One of the great advantages of home education is that we can escape the constant testing that now goes on in schools. And, if you’re not convinced that constant testing is a problem, I’ll explore the trouble with measurements in another post. However, it is also true that we need to ensure that our children have options for the future and so the question of qualifications eventually arises. So what are the options and what are the advantages and disadvantages of UK and US qualifications in particular?
Let’s start with GCSEs. Are they necessary? The simple answer is no. There is no obligation on students to take GCSEs and, in fact, many students now studying in UK universities don’t have GCSEs. I have taught many students from Hong Kong, for example, who come to the UK for the 6th Form without any public examinations under their belt. They then take A Levels and sail into uni. (Whether A Levels are necessary, I’ll consider below.)
However, it can be difficult to get into 6th Form colleges or Further Education colleges without at least Maths and English GCSEs. The experience of the Bruderhof is interesting here. They follow an American curriculum at their school in the UK and have had no trouble getting their students into British universities but have occasionally had difficulties with students who want to take bricklaying courses, for example. So the last time I checked, they had decided to continue with their American Maths and English curriculum, adjusting it only in the run up to the GCSEs so the students could learn how to master GCSE examination technique and gain those couple of UK qualifications.
But what is the correct number of GCSEs? Students in school can take anything up to 12 GCSEs, though 9 is a fairly standard offering. The obvious difficulty with anything like that number is that everything else goes out of the window and that’s a problem because the classical Christian approach is coherent and piling a bunch of GCSEs together is not. It’s worth recalling Stratford Caldecott’s wise words in Beauty for Truth’s Sake here: “The fragmentation of education into disciplines teaches us that the world is made of bits we can use and consume as we choose. This fragmentation is a denial of ultimate meaning. Contemporary education therefore tends to the elimination of meaning—except in the sense of a meaning that we impose by force upon the world.” Why choose fragmentation when coherence is an option?
Opting for many GCSEs is a sure fire way of creating stress all round. For a start, we have to decide which GCSEs to take. Not just which subjects but which exam boards. There is a wide range of choice, which is attractive in one way but a complete nightmare in another. Finding exactly the right fit for our children is a time-intensive business, and that’s before we even start teaching. So, if we want to teach from rest - and I certainly do - we might decide that the GCSE option isn’t a great one.
But what about taking just GCSE Maths and English? That is certainly a possibility but there are still some practical issues to consider. GCSEs take time – they are essentially 2-year courses – and they need to be taught by someone who understands how the exams are set up. Studying for GCSEs is as much about learning exam technique as it about mastering the content. That means that either there’s a lot of extra work for parents or tutors come into play. However, we should remember that tutors are not necessarily experts in how the exams work either, so we need to tread warily before forking out for extra help.
Taking a few GCSEs may be an option, but is it desirable? Let’s look at the reality in the classroom. For the English GCSE I currently teach, the students have less than thirty minutes to write a mini essay about either Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, or A Christmas Carol, and less than half an hour to write a mini essay on a Shakespeare play. As an inevitable consequence, schools tend to choose the shortest book to teach while students concentrate on learning how to jump through exam hoops. That’s why they tend to be thoroughly sick of GCSEs by the end of Year 11. That’s also why they tend to forget what they’ve learned so quickly. As home educators, we have something better to offer than that.
I should, of course, point out that good teachers can still make a difference in schools, but they make a difference despite the system, not because of it. Imagine walking in the countryside with a Yorkshire Terrier. You may want to enjoy the walk but the dog’s more interested in investigating strange smells. However hard you try, you’re always dragged back. That’s the reality of the GCSE years.
So what other options are there? Some students have got into 6th Form or Higher education colleges on the evidence of their High School diploma. Not all homeschooling programmes provide a High School diploma but there are companies (such as Homeschool Directive) which can help here. (NB: I haven’t used this company, so I’m not in a position to recommend it. I simply point out that this option exists.) The great advantage of the High School diploma is that it is based on the work and activities home educated students are already doing. We don’t need to change the way we’re working simply in order to get examination certificates.
The other option is simply to wait until our children are older and then look at A Levels, APs, the SAT, the ACT, or the CLT. One of the main issues with A Levels, I think, is the content. The ideology behind the exams is often quite different from the ideology we might want for our children and which we might have experienced from classical Christian programmes. Clearly the ideological impact varies from subject to subject but you can imagine where some of the pinch points might be.
So let’s look at other options. A few years ago I contacted lots of British universities to ask how they would regard applications from home educated students. They all went out of their way to say that they don’t discriminate against anyone because of their educational background but they also said that they would need proof of educational attainment, with one option being American qualifications. A Levels are certainly not the only options.
Individual SAT subject tests are no longer available but the general SAT itself shouldn’t present too many difficulties for home educated students if they are prepared to familiarise themselves with the test and do some serious practice. Another option is the ACT, though you might also want to look at the really interesting Classic Learning Test (CLT) which is accepted by lots of Christian colleges in the US, though it would be much less familiar to UK unis. (The CLT, by the way, is also available for younger students.)
Many home educating families are now looking at the CLT or SAT or ACT plus APs, which are loosely equivalent to A Levels in the UK. Here are the different subject options. But what do British unis think about them? I think the easiest way to answer that question is to show you some specific examples from 5 British universities chosen pretty much at random. Let’s start with Kent:
For entry to a Kent undergraduate degree programme, US students typically need to have:
A High School Graduation Diploma with a minimum final GPA of 3.2/4.0
PLUS one of the following:
SAT with a score of between 1290 – 1380 depending on the subject you are applying for OR
ACT with a score of between 27-29 depending on the subject you are applying for OR
2 Advanced Placement (AP) tests with scores of between 4-5 depending on the subject you are applying for
The AP requirement is really surprising, given that APs are usually one-year courses, whereas A Levels are two-year courses. However, Kent may be an outlier so let’s look at other unis, starting with Cardiff which asks for “Three Advanced Placements (APs) with scores in the range of 5,4,4 - 4,4,3”. Durham, Cambridge and King’s College London (KCL) spell out their requirements in much more detail. In fact, in too much detail for me to able to include it in this post. Please do use the links and scroll down the page to see for yourselves.
Of course, all this is built on the assumption that going to (a British) university is necessarily the best option for our children. This is highly questionable but I’d better leave that discussion to another post.
So where does this leave us? The obvious answer is that it very much depends on your child(ren). And, of course, that is as it should be. One of the joys of home education is that it genuinely offers what is nowadays called personalised education. But the bottom line is that there are plenty of good options out there and we don’t need to dive into them too early. We can still give our children time to enjoy their education and become wise.
Perhaps, in the end, what really matters is the context in which their education is received. Parents matter. Teachers matter. Support from other families matters. Maybe now’s the time for more home educating families to come together to look at these options and to pool their expertise.
OK, that’s it for now. It’s a long post but maybe not long enough. I have a feeling this discussion may rumble on for some time. Please do let me know if you have any good ideas or if you think I’ve gone off track.
This is so helpful, thank you for taking time to write and share this Roy!
What a wonderful post - one which will be of such help to parents who are pulled in different directions. Thank you!