Anyone want to chat about the new English GCSE spec?

[Esker]

Namely how devilishly difficult it looks?! I've been looking over the specimen AQA papers and the thought of some of our kids sitting it is truly intimidating. I'm all for scrapping controlled assessments - absolutely hate them - but closed book literature essay + poetry anthology + unseen poetry and comparing unseen poems all in one exam does seem a rather tall order!

Can't comment on English, but tonite I got told something similar about the new math exam. I guess some will be happy & some will be miserable at the new goalposts.

I don't think the closed book thing will make that much difference. Lots of my colleagues are panicking over that but I think that the A/B grade kids were memorising the quotations needed anyway as they simply didn't have time in an exam to go flicking through a whole book to find the quotations they needed. The C/D kids who weren't memorising them but were relying on the text in the exam fared no better as they simply wasted time flicking through the book. I feel quite strongly about this as I have experience of both teaching English and supporting SEN students in the GCSE exams.

I do think all 3 of those things in one exam is a shame as they will have less than an hour on each section and won't really be able to show off all they know about a text in that time. However, they will have to make sure that they know the texts very well and have studied them in depth, rather than focussing on a couple of scenes for a controlled assessment, which should enhance their enjoyment and deeper understanding of the texts - so hopefully they will be more engaged which has got to help with any exam.

Also, having looked at the AQA specs, it seems that most of the questions will have a sizeable chunk of the text printed as part of the question so that should provide them with a fair bit of guidance.

I would be interested to read what others think.

I agree that open book in some ways tends to be a hindrance Rosabud. I certainly never bothered looking in the text when I had open-book exams - you waste precious writing time. And it is good that extracts will be provided.

The main challenge for our school will be sitting a literature exam at all... we have been doing the combined lit/lang qualification which examines literature only through controlled assessment, therefore most of our students have never had to write about literature in a spontaneous way at all. I'm pleased that they will now have the chance to do this - but also intimidated.

Also the sheer amount of questions and instructions to follow mean that I do worry about how accessible it will be to some candidates.

Agree with Rosabud. I'm looking forward to teaching it and literally cannot wait to see the back of CA. I'm hoping the fact the kids will need to develop the skills rather than relying on drilling/blatant cheating will bring some of the joy back to the job.
Although, I've heard mention of kids 'memorising' essays to regurgitate already...