Over the past few days as sorry tale has unfolded. The new GCSE English literature specifications have been announced in draft form, full of sound and fury, signifying… nothing.
The current GCSE lacks rigour and breadth and challenge. You’re welcome to argue with this, but I think it’s broadly true. Exam boards compete for business by positioning themselves as the ‘easiest to get a C in’ and schools, unsurprisingly considering the stakes, select the least challenging texts in the altogether understandable aim of getting as many students as possible to pass so that Ofsted will leave them alone. This is reality.
It’s all very well the DfE claiming that, “new GCSEs in English Literature will be broader and more challenging for pupils than those available at the moment. They will give pupils the chance to study some of this country’s fantastic literary heritage”, but these worthy intentions have been watered down to the point of nothingness.
If the exam boards have their way it’ll be possible (although hardly desirable) for students only to study the following selections:
AQA: Romeo & Juliet, The Sign of Four, Blood Brothers
Edexcel: Romeo & Juliet, A Christmas Carol, Blood Brothers
OCR: Romeo & Juliet, War of the Worlds, Anita and Me
WJEC: Romeo & Juliet, War of the Worlds, Blood Brothers.
What does that offer in terms of this country’s fantastic literary heritage? I’m not saying these texts are bad. But I’m happy to scoff in the face of anyone who believes Blood Brothers is more challenging than Of Mice and Men. It might be more fun, but it hardly represents “a broader and demanding range of literature”.
But how about the claim that children will now read full texts instead of extracts? Well, I might be wrong about this but according to AQA’s specimen papers it very much looks like are offering pre release information on chapters or acts that will be examined and publishing extracts for candidates to write about. A fig leaf is held up over the pretence that students will read whole texts by adding a generic secondary question which reads “How does x portray y in the play/novel as a whole?” Mmm. I’m sure that’s impossible to game!
Of course there will be teachers inspired to teach Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, Silas Marner, Great Expectations and Pride and Prejudice but they will be minority; most will buckle under the pressures of accountability. SO is there anything we could do to actually increase breadth and challenge?
Well, how about this for a bit of a left-field idea: although papers will be untiered, maybe we could tier the texts? Maybe we could reward schools for choosing more challenging texts by adjusting how marks are awarded? So for instance if we take the example of Edexcel’s post-1914 texts, we could acknowledge that Lord of the Flies and Hobson’s Choice are objectively more challenging reads than An Inspector Calls and Blood Brothers and reward candidates more highly if they chose to answer questions on these more challenging texts.
Now, there might be some really excellent reasons why this wouldn’t work, and I’m not claiming any kind of expertise in this area: it’s simply an idea. But if we’re serious about increasing the breadth and challenge of literary texts studied in schools and if we really want pupils reading ‘the best of what’s been thought and said’, we need offer a workable incentive.
What do you think? Could this work?
UPDATE: I’ve just had a chat with Amanda Spielman, Chair of Ofqual and she reckons it might be possible! The draft specs are up for accreditation in the next few weeks, so watch this space.
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This is exactly what used to happen in GCSE music when I taught it. Harder performance pieces were double or even triple weighted.
So, it’s doable then? Good to know, thanks.
Multipliers disappeared a long time ago in music. Today the difference is marginal because they want candidates to play within their ability, rather than make a mess out of a harder piece. There is still a sliding scale – have a look at page 84 of the A level specification: http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCE%20New%20GCE/UA035245_GCE_Lin_Music_Issue_5.pdf
Oops, page 82
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This might be beside the point you are making, but I think there are further opportunities to increase breadth and challenge in the study of literary non-fiction for the Language GCSE.
Yep, there might. And those opportunities should certainly be taken.
I agree with you on the pre-release idea. When I saw it, I thought, ‘Oh, I see. THAT’S how they get the grades ….’ What’s to stop schools from studying those chapters/scenes in depth so that students get the marks on those, even if the rest of the question is managed from the film version/summaries from GradeSaver …? It doesn’t seem a lot more challenging at all.
Indubitably, yes.
It’s good to think of alternative ideas but this doesn’t provide either a cure or relieve the symptoms – it can’t not without re-thinking how the system as a whole works.
Not a cure:
– the debate about Exam Board choices obscures the fact that something much more pernicious is happening to the exam system (and washing back into curriculum, teaching and learning). Glenys Stacey (2012): “When regulators get together, that’s [risk] pretty much all we talk about – risk, and the risky things we regulate. It is always a hot topic for us.” The GCSE has too many uses (especially as an indicator – of school success, teacher pay levels, international comparison, LEA/Academy Chain success etc, etc). It cannot be broad and imaginative and challenging because things which are, cannot be marked reliably and risk-reduction presupposes reliability. Ofqual needs stable indicators (see also its intention to introduce another benchmarking exam in 2017 and benchmark top of Grade 4’s against PISA results) and stable indicators need narrow, homogenous, comparable domains of knowledge. Sense the tension here between risk-reducing regulation of assessment and education?
– re Ofqual’s PISA-benchmarking idea: compare what skills/knowledge PISA tests and GCSE has traditionally been thought to do. Guess which direction we’re headed in. Especially without any QCDA to counter the reliability-drive in assessment.
No relief of symptoms:
– In music, both novices and experts play the same notes in any given piece ie the piece is fixed. The notes might be played differently but they are the same notes, or should be! In responding to a text, an exam board can (and they do) adapt questions to make them harder/easier to compare with other questions on other texts and to differentiate candidates. You’d now have another variable to decide the grade outcome and exam boards would find that difficult or impossible to manage. Despite what Amanda Spielman suggested, I don’t think Ofqual in its risk-reduction role would ever allow it.
– What’s the exchange rate between a “Hobson’s Choice” and a “Blood Brothers”? How would you ensure it was a fair conversion without another benchmark exam to guarantee that the young people doing it have got the right rate driving the calculation that produces their final grade?
– As English teachers isn’t it more important with we *do* with texts? Where we take the kids with/through/beyond the text in hand?
Sorry for the long-winded reply and I really do mean it when I say we need alternative ideas, we really do and in general I love yours, it’s just that in this case the overbearing assessment system has pretty much decided against any innovation that could be useful. Great blog, thank you!
In Massachusetts they do a lot of texts. The syllabus for my old high school is the following: Antigone, Ellen Foster, Macbeth, Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, To Kill a Mockinbird, Catcher in the Rye, King Arthur and his Noble Knights.
‘Depth’ is overrated, especially at age 15. Give them exposure to a lot of things. We should aim for ‘everything on the list’. If not, then we should just hold the list and syllabus until there is six weeks left in the term. Anyone can do this crap list in six weeks. Including our kids, who someone believes are so dumb they need two years to do it.
As in previous years when politicians stick their snout in the ‘English GCSE trough’, debate centres around the texts to be or not to be studied. Let us look at the assessment objectives. let’s look at the nuanced shifts in teaching focuses. Let’s consider the new requirement to teach / assess / whatever. The requirement to ‘use subject terminology’ that lies across both draft papers is a focus that could be overlooked when the discussion seems centred on whether to teach ‘Great Expectations’ or ‘Pride and Prejudice’.