Locks Heath / Western Wards’ Brookfield School hit all time high for GCSE results

It’s another record breaking

year for Locks Heath’s Brookfield School as they reach an all time high of 80%

of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C passes in their GCSE exam results – at the time of writing the

highest in the local region.

Deputy Head of Brookfield Ian Gates said,

“We’re delighted we’ve hit 80%! We’ve improved year on year over the past few

years and 80% is a 5% improvement on last year. It’s a testament to all pupils,

staff and parents that we’ve done so well.”

Brookfield achieved 84% with

two GCSEs in science and 7% with a BTEC meaning that more than 90% of pupils

have the equivalent of 2 GCSEs in a science subject – one of the new criteria

Universities are looking for.

Brookfield also did

particularly well in Art with 90% gaining A*-C grades, Media Studies, 82%, and

English, 77% - all above the national average for these subjects (The

Guardian).

Being a language college it

may be no surprise that Brookfield has also excelled with their GCSE results

for foreign languages. A huge 64% of students are leaving with an A*-C grade in a

foreign language. This is well above the national average of 30% and is

significant since the number of children studying a foreign language nationally

continues to fall - despite being another key requirement many Universities now look

for.

Ziggy Liaquat, managing director of the Edexcel exam board, told The Guardian today, "It's

disappointing to see the decrease of languages." He said that knowledge of

languages was "very important" in the global market.

“A lot of schools now don’t

offer foreign languages as they are perceived to be hard,” says Ian, “GCSEs aren’t

getting any easier – standards are going up. At Brookfield we do have a relatively

traditional curriculum with traditional subjects that are as challenging as

they’ve always been.”

Overall 23% of pupils achieved

A-A* in their exams – the national average is 22.6%.

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The GCSE pass rate has gone

up for the 23rd year running. What do you think about this? Are we exam-obsessed

and just teaching our children how to pass exams – rather than real problem

solving skills?

How about the recent study carried out by the Department for

Education that found that those younger pupils, born in the summer don’t do as

well at GCSE level as their older peers? Does the system fail them?

What do you think?