Sweeping changes are impending for the UK’s GCSE system — but Eduction Commissioner Wendy McDonnell said it was still too early to guess what format the new exams might take.The old GCSE system is to be shelved by the UK in five years, in favour of an English Baccalaureate.Ms McDonnell, who was on hand in Cambridge last week when reforms were being discussed, said the reforms reflected a need for “more rigour” in the traditional UK secondary school system.“Right now we have no idea what those exams will look like,” she said.“Content will not change, but there will be a change in the form. No data has yet been released on the final exam format.”As the UK pushes for a return to required core subjects, Warwick Academy Deputy Principal Dave Horan said the advent of the EBacc had come as no surprise.“What came as a surprise to me was the speed of the change,” he added.“What are they going to call the exams? Will it affect boards such as Cambridge and the IGCSEs? They are phasing in changes. In the end, it’s going to be an all-change scenario. We’re going to have to watch what happens quite closely.”At present, a range of different examination boards administer the GCSE and IGCSE.“My gut feeling is that the authorities in the UK are going to be setting which boards do which subjects,” Mr Horan said. “They’re businesses, at the end of the day. They won’t necessarily do away with the boards, but possibly have specific boards for specific subjects.“In addition they are removing the modular approach and reducing coursework and controlled assessment with the aim that examinations are written in a linear fashion at the end of the course.”The UK system has been drifting toward the EBacc — in which students take Maths, English, a Foreign Language, a Science and a Humanities subject — for several years now, he said.The EBacc measures the A* to C grades in those five core subjects areas.Currently, he said, exam results vary widely between schools, and simple comparisons by percentage “do not tell the whole story”.“I know that on the Island we currently look at simply how many students get their five A* to C’s. But within that, you have to ask, is it GCSE or IGCSE? And what’s the range of subjects that have been covered?”Warwick Academy, Mr Horan said, is “well set to move with the changes”, as it is focused on the International Baccalaureate programme.“Here, every student does nine subjects following the EBacc range of subjects, as it leads into the IB Diploma. We judge them on those nine and the A* to C they get in those nine.”Mr Horan mulled the idea of local schools collaborating to develop the EBacc into “something Bermudian, at least in name”.“I don’t think it’s necessarily relevant to have the name EBacc in Bermuda,” he said, adding that the idea hadn’t yet been discussed.For Claire Charlemagne, deputy head of academics at Saltus, the switch to EBacc “isn’t a huge shift”.She explained: “All our students do English, Maths, a foreign language and at least one science anyway.“Currently we don’t insist that they do one of the humanities — history or geography. So that will change. But the number of our students already opting for the EBacc subjects in this year’s Year Ten is 56 out of 68.”Like the Island’s public schools, Saltus primarily employs the IGCSE.Asked for her view on a Bermuda-specific EBacc, Ms Charlemagne said: “I have not heard of any move to that. It would be an interesting concept for us to explore.“My concern would be that whatever we prepare our students for has to be internationally recognised as they continue their tertiary education in a wide range of contexts.”Part of the UK’s push to reform the GCSE system comes from a drift away from “core” subjects, purely in the interest of raising scores.Said Mr Horan: “What schools do — and I’m not taking pot shots at anyone, but it’s something that happens — is they get their weakest students sitting subjects where they can get their C or withdrawn them from sitting the exam.“And in the UK they want to get away from that. For example they’ve had far fewer students doing a foreign language as a result of it. But what you also have to appreciate is it’s so politically driven.”Ms Charlemagne said Saltus’s approach was to accommodate a range of abilities.She said: “As much as we push the high flyers, we are also able to provide a modified programme where appropriate.“So some students will achieve 11 GCSEs and equally we have had some students who have been entered for eight. Our standard is nine per student.“I don’t see it as massaging figures. It’s about providing an appropriate and challenging curriculum for the students, in line with their abilities and interests.”As for the new system looming, Ms Charlemagne said: “If the changes lead to having a more rigorous and credible qualification for our students, then I think it’s a good move.”