GCSE English

[pilates]

I am not sure if I am worrying over nothing but my DD's English class have not finished the curriculum, apparently they still have poems to finish. They are still doing mocks which seems quite late in the day. I thought they would be using the time left to be revising what they have already learnt not learning new material.

There are still 2 months left til exams start. I doubt any subject will finish until Easter - I finished my Chemistry last year 3 weeks before exam 😳. Don't panic - I'm sure they have already covered poetry in some form

Oh and my class got 22 A*s and 9 As. Talk to the teachers if worried but it's very useful - if he's finished everything else then his teachers are fab

My dd is in the same position. Probably going to be another 2 weeks until they finish the poems. It's a good school but there are still several subjects in which they are still finishing the curriculum- history, chemistry, biology, rpe. There is just a lot to get through. Try not to worry.

At my son's school they do texts etc similar to what they will do for GCSE in year 10 but not their actual GCSE texts. They do it all in year 11 otherwise the kids are sick to death of going over and over the same material.

(This is a selective school with 94% A*/A grades so it obviously works for them).

English is very rushed in schools and they really struggle to finish the syllabus. My son's school really rushed the poetry at the end. Get him to look for Mr Bruff's online lessons on the poems. It really helped my son scrape an A grade in English Lit.

Oh ok, interesting. Agree there does seem so much to cover in English.

Not finished here yet either.

Nor here .... daughter is finding it very stressful as am I now ! Bit of a relief to find we aren't alone though

We finished the curriculum by Christmas and are revising it all now. I'm not sure that was the correct approach tbh. Next year I might spend longer doing each text in detail (allowing much less time for revision). The studied poetry is actually a tiny percentage of the final mark so they shouldn't spend too long on that (it's hard not to though).

@allthebestnamesareused - are they sticking with that approach for the new specs? I can't see how they'd fit it all in!

With the new spec this is inevitable. I teach in one of the most successful non selective schools in the country and we still have poems to cover. The courses are separate but skills overlap so analysing poetry is good revision for Section A of Lang Paper 1 and 2.

The curriculum is huge. Most students in most schools will still be covering content.

Allthebestnamesareused: As this is the first year for the new syllabus, the previous % A*-C is a bit meaningless, isn't it? In my school, doing it all in Y11 would be an impossible ask: a 19th century novel, 15 poems, a full Shakespeare play, a modern text, two different Language papers (reading and writing) and Speaking exams? Sounds crazy to attempt all that in a year to me.

'The studied poetry is actually a tiny percentage of the final mark so they shouldn't spend too long on that (it's hard not to though). '

Could you post what the % of marks each section has?

Yes bigmack, that would be helpful

What board ? Can link you to spec if know that. I am marking but v happy to stop

AQA I think

On Edexcel, the studied poetry is a 20 mark question. There are a total of 160 marks across the two papers so it is worth 12.5% of GCSE English Literature. The other three texts (Shakespeare, 19th C novel and post-1914 fiction are all 40 mark questions so worth 25% each). Studying the poetry will, of course, help with being able to analyse the unseen poetry, but so will studying any other texts.

We never have time for revision in English Lit. We teach the course right up to the start of study leave. Don't worry, OP.

And don't forget - 'English' is actually 2 GCSEs so of course there is more content. I doubt that the subject gets more timetable allocation in schools.

English does generally get more timetable allocation, not double, but more.

My son has finished the curriculum and is bored out of his brains, and constantly moaning

... for which I lay absolutely no blame on the teachers. Poor sods, in the current climate

Hats off to his teachers - finishing anything before Easter is either amazing or slightly bonkers - I'm not sure which !!! Get him to take revision stuff in and do past papers (with mark schemes close at hand). Look for the key words required for each section - you can give an awesome answer but if the key words aren't there I can't give it any marks.
I should finish in next few weeks. With next year, we'll who knows !! I'm currently teaching the same subject to year 12 & year 10 as it's gone from AS to GCSE. Oh the fun

mumsneedwine

Thanks for the advice! They did a 'walk and talk' practice the other day for some of the less 'confident' kids . From the sound of it, that's the sort of thing you mean.

ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged - thanks for that information - very helpful.