GCSE English Language & Literature

[shaddupayouface]

My son is currently in Year 10 studying AQA GCSE Eng Lang and Lit.

This week his whole year are writing coursework in An Inspector Calls which, I believe counts for 10% of his GCSE grade.

I am totally confused as I had no idea that there was coursework, it doesn’t mention it in the course content from the GCSE Options Booklet, it states two papers for each subject, worth 50% each.

I will be talking to his subject teacher about it but I just wondered if anyone else with a child in Year 10 in another school is doing the same?

Is it IGCSE @shaddupayouface as there is no coursework in GCSE apart from practical subjects? If it is definitely GCSE (and IGCSE is not AQA) then the only coursework is a speaking element for lang, which doesn’t count towards the final grade.

Edited to add: I’d be surprised if any school were doing coursework (if there were any) this early. Was it maybe a practice timed essay? Still a bit early tbh.

I thought igcse was for pupils who don’t have English as their first language too, which definitely isn’t the case for my son (or any of his year as far as I know).

The school has a number of kids with SEN, my son included (he’s high functioning autistic) so they start the GCSE courses in Year 9 rather than Year 10 to give them a head start.

Perhaps he’s misunderstood, or was it in writing from the school? Ask the teacher for clarification- PP above is right about no coursework in AQA.

State schools aren't allowed to use the IGCSE so regardless of SEND your son would need to be in private school for this to be an option. If he isn't, I'd agree with the PP that this is probably a practice timed essay, so not going towards his final grade at all.

My DD did the igcse. She did coursework for An Insoector Calls and for Macbeth, and a comparison of three short texts: an extract from a novel and two poems.
some of it was done in year 10, some of it in Year 11.

She also had to submit a piece of creative writing.
There was also a creative writing part in her timed exam, unseen poetry analysis and Mockingbird etc
exams were this summer. Think this is fairly new as my son didn’t do coursework, but then again he never told me anything about his schoolwork, and was the Covid cohort too.

Yes if it's a state school then it's not allowed to do IGCSE, but to clarify, IGCSE is available to pupils in this country who are native English speakers too - in private schools and it is also a popular choice for HE.

Is it possible your ds has misunderstood @shaddupayouface ? The essay on AIC is worth 30/160 exam marks so just under 20%.

Ok so he is in a private school so maybe that’s the answer.

Wish they’d explain these things to parents properly because my son doesn’t know what’s going on either. She took his exercise book in yesterday with the mark sheet she’d handed out so I have nothing to refer to.

When did it change that state schools aren't allowed to do iGCSEs?
State school educated DD did iGCSE maths in 2016 because she took it in the January. It was also considered more rigorous than GCSE maths.

Did they ban iGCSEs when the GCSEs were reformed?

I don't know about state schools doing IGCSE's but they are still very much a thing. Generally used a lot by the Home Ed community because there isn't a practical requirement to them, which is almost impossible to complete if you're Home Ed. They seem to be about the same in terms of difficulty these days.

Ah it looks as tho AQA may do IGCSE or an equivalent. https://www.oxfordaqa.com/qualifications/international-gcse-english-literature/
Apologies – I have only ever come across IGCSE with Edexcel and CAIE boards but that’s MFL.

IGCSE and GCSE are meant to be on parity but actually back in the day my school used to offer IGCSE Eng lang to bottom sets as it was more accessible and more of them would get a C. Not been available to state schools since the reform of GCSEs began with the 2017 sittings I think.

I would check OP that it is IGCSE your DS is doing. But agree it would be helpful if the school had flagged ahead of time that there was some coursework. I am still surprised, even if they started the texts last year, that they would do exam coursework 18 months or so before the exam.

IGCSE isn’t for EAL children, it’s just the equivalent of GCSE that children abroad can take too. Since 2019 it’s become very rare for state schools to take it. In the other boards there is no coursework so it’s most likely just a timed essay

They’re not banned from doing it but as of 2019 they haven’t been funded for it so they don’t.

I’ve had a response from the Head of Department, they switched over to iGCSE in 2022 because they thought it would be better for students to get the coursework over with in Year 10 and then concentrate on Language through Year 11. Plus they would only have 1 paper for each element of the course during examinations instead of the usual 2 each. It Is regarded as equal to a GCSE in Further and Higher Education so that’s good to know.

Is it a combined lit and lang GCSE @shaddupayouface ? I might want to clarify that as the AQA Eng lit IGCSE I linked to still has two papers even if you do coursework

It’s not clear whether it’s combined or not but I’ll definitely ask about it. Thanks for all the comments from everyone.