I've been saying for years that they should abolish the higher/foundation tier system. It's just as bad as CSEs/O-Levels at creating disparity. Teachers currently make the choice whether to consign someone to a C grade, that's not fair. Everyone should be given the opportunity to get the top grade. The EBacc will open the system up, one exam, for all students, so anyone, no matter what their teacher thinks can do well if they have it in them, and that's a great plus, and a great step forward. So I'm very happy about that.
I also get the sense that these qualifications will test the upper end a lot harder, which needs to happen. For example, a quarter of kids these days get A/A*. There was a time when A/A* was only for the top students, those days need to return, or we need a whole new scoring system (perhaps with numbers, ie: Grade 1,2 etc) to create grades above that. So what I'm saying is there needs to be a way of telling the difference between a low A and a high A... coz at the moment there seems to be a massive standard deviation when that grade is concerned, and the same goes for the A*. I think Gove alluded to that being one of the focuses of the new qualification so I'm glad on that front too. There really does need to be more rigour at the top. No offense to anyone who took GCSEs, well done if you got your 5 A*-Cs, it just seemed to me that when I did them back in 2010 that ANYONE could get 5A*-Cs so long as they actually bothered putting the work in. There needs to be some element of challenge restored, beleive me - that's what kids need to prepare them for AS and also for the world of work.
Abolition of coursework in core subjects is a good move too. We should be testing student's abilities alone, not the ability for a teacher to tell the student an answer. I know that such a thing doesn't exactly happen in coursework, but it comes pretty darn close, they drop so many hints, they practically tell you what to do if you fail the first time. That ain't right in my belief.
What I want to know is - what will happen in the non-core subjects? They aren't part of the English Baccalaureate... so are they still English Baccalaureate Certificates? Or we will be seeing a brand new qualification for those? If we do, then I won't be too happy with that. But we'll wait and see.