HEAD teachers across the region say they will not force students to take GCSE subjects to suit the Government’s new English Baccalaureate league table.

Education secretary Michael Gove announced last week that schools will now be judged on how well their students perform in the ‘English Bacc’ set of subjects – English, maths, science, a foreign language and either history or geography passed at grade C or above.

The controversial judgement has seen many schools across the region, who typically gain five A* - C percentages at GCSE, fare badly in the English Bacc league table because their students took exams in arts subjects, IT and sport.

Dramatic differences between the two scores were highlighted at Kirkby Stephen Grammar School where just five per cent of students received the Bacc compared to a pass rate of 63 per cent of five A * to C grades at GCSE.

At Cartmel Priory C of E where seven per cent passed the Bacc but 58 per cent got five A * to C.

Cartmel Priory head teacher Dr Paul Williams said: “We won’t make our students take English Bacc subjects just because the Government is now regarding them as the ‘right’ batch of GCSEs to have.

"We want pupils to have free choice.”

Even schools which fared well in the Bacc table are not regarding it as concrete evidence of the ability of students.

Andrew Jarman, headmaster of Lancaster Royal Grammar School, which was in the top 200 schools in the country with 87 per cent of its students gaining the Bacc, said it would be business as usual for this year’s GCSE students.

He said: “It’s a celebration for us to feature in the top 200 but we won’t be trying to ‘up’ our score next year by forcing students to take those subjects.

“For one, the Bacc doesn’t include RE, a subject just as testing as history or geography, so we will keep encouraging our boys to take it if they wish.”

The independent Sedbergh School and Windermere Schools were not ranked in the English Bacc league table because their pupils sit International GCSEs, which were omitted from the criteria.

Head teacher Andrew Fleck said: “The Government should accept the International GCSE qualification as a more demanding exam and give credit to schools who take up that challenge rather than excluding them.

“The reality is that almost 60 per cent of our pupils gained the English Baccalaureate.”

This view was shared by the head of Windermere School Ian Lavender who said last week’s GCSE results were ‘hugely misleading’.

He said: “Many independent schools across the country appeared to perform less well than state schools.

“Our students take IGCSEs in mathematics and modern foreign languages and so any published data which includes these subjects is fundamentally flawed.”