Massive decline in English A-level take-up thanks to Gove reforms

[noblegiraffe]

One for @piggywaspushed who warned of this.

Take-up of English A-levels has declined massively since 2016. There has also been a decrease in the take-up of Maths and Further Maths A-levels after years of steady increases (and the country cannot afford this).

Good job everyone. Well done.

Full figures here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/803906/Provisional_entries_for_GCSE__AS_and_A_level_summer_2019_exam_series.pdf

Dc is a reader and really enjoyed English lit gcse ( particularly the poetry) despite the enormous content of that one exam. Despised English language gcse. Able child and very good all rounder. Didn’t even consider English A level exactly because of the jumping through moving hoops reason that Bimkom describes.

All universities teach less contact hours for humanities and Cross subsidise Stem with the fees.

However if you don’t get a great job, you’ll hardly pay any fees at all!!!! Don’t pay up front for the degree.

I’m always bemused about how many DC really have a huge choice about degrees. My bright DD1 was not ever going to be a scientist. 9 A* at GCSE back in the day but didn’t love science or maths. I was never going to push her to do that. Quite a few girls at her school were pushed into stem by parents and were not happy about that but culturally, they did what they were told.

Happiness isn’t often going to be found by not following what you really really enjoy. Good English grads can get good jobs but English is on offer everywhere so University matters. It teaches great transferable skills and, in fact, not so much teaching time really aids research and time management. Great for employment!

As an aside, a friend’s DS gets 6 hours tuition a week for Politics. Is this an all time low?

As an aside, a friend’s DS gets 6 hours tuition a week for Politics. Is this an all time low?

Dds friend gets 3 hours a week for photography. He's moved back home and now commutes in (hour and a half away).

DD's boyfriend has about 8 hours a week, but doesn't turn up to all of them. He has plenty of free time to not study at all. The irony is that he isn't doing that well in the subject he loves.

Jumping through moving hoops is a very good description of GCSE English Language. Weirdly, DS was good at it, though, whereas he really struggled with chemistry - there could be all sorts of reasons for that though!
The tuition fees aren't really anything to do with actual teaching, ironically. Academics don't get paid that much. Arts students are expensive in terms of library use because so many resources are on very expensive online databases.
There was a really interesting list of expenditure on Bath University's website - a long list of things other than teaching (libraries, new buildings, support services etc).
By the way, there have also been quite a few articles recently about big Tech firms actively looking for arts and humanities graduates for all the skills Piggy described earlier - Google was one of them - and DH who works in IT says that he probably uses his O level English skills more than his computer science degree in his job these days!

Really interesting thread!

@Piggywaspished DD’s English teacher was obsessed with PEE, and DD’s marks dropped really sharply with that teacher. She went from loving writing and being told that she was very talented in her use of language (is also very good with spelling and grammar), to being told that she needed to be always using the PEE structure in her writing, and that she wasn’t quite getting it. It took all the joy out of the subject for her, tbh. Why the obsession with it?

She had no interest at all in English Lit for A-Level - loves to read, and loves to write (fantasy fiction) even more, but any interest in analysis of books was killed off by GCSE. She’s taking English language, philosophy and ancient history at A-Level. Loved her taster day at college, where in English lan, the teacher gave them some forensic linguistics work to do, analysing text messages - DD was fascinated!

How does one find out which are the best unis for specific subjects? Am thinking of English language particularly, but also philosophy. Also, are creative writing degrees worth the paper they’re written on?

DH who works in IT says that he probably uses his O level English skills more than his computer science degree in his job these days!

I agree - I reckon I use my history degree more than my computer science degree. Most of my technical skills are things I've had specific training for, or otherwise learnt, since I started working. That doesn't mean the understanding of the concepts aren't useful, but I probably use my analytical skills and so on from history more.

My DS loves English and is the only boy in his A level EngLit class, all the others are girls. He had a great teacher for GCSE and maybe that made a difference.

"DH who works in IT says that he probably uses his O level English skills more than his computer science degree in his job these days!"

I remember having to do precis after precis in English O level classes, and hated it. But, my goodness, it paid off when I was copywriting for sale brochures, catalogues and online marketing.

@JoinTheMicrodots The Compete University Guide allows you to filter and rank by subject.

Thank you @TapasForTwo!

I accept that cross subsidisation is going to happen as STEM degrees need more contact time, but it seems wrong to me that it is the arts students who are having to do the cross subsidising, rather than the Government/taxpayer. Why should my daughter (music degree) have to pay more for her degree than it costs to run? I think students should only pay what their degrees actually cost, up to a max of (currently) £9,250, with the taxpayer putting up the rest.

I accept that some graduates will never earn enough to pay off their loans but I hope that my daughter will not be one of them!

Am I the only person who had to google PEE? Neither of my children ever mentioned it. One did Eng Lit A level, and the other did Lang/Lit.

I had to google it was well Fifthtimelucky

Cross subsidisation happens everywhere though doesn't it - council tax, income tax etc. We all subsidise our state education system, even people who don't have children. And many graduates won't get to pay back their loans then as tax payers we are already subsidising their education.

If she’s doing a music degree, it’s not known for high earnings for the vast majority. The arts are not valued! She does get practice rooms, concert venues and probably use of computers and programs. Who organises concert opportunities and ensembles? I don’t think Music students are particularly hard done by. English doesn’t really get any of that.

The universities are saying they are worried about fees reducing and who actually can put a price on what a degree is worth? The tax payer will be the graduate so yes, they should pay. If they earn more, they pay more. It’s better than getting the low paid farm labourer to pay for your DDs music degree. It’s fair she pays if she earns above £25,000. If she doesn’t - free degree!!!

The obsession with PEE came out of a desire to 'scaffold' and the fact that weaker students do need some structure. It really doesn't help the most able though and does suck the joy out!

There was a creative writing A Level for a short period, which recruited those who enjoyed reading and writing : born out of the popularity of CW degrees. It was scrapped though in the reforms ,despite the same government/ body having encouraged its inception.

I do like being called piggywaspished!

Not for quite some time, sadly!

The PEE paragraph section was worth 50% of the marks on the Year 8 English mid year exam (that they used for setting). She only got 30% on that section, although 78% for the creative writing part (leaving aside the separate SPAG marks, which was 7/12). A a consequence they dropped her from Set 2 to Set 3. Admittedly she has enjoyed Set 3, because they use a whole English session to go to the library once a week, to encourage them to read. She thinks she regularly reads at least double/triple the number of books that the rest of the class read put together. Most of them struggle to read a part of a book a week, whereas DD can easily go through a dozen in any given week if she can find that many she hasn't read and which seem interesting. Not sure how this is going to help her do better in the necessary PEE paragraphs. She got 115 for English in the year 6 SATs

They refer to a section as a PEE paragraph section ??? Or your DD does? Either way it's pedagogical bollocks....

High achieving essays for English literature don’t usually use PEE. But it does help mid to lower achievers who would otherwise be disorganised with their expression.
I find teens enjoy tne poetry at gcse. We do Power and Conflict and so much relates to modern social issues and issues of justice - which teens often love to discuss.
Questions such as should a soldier carry out an order even if he believes it is wrong? What do we think about reporters and photographers who go to war zones (link to Marie Colvin) ? Is the cult of Instagram etc a form of ‘mind forged manacle’? Can you be enslaved by peer pressure and social media ? All these discussions come directly from AQA power and conflict poems and in my experience kids are interested in these things and it’s good to open up their minds to these kinds of ideas. Really surprised to hear kids finding that pointless tbh.

Does this prescriptive form of essay writing come from mixed ability teaching at GCSE where scaffolding is necessary for the majority to get anywhere, putting off the high ability who could free style a bit more?

Yes, Noble, I think you’ve summed it up well there. I tell students that PEE is their foundation- if they want to challenge themselves they will look to extend beyond PEE. Some can extend and others prefer the security of the template.

It's not a mixed ability thing. My school is setted as most are. It's just a prescriptive teaching thing and the desire for there to be a formula for yiungrf kids. It has existed for eons but doesn't get taken way. Now that schools start teaching GCSE in year 3 (slight exaggeration) scaffolding is drummed in as a necessity. It us also one of Rosenshines principles.

Ermmm

That should have said younger kids!!!

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/28/examiners-lefthorrified-byflaws-englishgcse-marking/

I think this will contribute to a continued fall in A-level English take up.

Ds2 (current y8) was taught about PEE paragraphs in y5. His secondary teach PETAL. His sister (current y11) didn't learn about PEE paragraphs in primary (the same one as her brother attended)

“Really surprised to hear kids finding that pointless tbh”

That’s because you love poetry. DD and her friends just don’t enjoy poetry. Neither do I. It just seems so pretentious. I would far rather read a straightforward piece of prose that I can understand without having to pick it to pieces and try to understand what the creator was thinking. I am probably a philistine, but I really can’t stomach Shakespeare.

I enjoy reading the classics – Bronte, Jane Austen etc, but just not poetry. Basically, I just don’t “get” it, and neither does DD.

Can I just say that the username Piggywaspished is at least as cool as the correct version!
I teach English language to FE students who really would mostly rather not have to do it and we do teach PEE as a scaffolding technique just to make sure they keep to what the question actually asks but I totally agree that more able students don't need it. By the end of the year the students seem to have enjoyed the course despite their misgivings.
I think AQA's power and conflict anthology is pretty good to be honest and when I tutor people in it they tend to enjoy most of it. Same for Shakespeare - it's the discussions that bring it alive plus it really is important to stress these are plays for performing, not just reading.