Last week’s Sunday Survey asked music teachers to look at the draft specifications and say which exam board they were thinking of choosing. Interestingly, the results suggest that Edexcel is still the most popular choice by quite a large margin. At both GCSE and A-Level, 50% of respondents indicated that they were opting for Edexcel.
I was quite surprised to see that Eduqas (the new bran for WJEC’s offer in England) came in as the second most popular choice at GCSE. 28% of respondents said they would offer Eduqas putting AQA into third place with 17%.
At A-Level, the proportions were more in line with my expectations. Edexcel taking 50% but AQA and OCR tied for second place.
As usual, this leaves a few questions that need consideration:
- are teachers sticking with Edexcel because they are familiar with the board?
- has Edexcel’s ‘playing it safe‘ strategy to designing their qualification paid off?
- what is it about Eduqas’ offering that is so popular at GCSE?
- why are teachers not choosing Eduqas at A-Level even if they like it for GCSE?
Just found this – I think people are mad doing the Edexcel A level, it is unteachable if you look closely!!! I’ve said it on the Facebook forums too – all together there about 47 separate pieces music for only 1/3 of the marks in the essays, you then need to be able to write about related works for the other 2/3 of the marks, unrealistic!!!!,….EDUQAS are my clear winners at a level,..straight forward, options for performing/composing and only a few set works, no brainer. GCSE is a tougher choice, still undecided