Curriculum review and English Language

[AnotherTrickyOne]

Hi,

I wondered if I could ask about people's thoughts on the curriculum review on English GCSE level assessment?

My DS is one of the many many kids of his cohort who is struggling with really severe anxiety. He is home schooling with council funding, partly because he cannot access the formal English language and literature curriulum at all due to the heavy load of topics relating to horror, anxiety and fear.

I saw in the review that one of the urgent things in the review was to change this subject to increase access. However, there doesn't seem to be any plan to offer alternative texts that will ease the route for young people who struggle with traumatic language.

They seem to be introducing a stepped course to get folks with a grade 2 up to the point where they can study GCSE but that won't help my DS. English skills are not the problem, and I would guess it is the same with many other young people, given that 30% of girls and 25% of boys have a diagnosable anxiety disorder.

It's very frustrating because DS is a great writer. He is writing a novel at home and he loves literary analysis. He was the "greater depth writer" in his primary school class.

However, once he got to secondary, he just couldn't manage the distressing content in the English Language and Literature classes.

Unfortunately I couldn't get help from his school and he had a nervous breakdown before I took the huge decision to remove him from school and fight for an EHCP.

It's very hard for a young person to come back from that situation, and I don't see any indication at all in the curriculum review that they are thinking about how to accommodate young people like my DS, of whom there are now so many.

I wondered if I could ask whether you think they are keeping these young people in mind?

FWIW, I do not mean to be asking for MH advice, or advice on diagnoses. We have all the MH advice we need here and DS is in good hands and making progress. I just would like to ask about what the plan is for the curriculum.

Thanks!

In case you don't know exactly what I mean, here is an example of text from an English language paper by pearson.

" It was bitter cold; so cold, that the air almost took the skin off
my face as I ran; but I ran on, crying to think how my poor little
darling must be perished and frightened. I was within sight of the
holly-trees, when I saw a shepherd coming down the hill, bearing
something in his arms wrapped in his cloak. He shouted to me, and
asked me if I had lost a child; and, when I could not speak for
crying, he bore towards me, and I saw my wee one, lying still, and
white, and stiff in his arms, as if she had been dead. He told me he
had been up the Fells to gather in his sheep, before the deep cold of
night came on, and that under the holly-trees (black marks on the
hill-side, where no other bush was for miles around) he had found my
little lady – my lamb – my queen – my darling – stiff and cold in the
terrible sleep which is frost-begotten*."

For a kid like my son, this is just far too much to cope with.

Can you give specific examples of what you mean by distressing content? I teach English and am struggling to think of anything in the Language GCSE that fits what you describe. Literature I accept is different and may not be a suitable option for your DS. However, I’ve been teaching for a long time and can’t recall a student being so affected by content that they have had to withdraw from lessons.

@TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross I have put one above.

I think the problem is that in school the two subjects are taught together. There is no way to study just English Language alone.

I did approach the school many many times from year 6 right through to year 9 and they said there was no other way, even when I told them he was imminently heading for a nervous breakdown.

Now that he is out of school it is different and we can study English Language without literature, but there are a lot of unseen texts in it and there is no single Eng Lang qualification that promises not to include distressing material.

That is a problem because there are a huge number of kids like my DS who are out of school with severe anxiety and these kids have to somehow get through GCSE English Language to be able to move on, get back into education, and get a job.

The school that I am talking about got Ofsted outstanding for inclusion.

I understand why you’re unhappy your son cannot access the GCSE. I do think that his bar for horror is incredibly low if he cannot handle that excerpt. Most literature includes some death or negativity as difficult themes are often what is explored in writing.

An alternative online GCSE spec for those who need it may be a good thing but I think stripping all negative events from the main body would be too far.

The best qualification I have found in the Cambridge iGCSE 0990 which allows kids to do the writing work as coursework, which is great.

However, the reading paper does include distressing text about 1 year in 5 as far as I can see. With my son in the state he is in, the level of alarming material would be too much for my DS about 3 years in each 5 of the current set of past papers.

I just don't know where this leave the kids of this group.

I know they could do the functional skills exam and get a 4, but the government and employers and universities still require an actual GCSE pass to allow kids back into education and employment.

DS is a rock solid academic scientist, and needs a way to pass this qualification.

@2GreatFatSquirrels I think an alternative option would really be great if they could produce one.

Given that the subject is mandatory, and so many kids are out with anxiety, it seems to me to be basic common sense that a route needs to be made for these kids.

I hope something changes to allow your son to progress. However, I wouldn’t hold out hope as it’s quite a niche issue even among people with anxiety.

I faint when I see blood/injury and was still made to watch the first aid videos (and subsequently faint) when at secondary school. They don’t really care about a few people with an issue.

I’d get him into Functional Skills for now. At least that way he will have the pass.

I agree that your DS’s issue seems quite niche even among those with anxiety.

He ultimately needs to be able to navigate the world as it is, and it is full of distressing issues. For many young people, English texts help them to learn to consider and discuss such issues and the emotions they evoke. I don’t think that changing the whole curriculum to avoid this crucial element of growing up is really the answer.

I wish the 180,000+ other familes who have had to withdraw children from school in a recent academic year could be here to also comment. Unfortuanately a lot of these kids have no voice in the system just now.

I take your point, and I’ve said it myself. I work in an AP setting, with young people who present with various issues, some of whom have a history of suicidal ideation and self-harm.

Once you know that about a young person, it suddenly brings the events of Romeo and Juliet, or Macbeth, or An Inspector Calls, into sharp focus.

I teach Functional Skills mostly, these days. I think that might be the safest option for your son.

Most creative narratives have some adversity, peril or danger that has to be overcome. That is the basic foundation of story telling.

I think even if all references to it were eliminated from the curriculum then a whole nation of children would be short changed and their exposure to of the power of literature would be diminished.

Thanks for commenting. This is exactly the sitaution.

An inspector calls is particularly close to the bone for a child with suicidal ideation who's been failed repeatedly in the school system and had to leave.

I know that is the literature curriulum, but Eng Lang is no better, with the unseen texts.

Unfortunately, for the children who have grown up in the Austerity period, a lot of them do carry trauma either from school or medical situations. I think it is naive of the English departments to think that they have a right to expose these children to such material, without examining whether the children have the spoons to cope, and whether the teachers have the training to support them.

I take @TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross 's point above about how kids have to navigate these darker issues in adult life, but at the moment the Eng Lang exam is specifically assessing young people on their ability to cope with distressing material, as well as their ability to read and write English.

I think for a lot of (perhaps SEND) young people it would make sense to separate these two issues. If they could have a chance to ace the Eng Lang exam and be assessed separately on the ability to cope with things like death and illness and rape, then that would be very helpful.

Functional skills level 2 is accepted by lots of post 16 institutions as an alternative. It just varies by institution. Definitely worth you checking that if you feel worried that you need an alternative. They still have to do transactions writing in the exam and read transactional tests which can include topics like disasters. The passage quoted about the ‘missing child’ was indeed in the language paper. However, the level of anxiety you suggest could mean that much of what is on the tv or radio would be impossible for them to be exposed to so they would struggle to access much of what is in the arts and some humanities subjects. I have rarely come across students who have this level of challenge with exposure to potentially emotional material, so that sounds very difficult.

Many universities and employers accept functional skills level 2. Not all. We have found a lot will accept either maths or english being functional skills but not both. So if you are heading heading science way, some universities will be fine with just english. Not all, but many. Especially if you have a good grade is an essay subject like history

Could your child do functional skills, then attempt gccsd at a sixth form when hopefully his mental health is more stable?

I dont know if the gcses should be reviewed or not, but I do think the alternative should be more widely known and accepted.

I dont think teachers and class mates are skilled enough in mental health to explore suicide with a child that has suicide ideation.

@Fearfulsaints Thanks that's a good thought about functional skills. I think the Cambridge 0990 qualification is likely to fill that spot for us, but we are very fortunate to have that option. Most don't, because it is only available in a private school, and probably not even through the private exam centres.

Yes I agree that teachers should not be asked to coach a child through discussion of suicidal ideation when the child is actually experiencing that.

I do think that the English lit and drama curriculum asks a lot of the teachers in that respect.

I mean asking teachers to coach a whole diverse cohort of relatively young kids through books like "a monster calls" and "1984" and "The landlady" by Roald Dahl. It's a lot to ask of people who are not trained in psychological therapy. Especially with class sizes close to 40 and an expectation that 30% have clinically diagnosable anxiety even before they start. That a hard ask I think.