Changes to GCSE and A-level 2021

Can't drop the Shakespeare thank goodness so that's got to be a good choice for summer work ihearttc. I would imagine your school will drop poems

Yes schools can choose. Can't see many choosing to drop AIC tho as it's the most accessible text for sure.

DS1 has done An Inspector Calls and Jekyll and Hyde and some of Romeo and Juliet (was in the middle of it when they went into lockdown), nothing on poetry at all. So which bit are they likely to drop? Clearly not Romeo and Juliet much to his disgust! Would be helpful to know as they have revision to do over the summer and it’s pointless revising something which they may not even do.

So the school choose which text to drop for English Lit? DD's school has done Romeo and Juliet and A Christmas Carol and some poetry (but not much) so most likely they will drop poetry or An Inspector Calls (which they haven't started yet)?. She is praying they will drop poetry as she is better at the other texts.

Something like that

So A level students are fucked then?

Eng lit change is for all GCSEs but not clear if IGCSES as well.

No French speaking exam, just teacher assessment and won't count towards grade.

eat the changes are from Ofqual- they’re all in the document.

is the change in English lit purely AQA or does it cover Edexcel and iGCSe?

Will there be a speaking exam for French?

DD is doing GCSEs next year.

She's delighted that they have dropped the poetry section from English and Russian history.

Art will be assessed on portfolios - no 8 hour exam !

My DD has done 'An Inspector Calls', 'A Christmas Carol' and was about to start on Poetry when she went back to school. I assume the school will drop the Poetry and move straight on to Shakespeare so it's worked out well here. The reduced History content will also make a difference as well. Am concerned about the lack of allowance made for the heavy content in her triple science though but we will see how her school copes with it I suppose...

Btw have been asking Eng lit teachers and apparently in EdExcel the poetry, including seen and unseen, is equally weighted with all the other elements (40 marks for each).

Not so in AQA where 60% of the marks are on the 20c and poetry paper. They are going to have to look at this some more.

haha teen I did o levels in 1980 and we did do poetry (love poems, and town and industrial life) but it was deffo a choice. By our teacher. I recall her telling us we would be grateful as we would have a lot less to learn. All the other classes did AMND and two novels but we got away with just old Silas Marner.

Boards would have varied tho, this was Cambridge.

clary well there was no compulsory poetry when I did English lit o level!

Are you sure? I did O levels in 82, and I did Macbeth, P&P and poems of Tennyson.

Well no argument there, I love the poetry, I asked both my DC who dud this exam and they both said argh drop the poetry! They did Frankenstein and Christmas Carol tho, I don't like J&H much either.

I'm not really an Eng lit teacher btw but a lot of friends are, will have to quiz them on what they think 😀

Lacey that sounds a nightmare for you. My dc was supposed to be away doing the fieldwork tge first week of lockdown there is a date pencilled in for it but we shall see!

Clary yes it’s unclear but to drop unseen plus one other component is removing 40% of the content (compared to the proposed 25% in history) so I just can’t see it happening. The 19th C novel (for which we have to thank Gove ) would, to me, be the obvious one to go. My children’s school and other local ones do Jekyll & Hyde and the students hate it. I feel tge poetry (particularly the Power & Conflict) is more accessible then tge dense arcane language of J&H but obv different people have different views!

Re poetry analysis it’s done from year 7 onwards so not really a new skill to learn in KS4.

@KittyMcKitty hello! Yes I do. The NEA will be tough as again, practically, I can’t do both days of fieldwork. I’m reading between the lines that I may be able to do human or physical.

Gcse is no better, infact that’s so much more stress.

well there was no compulsory poetry when I did English lit o level!

I just think that tackling questions on unseen poetry would be really challenging if you hadn't acquired the vocabulary through studying some specific poems. You wouldn't get the same skills from a Victorian novel tbh.

Hmmmm if they do keep the unseen poetry I think people will maybe drop Christmas Carol instead. It's not clear tho is it; Ofqual talks about "poetry" but doesn't state seen or unseen. AQA simply calls it all poetry in the exam.

For some other subjects (RE?) they do SPAG marks for each question but only the 'best 2' count (or something).

^ lock down even!

Lacey do you teach A level Geography too? The whole situation with the NEA is horrid with those having done it already surely at an advantage over those who were unable to dye to lick down.

Re Eng Lit AQA break down marks as follows:

Shakespeare 30 + 4 spag
19th Century novel 30
Modern Texts 30 + 4 spag
Poetry Anthology 30
Unseen Poetry 1 x 24 and 1 x 8

So yes the obvious would be Shakespeare + unseen on paper 1 and 19th C novel, modern texts & poetry anthology on paper 2 with students doing 2 out of the 3 (but not sure how they’d decide what to do about the spag marks).

I'd always though that they were 25% each, with unseen poetry 'in' with the poems. But just having checked our school booklet it does look as if Kitty is correct re 5 separate sections.

So I guess they could do: Shakespeare & unseen poetry in one paper, and the 19th C, 20th C & poems in the other. It does mean that everyone needs to learn how to do poetry which makes dropping poetry less 'obvious' as presumably the skills learned helped with unseen?

As a geography teacher, it’s made my life harder. I still have to teach fieldwork as there will be questions on unfamiliar content. Not good