AS-LEVEL RATHER THAN ‘TOO EASY’ GCSE

THE country’s top independent school for GCSEs has already replaced one of the ‘too easy’ qualifications with a more challenging AS-level.

Girls at North London Collegiate School are only entered for an AS-level in English Literature, not the GCSE.

This is because teachers believed it to be ‘very limiting’ and featured too many ‘conventional’ texts such as To Kill A Mocking Bird and Lord of the Flies.

Head of English, Dafydd James-Williams, said the exam was dropped five years ago as the school moved to the Pre-U – an alternative sixth form qualification – in the subject.

He described the GCSE as ‘jumping through hoops rather than actually dealing with quite challenging stuff’. This year, 104 students at the school passed 98.81 per cent of their exams with A or A*, making it top of a GCSE league table for private schools, according to data released by the Independent Schools Council.

Girls at North London Collegiate sit IGCSEs in modern foreign languages, computing, science, maths, geography, music and English language and conventional GCSEs in other subjects.

Headmistress, Mrs Bernice McCabe said: ‘It goes along with our philosophy of trying to offer the most ambitious courses.

‘I think pupils rise to a level of ambition. If you offer them something ambitious and give them inspirational teaching and support, then they rise to that challenge.’