The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a new performance measure for any student who secures good GCSE or accredited Certificate passes in English, mathematics, history or geography, two sciences and an ancient or modern foreign language.  The Government intends the EBacc to become one of the main measures of achievement for schools in the future.

The importance of a balanced curriculum

We know that you are considering carefully your response to the changing curriculum landscape, including the introduction of the English Baccalaureate and the Wolf Review into the future of vocational education. We recognise the importance of a balanced curriculum to help all students fulfil their potential, whatever their educational needs and learning goals.

“The English Baccalaureate will be only one measure of performance, and should not be the limit of schools’ ambitions for their pupils. Schools will retain the freedom to innovate and offer the GCSEs, iGCSEs and other qualifications which best meet the needs of their pupils. Pupils will, of course, be able to achieve vocational qualifications alongside the English Baccalaureate.”
The DfE White Paper, “The Importance of Teaching”

Supporting your curriculum development in a changing landscape

Breadth of qualifications Edexcel is the UK’s largest awarding body offering academic and vocational qualifications. Our broad curriculum offer includes GCSE, International GCSE, The Edexcel Certificate and BTEC qualifications to help you to deliver your balanced curriculum.

All our qualifications are supported by:

• Our own teaching and learning resources – from textbooks to interactive whole class teaching materials
• Training from Edexcel - face-to-face, online or customised training so you can choose where, when and how you want to be trained
• Subject Advisors - who provide subject-specific advice and guidance.

Find out more about our EBacc GCSE subjects and the support available:

• English: more ways to engage students
• Mathematics: engaging specifications, clear exam papers and exceptional support
• Sciences: all our GCSE Science 2011 specifications are now accredited
• Languages: more choice and control over what you teach
• Geography: with added flexibility to design a course to meet students’ needs
• History: more choice to teach the topics you want.

ResultsPlus EBacc Tracker - new for 2011
ResultsPlus is Edexcel’s free online service that enables you to analyse your students’ examination results. To support your EBacc curriculum further, we are now developing a new EBacc Tracker that will enable you to track your students’ performance across Edexcel’s qualifications recognised for the EBacc. Further information will be available soon.

Help with your departmental budgets
We know that increasing the numbers of students taking a subject has cost implications for resources. And if you switch to a more appropriate specification, you may have training needs as well. So, if you are increasing the number of students taking Edexcel GCSEs in History, Geography or languages, or switching to Edexcel to take advantage of our outstanding qualifications in these subject areas, we will double your departmental spend on our own published resources*. In addition, training on using ResultsPlus or on how to deliver these specifications comes for free, too.

*Minimum spend £100. This offer is available until 31 December 2011. The purchase of these resources is not a precondition for the delivery of these qualifications. Resources for these qualifications may also be available from other publishers.

Keep up to date with the latest policy
Edexcel has been engaging with the government on implementing curriculum change. Read the latest Edexcel Policy Watch on the EBacc. To stay up to date with the latest government policy, sign up for our free online Policy Watch service.