Schools are teaching GCSES a year early

 Schools are increasingly teaching GCSES over three years rather than two, Ofsted has found after launching an investigation into how schools “game” the system to boost their position in league tables.

Earlier this year, Amanda Spielman, the Chief Inspector of Education, opened a review into the breadth of the curriculum being offered to pupils amid concern that teachers were sacrificing children’s wider instruction to improve their examination results.

In the preliminary findings of the review, published yesterday, Ms Spielman said that almost half of the schools where her inspectors gathered information had started GCSE syllabuses a whole year earlier than necessary.