Changes to GCSE resit hours of teaching - NEWS for resitters AND teachers Sept 2024

[noblegiraffe]

The funding requirements for GCSE resits in maths and English for September have been released and there is a big change in the requirements.

"To meet the condition of funding from the academic year 2024 to 2025, students must study eligible qualifications for a minimum number of hours per week. For full-time students this is 3 hours per week for English and 4 hours for maths and pro rata for part-time students. This study should be stand-alone, whole-class, in-person teaching, with any additional support, such as small group tuition or online support, supplementary to these minimum classroom hours."

3/4 hours of lessons a week will be a big increase for some students and schools are going to find it difficult to timetable. 4 hours a week is more than some students lower down the school get.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-maths-and-english-condition-of-funding#changes-for-2024-to-2025

We currently offer two 50 minute sessions for English. We don't have the staffing for more than that.

As you say, we don't have 4 hours a week in ks4 either.

DD was getting 3hrs each maths and English at college.
It is probably only good enough for those who just missed a 4 as opposed to those who scraped a 3.

It will make it harder for people to resit alongside a level 3 qualification, won't it.?

... especially when the college uses a different English board from the previous school.

Please all hope DD can get her FS L2 this year and not have to do maths & English if she returns to college in September!

That's a good point about Level 3 qualifications. 4 hours of teaching a week is similar to what an A-level gets so essentially their timetable would look like someone doing 4 A-levels which is acknowledged to be pretty heavy and will eat into time needed to do work for those A-levels.

I'm in charge of this in English at my school. I get one hour a week... as it's a school 6th form and most are a level students, we rarely have students who have missed by more than one grade. I just can't see this being possible for us to timetable.

Everything crossed for her!! 🤞

By the way, both students who needed this passed in November. There were two... how is it going to be financially justifiable to run 4 hours per/wk of English for two students? There's usually more for maths, but still only 6 or so.

It would also need to be timetabled for the full year, which is even less cost effective.

Are 'A level' 6th forms (and Level 3 vocationals) just going to stop letting kids on who need to resit, thus meaning they have to go elsewhere / can't even attempt a higher qualification?

It will also wreck apprenticeships with day release. If a kid needs English and maths, they will spend their whole college day on resit ed, and have to take another day for their vocational qualification.

FWIW, we do timetable English and maths resits in this way for sixth formers who need to resit them- essentially they do it in an A-level option blocks. It does impact on the students who do resits- they can't do certain courses because of the time commitment, and also miss out on the chance to do things like DofE and EPQ, which isn't great for them. It's not quite 4 hours a week though- A-level students get 7 hours per fortnight for their subject.

Our pass rates for resits in both subjects are above national average, by something like 10% in English (which sounds good but is still significantly less than 50%)- so it does seem like it does help.

Normally we have one class of each, but had a bit of an issue this year as we started off needing two maths classes, which we then had to find staffing for! I believe now November exam results are out, the plan is to compress the two classes down to one. My understanding is that for the coming September there will only be one class of maths resit, and we'll potentially be turning away more students (which isn't ideal as there is a shortage of post-16 places locally).

On the one hand, I do think that for many students who struggled to pass first time round, if they only get an hour or two a week when resitting, they probably aren't going to pass, but on the other hand, I do see how it's really difficult to timetable. I know that the nearest college which does T-levels doesn't allow any resits alongside T-levels as it's too difficult to manage alongside work placements.

Realistically, the funding should probably be going into smaller class sizes at KS4, in order to help more students pass first time around.

I suspect that this is because of Rishi's stated commitment to maths to 18 for all.

The objection then was, and remains, that there aren't enough teachers to staff it.

This year we had almost 1400 resitting maths at the college I teach at...they currently get 3 hours a week. Increasing to 4 hours is going to mean more staff when are struggling to recruit.

I've said this before.
Kids should be allowed to do Functional Skills Level 2 instead.

All that effort going into not improving their GCSE grade, when the FS qualifications are more relevant and straightforward. (At least in English, not looked at the maths in detail yet bar buying the guides).

I definitely think this is a good way forward for most. There's always the odd student who was ill on the day of the exam or had some other issue that means they just need a second chance at the exam in November. Plus sometimes in November, students who were very close to the grade boundary in the summer can get lucky with slightly lower grade boundaries.

But I do think for many students, trying a different qualification is a better route than repeating one they just can't manage, potentially 4 times.

Potentially everyone should get another chance in November, and then it should be up to students/parents in discussion with teachers as to what the next step is.

I will say in my school we don't currently offer functional skills, so it might require members of staff to learn a whole new course, which wouldn't necessarily be popular!

Oh alllll my fingers crossed for her too. Positive thoughts.

My DS1 who has a learning issue among other things got E in English GCSE three times - but finally passed FS L2 and I am sure that is why he has been able to access more employment opps.

yy agree with all about the usefulness of FS as well.

No way was DS ever going to be able to say "why the author says xyz" - "but I don't get it mum, how can I tell why???" But FS was accessible for him.