Front page news
Bedales’ vision for the next decade is the focus of a feature article, Inside Bedales, published by The Times on 18 September, and featured on its front pages.
Features writer Helen Rumbelow visited Bedales following the news that the school plans to increase the number of Bedales Assessed Courses (BACs) students study with a reduction in the number of GCSEs to two, retaining English Language and Maths. The first students to benefit from this change are current Block 1 (Year 7) students, who will have the option to drop below the current five GCSEs in a phased transition from 2026.
Students will instead take more of the school’s own BACs, which have been offered alongside a core of five GCSEs for almost 20 years, in a mix of traditional and unique subjects. BACs offer students more choice, comprise a much wider range of assessment methods such as vivas, presentations, and continuous assessments, and, the school believes, prepare students much better for A Level study and university.
The article explains that the move has sparked debate in the education sector, citing views from both critics and supporters. With GCSE reform currently attracting attention from two separate House of Lords' commissions, Bedales – having taken the lead on the issue – is described as taking “its difference seriously”.
Insight is given into Bedales’ unique educational philosophy, from its “thoughtfully radical” founding under John Badley in 1893, becoming one of the first co-educational boarding school in 1898 and Badley’s own dislike of external examinations, to the introduction of BACs in 2006.
Current Bedales students Siena, Sophie, Lolo and Wulfie also share their perspectives, commenting on the restrictive nature of GCSEs and their assessment methods, which they say promote memorising answers for an exam rather than truly understanding the subject matter.
In a follow-up letter to The Times this week (Reform of GCSEs, 21 September 2023), the Head of City of London School for Girls, Jenny Brown, expressed her support for Bedales and Latymer Upper (another school reducing its GCSEs) describing their academic leaders as “visionary and brave” and citing GCSEs as a “problematic, stress-inducing series of exams”.