Year 11 - grade 3 in EngLang, but grade 8 in history and praise for written drama work

[DottyLS]

Is that odd or quite normal? I just don't understand how it's possible

Exam technique

No. It's weird. Have you spoken to the teacher? Is it as a result of one test (in which case, yes, exam technique), a prediction, or a working at grade. There are a lot of different facets to English Language, so I'd be checking what's going on.

What's their Literature grade like?

Where are they losing English Language marks? Is it mainly on the comprehension or the writing? The fiction or the non-fiction? Or across the board? It sounds like they may not understand how to answer the questions (and you have to write in a different sort of way to do well in History and Drama to English).

Literature also not great.
Very good in Business, which makes me also wonder about exam technique

Ds had the same scenerio in the actual GCSEs this year .

English Literature Grade 8, RS Grade 8, Geography 9, History 9 - so good analytical writing ability, but English Language Grade 5 - a complete outlier from all the other GCSEs (9s,8s and a 7 otherwise).

He has never been a keen fiction book reader, so I think this may have an influence.
He just didn't enjoy English language GCSE and had variable interim marks before the final exam ranging from Grade 7 to 5. He didn't love literature that much either, but the skills he needed for this matched his other subjects better.

In your position I'd be speaking with the English teacher you see what they suggest is holding his grade at the lower level.

I will. I'm just very worried because of the implications for post 16 if he doesn't pass English

I think you are right to be worried, but there is time to sort it out, and your DS is clearly capable, unless there is something like ASD at play which might impact ability for inference or understanding literary techniques?

The techniques for each question are very specific. 'You' need to go through his mock with him, and see whether he is losing marks across the board, or whether there is one specifically weak area on a high mark question.

Then see whether he didn't realise what was needed / did understand but forgot / did understand but couldn't do, and go from there.

Make sure he knows how much to write for each question, no point writing a page for an 8 marker and not having time to answer the 40 marker properly

Thank you, that's really useful.
He is indeed on the spectrum 🙈
But I hope things can still be done!
Apparently it was creative writing in particular that was bad.

In her GCSEs 2019, DD got English lit 9, Re 9, history 8 and English language 6, very close to a 5. No, it doesn't make sense - what is being neasured and what message does it send to employers.

That is slightly unusual, but there are a few things to consider:

1. Exam technique (as mentioned above) is really crucial, particularly in the reading section.
2. Does your child struggle to develop their own ideas/write in an engaging way? I have some pupils who are very diligent and do well in History and Lit when they’re writing about content they have learned. However in the writing sections of English Language they have to come up with their own ideas and craft language carefully. The diligent ‘plodders’ dins this much more difficult.
3. SPG affect the marks in Lang but much less so in Lit or other subjects.

Or it could be a combination of all 3! Plenty of time to improve though.

What some schools / teachers seem to do is to get the pupils to write and improve specific creative writing paragraphs that they learn off by heart and then adapt/shoehorn into their creative writing.
So a description of a tree, or a building, or a memory of a beach and then make sure it is included.

The other thing would be to give him a tick list of things to include - usually 5 senses and then certain imagery and sentence starters and punctuation and he just works his way through that.

The other thing, is in my DD2's resit class they have trimmed down advice to things needed to get a 4/5 only. They have so much advice in schools to get to high grades they don't know what is the most important and basics get forgotten.

My dd really struggled in English language in particular. She is dyslexic however managed to get 7s in other written subjects.

In particular she really struggled with things like the photograph you are given and you have to write a creative piece around it. She would just say but it's a picture of two people how do I know anything about it. She really struggled with the concept of making it up that you need for creative writing (possibly other ND traits here too!)

She also writes much better when she is interested in the subject and is on track for an A in a written subject at a level that she is interested in. Basically I think it was the fear of having to spend yr12 retaking it that eventually got her through.

The school gave her as many past papers as they had and although she didn't necessarily do them all we sat and talked through them and did a plan of how she could have answered them.

Not sure what exam board you’re doing but these are for the AQA one. Hopefully there will be some tips or advice in there that you can transfer to any exam board. (And hopefully they are still relevant and they haven’t completely change the exams again).

www.fairfax.bham.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Language-Paper-1-Revision-Guide-AQA.pdf

www.fairfax.bham.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Language-Paper-2-Revision-Guide-AQA.pdf

DS1 (who has finished GCSEs now) based all his answers in creative writing on gothic themes. Meant that whatever came up, he had a base to start from.

Thank you!

@DottyLS this was my Ds2. 9s across the board including History where he often got 100% but he scraped a 5 on his November mock for English language. In the end he got a healthy 7 and an 8 in English lit. The rest were 9s. It was definitely exam technique for Ds. They diagnosed him with a processing disorder. I think the boy just won't waffle, if he doesn't know the answer, he wouldn't guess.

What helped us - pull up the mock paper if you know which one he sat. If not just pull up the correct exam board, any past paper and pull up the corresponding mark scheme. Mine sat Educas most sit AQA, we printed out the resource sheet so he could physically highlight the text like he would in the exam. Then go through each question one by one. Identify what gets marks. On Ds's it said list 5 things we learn about Rose in lines 1 to 15 but there was always at least 8 things. Look at the mark scheme specifics on if you have to rephrase an answer rather than writing verbatim what is in the text. Look at what they say don't award marks for. Go through this with him, help him identify things in the passages.

Once you have gone through one set of papers with him ie Summer 2018 papers 1 and 2. Pull up another set and see if he can now answer the questions himself but again go through one by one. Answer, check the mark scheme. For any narrative they have to do, completely agree with teen that they memorise set scenes, mine were given house, forest, beach, rainy day, sunny day and some outline stories that can be applied to the usually generic narrative titles. Also use an online thesaurus to substitute mediocre words for better ones. And punctuation, they are usually looking for how you convey something not really what you are conveying.

For English Lit (and Lang if AQA) Mr Salles on YouTube, also Stacey Reay for the books and poems. They are 16, they aren't writing anything groundbreaking, they just need to know what opinions to regurgitate and how to structure it.

Examiner's reports lay out where students excelled, where they went wrong and what they need to do to improve. There is plenty of time to nail this before actual GCSEs. Be aware in the future that some uni courses want a 6 in English Language, I don't know how many and it may be specific to what Ds2 is looking at but I thought I would just tack that on. And good luck.

My DS (also on the spectrum with similar profile to the OP’s DC) got an 8 in English language gcse, thanks to the Mr Bruff YouTube videos and associated revision guide. They helped him ‘crack the code’. We watched them and worked through the materials together. English language gcse is pretty formulaic, but the formula wasn’t at all obvious to him. I also helped him to develop a template for the fiction writing, to improve his confidence. I don’t think he even used it in the end.

Before we staRted the extra work he was probably working at around a 5/6, which was an outlier for him.

The skills are very specific. One Lang paper has 5 questions with 6 mark schemes. If you know what those require, it's all much easier to manage.

We're seeing an increase in "sophisticated language" used inaccurately. It's much better if they use words they understand in the correct context. I think "lackadaisical" was the word of 2022. Mostly used inappropriately.

My ds got similar in his GCSE mocks in 2021. I think a 3 in Lit, a 5 in Lang and then high 7/8 in Business, History and RS. They’re more factually based subjects, although History does involve persuasive writing. Ds has ADHD and slow processing and some autistic traits.

Weirdly in the real GCSEs he got 6s in both English exams (and an 8 in Business, 7s in History and RS). I think he revised for Lit in a similar way to history for the actual GCSE - learned a load of facts/quotes etc. I doubt he actually read the texts! I’m not sure that’s very helpful as I don’t know how ds moved from a 3 to a 6 really, but at least it’s an encouragement that it’s possible!