Anyone else's otherwise high achieving child having difficulty with English Language GCSE

[Echobelly]

15yo DC has GCSEs in May and just had rather concerning email from the school to say they had March mock exams marked by boards to check out standards and they seem to have fallen back in English language marks by some way (they say 'some students', 15yo says its everyone). DC has siad the outcome was people were 2-3 marks down on what they thought and that's serious because if that doesn't go up they could miss their 6th form choices as English Language is one of the things you need a decent mark on.

And it seems bizarre because DC is getting 8/9s in History and Psychology, which are essay subjects so clearly English language in general is not an issue for them. I'm wondering what the hell the exam boards want from them in English Language as I'd have thought that any reasonably intelligent, articulate child ought to do decently on it (DC predicted 7s-9s) without much help and guidance, but evidently it's changed since my day?

Obviously pretty upset at the school, which has generally been great otherwise, and is at least launching a lot of intervention for the next few weeks, but I don't understand how one can get teaching English language so wrong? Or is there something about the expectations in English language that is super difficult these days?

I teach and examine English. I've also taught History and Psychology. The latter is not an essay subject at GCSE - there are a few essays requiring paragraphs. History does require structured arguments for top marks, but diligent children can pick up most of their marks from including relevant knowledge and making connections.

English is much trickier and each board marks differently. AQA requires much more analysis than say Eduqas who look for ability to track through an extract. Many students struggle to complete every question in enough detail because they're not drawing on knowledge they've learned and revised. They have texts they've never seen before.

On the exam board websites, you can find past papers, mark schemes and exemplars. Eduqas has powerpoints that walk through papers. I'm sure other boards have similar - they're a good starting point.

Not to derail this thread but I taught English for 27 years in the UK but have been out of it for years.

Bloody hellfire.

What a joyless exam syllabus. I can't imagine how English teachers can make it interesting. Just looking at a Paper 1 for one board and saw the mark scheme contradicted the question in one instance. I can see it's all about making the exam easier to mark by, er...anyone. All that deracinated writing.
What it reminded me of was the test for emotional intelligence test that would-be doctors do in Victoria. I tutored a student for this once, and some of the mark scheme's "correct" answers were beyond bizarre in their inferences about emotional and mental states from gobbets of fiction texts, especially if I knew the text so had a full appreciation of a character that was at odds with what was shown.

I digress. Poor students. Poor teachers.

@TodayForTomorrow I agree. Teachers can over complicate it.

I like some of the u tube teaches as it's quick and to the point.

@echt.. My dc is extremely good at English and is a very varied reader indeed. Exceptionally so and it's been noted.
She doesn't want to touch it with a barge pole at gcse.

Yes my daughter has been told she has not scored well in English language and religion today, but done well on other subjects. My daughters school has had an issue with IT systems for the past few weeks, so not sure if it is connected, she is interested in moving forward with art and we have also had an email regarding a exam date change for the art exam, due to this IT issue so hopefully it is just a blip?!

I could have written this myself. We are in NI and exam board is CCEA.
My daughter is normally very astute and well read/written and can articulate her point/opinion exceptionally well.
However when it comes to English......man oh man she gets me to read her work and the expectation of what is asked for in terms of answers just boggles my mind.
I did English and English Lit for GCSE and have been to uni. It's not as if I don't have a grasp, but in terms of writing style and topics, the stuff she has to do goes right over the top of my head. She gets very vexed about it and we end up coming to loggerheads as I do not see any relevance to what she has to write and she totally disagrees with me in terms of what my thoughts and opinions on the same subject might be. I'm sure when my son and DP hear the conversations we have they just laugh. I don't envy you OP. I sometimes wonder if the exam boards and curriculum creators just dream crap up to make life difficult for the kids nowadays.

GCSE English needs to be taught well - doing well isn't just about 'being good at English'. It's also about knowing the specification and teaching to the exam - good teachers can do this while encouraging an appreciation of literature, ambitious writing and a critical eye. That said, the pp who said the new spec is dry ain't wrong, and if a class gets behind, the focus is on the literature texts.

Each paper has a reading section and a writing section - students often do well on one and poorly on the other. Sometimes it's about exam technique and timings rather than what they write, especially in mocks.

…it might be ugh to terminology for your editing career, but you asked about your son’s gcse English exam.

Before I studied and sat the English gcse exam - I had a 30 plus year career in marketing comms. I also have both undergraduate and post grad degrees in the same field …and yet like you I came from the generation of not being taught grammar rules etc so had zero knowledge of terminology.

But I spent a year on the adult learning course being taught the gcse English exam - and by using the terminology they taught me I only ever got As and A*s.

Maybe there are kids who get by on the basics as per what another poster said - but I kind of got the feeling you wanted your son to get between 7-9.

Last year one of my twins was predicted a 7 for English language but got a 9 including 100% in one paper. The other was also predicted a 7 but achieved an 8.

If your son is bright and can write - I see no reason why he can’t get 7-9…but he will need to learn the terminology to do so.

By my count there are at least three non-shite state school teachers on this thread offering informed advice to OP. Perhaps you could refrain from bashing our whole sector, even if it does come from a place of empathy for the OP.

Thank you - I've always worked in state schools, and I've worked with amazing teachers. Others less amazing. I've also tutored children from independent schools who have been struggling despite being capable and hard working. Good teaching can be seen in the least successful schools, but it's a lot easier to be effective with fifteen kids in a class rather than thirty four.

English Language teaching needs good understanding of the specification used - AQA is the most popular board. I think it has 85% of the market. Head to their website and look for teaching resources. The guides for teachers produced around 2015 will have clear explanations of which assessment objectives are being assessed in each paper.

IME it is about learning exactly what is required by the exam board and producing that. My dc was humiliated by the teacher in front of the whole class for writing an essay "badly". It was a really interesting essay IMO, it just didn't tick all the boxes. We just looked up the AQA guidance for what was required and regurgitated that.
DC makes a living from writing professionally now, so it all worked out ok.
GCSEs are a strange business.

Ds2 is finding Eng Lang very hard atm.

Or we could keep our "shit state school teacher" advice to ourselves and just support our "shit state school pupils".

Yes, let's do that.

Damn us and our shit teaching and shit schools!

.

Sorry, I’m a dad, but hoped it would be ok to quickly chip in on this, since we have a similar issue, but with GCSE English Literature.

Our daughter told us yesterday that her recent externally-marked mock was graded as a 6, which is significantly down on the 9 she was forecast in her last school report. She has a conditional offer for Harris Westminster and needs to get at least a 7, which we thought would be easily achievable.

Similarly, two of her friends, both very smart, also got a 6 in the mocks, both down from a 9.

It’s strange because despite her significantly lower grade for English Literature, our daughter’s result for English Language was a 9.

Parents evening tomorrow so we’re going to try and get clarification as to what’s going on. If it comes to it, we’ll get a tutor to try and fill any gaps if it turns out that the school has dropped the ball in its teaching.

“they could miss their 6th form choices as English Language is one of the things you need a decent mark on” what counts as decent? 4 surely?

@GenXdad you need to know who set the paper, who marked it (ie what their qualifications are for doing so), how the grade boundaries were derived, and you need to see it.

It is of course entirely possible that the school's prior assessment was wrong.

@Cheeesus - it's a 5 or 6 minimum for English language with their a-level choices at their 6th forms of choice because they have an essay based subject in there (history) . I expect ultimately they will get at least a 6, but it's a shame that might bring down their overall marks for the sake of not being able up meet what sounds like an unnecessarily complex answer schema.

Surely if they do ok in their history gcse and the whole year does badly at English language then they will let them do the history A level.

One hopes so but the school specifically said that doing well in one thing won't make up for not making the grade in another for 6th form entry but I'd hope these are negotiable if it came to it.

DS did well in his mocks and actual GCSEs with grades 6-9 in everything- except both English where he was getting 3 or 4 in every piece of work and his mocks.

He attended interventions at school but no improvement.

I got him an English tutor in the March before his exams and he ended up with 6&6 In English.

Money v well spent. She basically taught him technique and how to pass the exam.

So my experience would be to not rely on the school - sounds like they've already cocked up by only now picking up that there's an issue.

@Echobelly Im not sure if you’re aware but the gcse English exam requires taught technical knowledge and specific technique skills in order to do well, not just eloquence or good written communication. I do think it’s actually quite tough.

I’d also be pretty annoyed and concerned that the school hadn’t been able to mark and grade the students work accurately at this stage in the exam years. It’s quite ridiculous to find out a few weeks before the exams.

It begs the question as to whether the students have actually been taught what’s needed to get a 6/7 or above.

English GCSE seems to be on another level now to how it was a few years ago! I have one doing it this year, it's his hardest exam. He recently joined the lightup hub which is quite cheap and he says it's helpful. I've no idea what teachers think of it.

Got the 'March mocks' back today and yes, with the re-mark, Eng Lang is only coming out at 4. I still imagine they will make a 6 in the real thing, but it's a worry now and they need that 6 for their first choice 6th form and even if they get a 9 in history, which is the reason they need a 6 in Eng Lang, they won't get that place. Which seems like madness and I do feel annoyed that the government seems to have insisted on such a bean-counting way of assessing Eng Lang skills.