English GCSE frustration

[Stickerrocks]

We've just had year 9 parent's evening. There are issues with the English teacher not taking in homework, not marking work and taking 2 months to mark assessments. She seemed obsessed with saying how difficult to new GCSE curriculum will be, as the 19th century set texts are quite inaccessible and hard for teenagers to understand and there will be no coursework. This level of negativity in front of my child doesn't inspire me with confidence.

We were also told that key texts will include Macbeth and An Inspector Calls. Both of these have recently been performed locally with great reviews. She said we hadn't missed much, when I said I wish we had known as we would have gone to see them!

Is it worth raising our concerns with the year head or head of English? DD is a high flyer, so she is likely to get a good grade, but I'm worried that she is losing enthusiasm because of her teacher.

But everyone needs to take English don't they? Even if they are not going to get a higher grade, they will have to take it and to tell them that a book is dull before starting is not great. Plus, I could understand Chaucer being beyond some children but if you can read, you can read a 19th century novel. My DS has been reading Jules Verne, Stevenson etc since he was about 8 or 9. He has now decided that he doesn't want to read "classics" but that doesn't mean he can't - the teacher should be encouraging rather than dismissing them. It makes me think that the teacher doesn't like reading.

allegretto , reading Of Mice and Men is very different to reading A Christmas Carol or The Sign of the Four. It really isn't a question of , "Hey, you can read, so you can read this nineteenth century novel." The language and syntax are much more difficult, for a start. As an untiered paper, those who would previously have got E, F or G will really struggle even to access the questions. I'm delighted to see the back of controlled assessments, and I don't have much of a problem with the texts that have been imposed on us (and they were imposed). What I really dislike is the fact that the exam is untiered. It simply isn't fair to make the less able face the same questions that are designed to stretch those who will get grade 7, 8 or 9. The exam boards are predicting a 18-23% fall in those achieving the equivalent of a C in 2017. Why are English and English Literature untiered whilst science and maths remain tiered?

We've been doing IGCSE for years and for the literature it has been exam only and no tiers all along. We enter all of our students for literature as well as language (city comprehensive) and have always been pleasantly surprised at the results. Take away the tiers and you aren't capping the potential of the students.

I'm not worried about the new literature exams, I'm more concerned at the increased complexity of the language papers: so many different skills to demonstrate and tasks to complete in a comparatively short amount of time.

OP, I'm glad you have had a response. I'm sure the HoD will now be working with their team to promote positivity about the texts. The 3 year format works well, provided there is still lots of fun in Y9 and it isn't just GCSE slogging away all year.