain a disruptive child and it will allow them to discipline children outside school hours. Teachers will also be granted anonymity when they are accused of mistreating a child, until the case is settled. However, schools will have to take greater responsibility for pupils expelled from their school.
Gove will also reform league tables to prevent schools from using vocational exams as a way of boosting their ratings.
On grammar schools, he said: "We have no plans to change the position we have inherited on grammar schools. In any area where there is population growth, that local authority can take a view on allowing schools to expand, but we are not allowing selection to grow outside those areas."
However, the Sutton Trust, which seeks to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds, says pupils should take GCSEs at 14 and then choose between academic, vocational or technical training routes that would give them better chances of getting good jobs.
The study, published as the government is pushing ahead with its school reforms, says that if the options were attractive and genuinely useful, young people would be happy to stay on in education and training. It would ensure there were enough people trained with the right skills to work in industries like engineering and pharmaceuticals, said one of the authors, Prof Alan Smithers.
He and Dr Pamela Robinson, both from the University of Buckingham, compared education systems in the 30 OECD countries and concluded that upper secondary education in the UK lacked "both the clear shape and widespread appeal" of that in other nations, and was squeezed into just two years.