Malorje Blackman GCSE

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DD has just told me that the first text they're studying for GCSE English Lit in Sept is "Boys don't cry" by Malorie Blackman. She's a bit surprised. Like most teen girls she went through a Malorie Blackman phase in year 8 and read everything, but was very surprised to be studying it in year 10. I've just read it (I have a degree in English - admittedly 30 years ago!) It's a good book. Engaging. Lots of issues to talk about- but it's honestly not great in a literary sense. I'm hugely supportive of studying non white authors, expanding the range of books etc but there are a lot of really great lnon white authors published today who are a lot more "literary" than Malorie Blackman. It's a book designed to hammer home "issues" in a relatively unsubtle way.

What am I missing here?

@TeenDivided GCSE has to at least be vaguely accessible to the mid-low ability pupils.

Yes and that is the rationale that is now so frustrating for such as Piggy waspushed and MrsHamlet. There's a ceiling before we even start.

My lowest achieving Year 6 study Shakespeare like my highest. Should I be showing them Gnomeo and Juliet while the rest crack on with Macbeth? Some of the most profound and sensitive comments come from my SEND or low ability children.

White Teeth ahs been an A Level text. Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Purple Hibiscus is great. Not sure how that works if they have to be 'British'. Haven't checked that bit of the rubric.

It disgusts me. But that's not the exam boards' fault. It's the controlling micromanaging weak leaders who insist on it because they don't have confidence in their own skills or those of their staff.

I personally feel that in many ways Shakespeare is far more accessible than e.g. Dickens. Shakespeare wrote plays, so immediately they can be watched and listened to rather than just read. Then they have rattling good plots with interesting twists.

My mid-low ability dyslexic DD was able to enjoy Macbeth at the theatre/cinema and also Much Ado on DVD & at the theatre. But she wouldn't have made it through Great Expectations - Jekyll & Hyde was hard enough.

I agree - if you struggle to read anyway, Shakespeare is no harder than anything else. And the stories are interesting and relevant.

I think it can go the other way in terms of stretch. My DS has just finished Y7. Last year they studied The Importance of Being Earnest, Sassoon, Thomas Hardy's Woodlanders and Pride and Prejudice. I think it was a pretty decent way to turn an 11yo boy off reading.

Exactly. If the texts are on the list, then schools make a choice as to what to teach. If they wanted to they could teach top set/streams different texts.

(Why do teachers so often have issues with SLT? Are set texts not picked at English Department level? Surely Heads of English were English teachers once? Are schools promoting the wrong teachers, or are the best teachers preferring to teach rather than become HoD? Should schools be structured differently so that experienced teachers get more say even if not HoDs? Or is it all budgets?)

We teach in a world in which - apparently - if ofsted cross the corridor from my room to yours, and we're not doing the same thing, ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE.
I've been an examiner a long time. I've been a teacher a long time. But my informed opinion doesn't count because I'm not in charge. Of the 4 texts I have to teach at GCSE, I would only choose one. I have personal and professional reasons but I have to do as I'm told.

Is this really the case?

In the school I've just left we were allowed teacher choice based on preference and challenge. Teachers with lower sets tended to go for ACC and AIC but within the department people chose Frankenstein, LOTF, Jekyll and Hyde. We all went for Macbeth, though I fancy a crack at Romeo and Juliet at some point.

I'm not a middle leader so it's interesting to hear that Ofsted may not like that approach.

Wow. Bit speechless at that...

It's what we keep being told.
As an examiner, I'm always relieved when it's not the same old rote points on the same old texts.

In my experience, the SLT who get the jitters about classes doing different texts aren't English specialists.

HT definitely not an English specialist 🤣

Love her books, read loads of them like pig heart boy and noughts and crosses when I was growing up. Wouldn't say they're exam worthy at that age though necessarily. Bit like Jacqueline Wilson. Fantastic coming of age books and introducing the big issues, but not exactly complex literary structure or words, which in English you would need to analyse complex language.

in English you would need to analyse complex language.
AO2 is not assessed in the question this text is for, though.

Hi OP. Glad you've found the category it's in. I teach Edexcel, and am also an examiner.

Yes, it's up against An Inspector Calls- which makes it tricky. Around 90% of schools will teach that. I would actually say it's a very good sign that your child's school is doing something different, and one of the new choices. It's a sign of a good school- one where the teachers aren't stagnating and dying of boredom.

Please don't vote Tory. We're still really struggling with the restrictions on text choices. We're far, far more restricted than it looks because if you look at the Shakespeare and 19th century texts, you'll see that they're very very uneven too. Why would you teach a long text when teaching a shorter text allows your students more time for analysis? It means that, again, most schools (by a long way) choose the same texts. It's really not a choice at all.

I'm worried every time an education minister opens their mouth at the moment. It's Edexcel who our current Ed minister criticised for removing two poems (sigh) and changing them for something equally good by non-white poets.

The Malorie Blackman is fine. It's not the dream, but it is fine.

Ha ha. Hilarious. The texts are obviously great- but the kids are unlikely to have the emotional intelligence to understand them. This is ridiculously 'private school'.

It sounds so 'impressive', I'm wondering what the objectives were? Where the curriculum balance was, and what the teacher's qualifications were? It sounds like something done by an insecure teacher with a PhD, but no teaching qualification. To teach those texts properly you're looking at spending most of the year on them.....

.....so where was the English Language teaching? Grammar? Non-fiction? Writing? The actual stuff on the national curriculum? Something was sacrificed somewhere!

I agree with you.
I would suggest to the school Catherine Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, Candy Gourlay, possibly A M Dassu, Bali Rae.

Are those on the spec!?

Bali Rai is in no way superior to MB.

I read Bali Rai's (sorry about sp.) earliest books and thought they were very good. I think since then he's been Carnegie nominated and long listed. I know he engages really well with schools in school visits.

It doesn't matter if Bali Rai is fabulous if Bali Rai isn't on the exam though

Bringing back bad memories of my English Lit O level in 1984.
Book - The Trumpet Major
Play - Henry IV part one
Poems - First world war poets

I was an avid reader, a bookworm from age 4 onwards ( I taught myself to read). But my goodness I hated those O lvel texts!
I'm not saying they weren't "worthy" reads, but they did nothing for me.

@BeanieTeen
So you don’t think there are brighter children who can engage in more complex thoughts and language? Everyone is identikit? Not sure why anyone gets a grade 3 then? It’s reasonable to tailor lessons and books to ability. My DDs read Malorie Blackman at around 12/13. She visited the school. I didn’t like George Eliot by the way. At least she was a women though!

We teach in a world in which - apparently - if ofsted cross the corridor from my room to yours, and we're not doing the same thing, ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE.

In a previous life pre-children and a different discipline (SW development) I had to regularly fight more senior management who thought we needed to do illogical things just to meet outside standards (ISO9000 and other things). It drove me crazy (as the person trying to get us to the standard).

Generally if what you are doing is sensible and justifiable then it should be OK. I do sometimes wonder how many of these hoops schools complain they have to jump through for Ofsted are imaginary.

I suspect a lot are imaginary. But putting oneself in the firing line of disciplinary by refusing to teach AIC because lord of the flies consistently gets better marks is not a thing worth doing, frankly.
It's a wholly depressing state of affairs. Next, they'll come for the a level texts. Po