As part of their remit to develop the 21st century GCSE, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority commissioned an evaluation of the pilot programme; the findings were published in 2005. An independent evaluation was also carried out by the University of Leeds, and published in February 2007.
These evaluations are helping to inform QCA’s wide ranging evaluation of the changes made to the Key Stage 4 curriculum from September 2006, which is currently under way.
The Government collect information on schools that entered pupils for the three separate science GCSE examinations, rather than schools which offered these subjects. This information for pupils taking their exams in 2006 is summarised in the table.
If a school offers the three subjects, but pupils elect not to take them, the school will not be classified as offering the separate sciences.
School type1 Total number of schools Schools offering separate science GCSEs, 2006 Percentage of schools offering separate science GCSEs Independent2 615 408 66 Grammar 164 118 72 Science colleges 234 135 58 Other maintained mainstream schools 2,727 706 26 Total 3,740 1,367 37 1 Schools are only included once in the first category that applies 2 Only independent schools with more than 20 pupils at the end of KS4 and one or more pupils gaining 5+ A*-G (used as a proxy for offering GCSEs).