INTERNATIONAL GCSEs - known as IGCSEs - are growing in popularity but are not yet recognised by the Government. Yarm School headmaster David Dunn explains why they are here to stay whether Whitehall likes it or not.

LIKE many top-performing schools in both the state and independent sectors, Yarm School offers the international GCSEs (IGCSEs) as a more challenging alternative to the traditional GCSE examination – a step welcomed by stakeholders at school as well as both universities and employers.

IGCSEs have existed for many years and are set around the world by schools which offer an English curriculum. They have long been favoured by many independent schools, as they have been shown to offer more ‘rigour’ than domestic GCSEs because they are not controlled by politicians they have not been subjected to the ping-pong of political interference.

The examinations are rather more traditional and are considered by many heads to offer a better preparation for tackling A-levels in the sixth form.

Figures from the Department for Education and Skills (DfE) suggest that IGCSEs are also becoming increasingly popular with state schools after the present Government decided in June 2010 to allow these schools to offer the qualifications.

The numbers rose by 33 per cent last summer to 129,288 - accounting for 32 per cent of year 11 exam entries. GCSEs, by comparison, fell from 293,335 to 274,183.

IGCSEs are usually “linear”, meaning they have exams at the end of the two-year course, while in recent years many GCSEs have been modular, with students sitting papers in batches throughout the academic year combined with elements of coursework.

Yarm School decided to move to IGCSEs over ten years ago, and we have gradually increased the number of subjects offered. We currently provide IGCSEs in the core subjects of maths, English language, English literature, biology, chemistry, physics and business studies and will also be offering it in modern languages from September 2014 and history and PE in 2015.

The students themselves also tend to prefer IGCSEs to standard GCSEs as they can see that the qualifications prepare them more effectively for further and higher education. They provide a more natural transition than GCSEs ever could to the still academically challenging A-Level.

We are consequently seeing some extremely good results since their implementation including a year-on-year rise in the number of students achieving excellent results at A-Level and progressing to University.

This year, nine of the109 upper sixth students have been offered places at Oxford and Cambridge and a further 10 have won places on highly competitive medical, dentistry and veterinary courses. Yet more have won excellent offers for subjects such as English, law, history and psychology. The system is running smoothly and we are seeing excellent results from our hard-working students.

So far, so good, but now the Government is trying to gain control over the IGCSEs. From this year they have started to omit passes in the qualifications from its league tables unless the exam is registered with and approved by the DfE. As a consequence, some IGCSEs were included whilst others weren’t.

The result of the Department for Education’s (DfE) stance was to misrepresent Yarm School, and many other schools, in the national league tables – artificially placing some top performing schools at the bottom of the list.

We choose the most appropriate syllabus and examination for our pupils rather than what will or won’t count in Government league tables; but these lists, which were introduced to inform parents, now have to be read with caution.

Representations have been made to the DfE and Government to address the issue.

The IGCE will increasingly become a core part of the curriculum as growing numbers of schools adopt it as a more reliable and rigorous alternative. As Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, has said – and these are sentiments I agree wholeheartedly with - he can see “no signs” of the switch towards the IGCSE abating, adding: “I don't think there is any evidence that it has reached its peak.”