A level Lit

[Piggywaspushed]

Anyone got any ideas or thoughts why the decline in popularity of Lit? Is it just the cult of STEM? (no offence STEM ists)

At my school, the numbers for next year have twice as many doing economics as A level lit, 3 times as many doing maths and 3 times as many doing physics and psychology...

Politics has fallen off, too, but history remains very popular.

Large comp - high achieving - lots of A level choice. Usual issues of MFL being dead on its feet.

[Piggywaspushed]

Yes, it partly is but it is also based on years of teaching, hearing kids say why they hate maths and, rightly or wrongly, it is still the most widely disliked subject, but perhaps only by weaker students.

I am happy to accept it is challenging and stimulating to many ; it's the juxtaposition of maths being chosen and English not because English is 'boring' that is quite a new phenomenon.

But , I ma not bothered about lots taking maths actually or physics. The decline In English seems to be at the expense of sciences partly but also we are seeing the rise of economics, law and so on which they are not complementing with English Lit.

No matter what many may think on here, A level was more popular in the Of Mice and Men days!!

[TheFallenMadonna]

DS enjoyed Eng Lit GCSE far more than he thought actually, but he says he's never reading another poem. I told him to wait until he fell in love. He was unimpressed.

[TheFallenMadonna]

More than he though he would

[YellowPrimula]

Thinking about this today and I think another reason is 'certainty' . Maths is seen as having a right or a wrong answer and there no doubt that teenagers are becoming increasingly risk averse.

English is seen as riskier in that to some extent you are at the mercy of the examiner and let's face it there has been some pretty poor public publicity about examiners in recent years.

I agree about education becoming more mechanistic and reductive. I would like my dc to be educated and exposed to a variety of different genres and authors not just to pass exams. I want their eyes to be opened to the opportunities that literature presents to them . They are lucky to have massively active English dept at their school who get external speakers and performers in and which includes a published poet amongst their ranks . The English dept has a very high profile in the school and perhaps that helps in terms of pupils choosing the subject.

[Piggywaspushed]

Yes, I am sure it does! A published poet! Goodness.

Another girl today said (slightly tongue in cheek) that it might be the patriarchy. the subjects students are choosing are taught by 'cool males'. This is not true of economics and law, but they choose them because of the novelty factor.

This is v sad : it suggests we need to put our two male teachers centre stage ...

[Piggywaspushed]

I did say to my friend that we need a higher profile and need a champion on SLT.

[Piggywaspushed]

fallen funnily enough after I finished my degree I didn't read a book for about 4 years!

I di share my A level group for a while with a very 'new school' mechanical English teacher. I could see how it has become dull. My God she bored them. Some of the new breed of English teachers aren't well read ( I have no idea why they teach English) and don't seem to know anything about literature so they can't improvise or answer questions easily...

and all they do in years 9 - 11 is assessment, learn some skills, assessment, learn some skills. Sigh.

[noblegiraffe]

You need a bit of jumping on tables and Captain my Captain...

It's weird that your schools' SLT are all science and apparently maths is taught by 'cool males'! My school's SLT is a real mix of subjects and the maths dept is mostly female.

[Piggywaspushed]

Ummm... I think maths has a couple of males who do the banter thing , but they are mainly female. SLT is about 90% scientists. Notorious for it!

the 'cool males' are lurking in history (although on e teaches politics so that doesn't make much sense) and science, to an extent. There was a swathe of cool males a couple of years back in history and RS but they have actually all left to rapid undeserved promotion

[OCSockOrphanage]

Somewhere, in another pre-Mumsnet universe, I am sure I read the notion that Y12 in Lit A level ought to be a year in which free reading was compulsory: at the level of a book a fortnight. Come back and tell class what you liked (or not) and WHY. I think we over-examine now. I did A level in the 1970s (and was really well taught- thanks Miss Chisholm) but I don't remember it being a grind, except Chaucer, not even the texts I didn't like much.

[PurpleCrowbar]

I've done the bad not reading the thread thing. Will go back.

OM&M - it's teacher catnip because it is, in my experience, the only novel that you can teach to every kid in the school & differentiate perfectly. Everyone gets the big stuff. Top set get to drill down into the symbolism & structure.

About the only other text I can think of (Shakespeare aside, but that's a different argument) that works as well across the cohort is Lord of the Flies. Still not quite as accessible.

I'll be honest: I hate OM&M. Bored to tears with it. But I can use it to teach everything I need my Y11s to know for IGCSE.

IB is definitely the way forward post 16. I'm teaching The Handmaid's Tale, Carol Ann Duffy & Persepolis to my year 12s & loving it.

[Piggywaspushed]

I like my A level board : AQA . Quite a lot of choice . I am doing Streetcar, God of Small Things and Carol Ann Duffy and loving it!

I like teacher catnip

I didn't read OMAM until I was 22 and a teacher!

[KeiraTwiceKnightley]

We do eduqas. Apart from Keats which I HATE, the course is good - carol Ann Duffy, Philip Larkin, streetcar, Malfi, and coursework where students have a free choice as long as they compare a literary text written before 2000 and one written after. This year the post 2000 texts chosen include The Road, a Tracy Chevalier, Sense of an Ending and Brooklyn.

[Piggywaspushed]

I bloody LOVE Keats!!!

Do history teachers argue like this? Oh I LOVE the Reformation ! How could you; I much prefer Liberal reforms?

[noblegiraffe]

Maths teachers argue like this, there was a discussion on twitter recently about which bits of maths were crap and should be ditched from the curriculum.

[Piggywaspushed]

Glad to hear it.

My DH doesn't . He just says all the kids are thick! Old school maths teacher.

Just found this on the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-41693230


Explains a lot. Although of course not all maths graduates earn highly. Lots even end up as teachers!!!

And the beloved history is quite low down. My year 13s were told philosophy was the A level which led to the best paid careers. They seemed to believe this...they were told by their philosophy teacher.

[PurpleCrowbar]

Ultimately it works a lot on the pragmatics, especially with current teacher recruitment crisis.

You do the familiar stuff because it's easy for someone else to take over.

Back in SATs days, I did Richard III when everyone else was doing Macbeth.

Then I had to leave earlier than planned on ML & was incredibly unpopular when some poor non specialist got stuck with my year 9s for the last few weeks.

They did brilliantly, in fact, but it certainly didn't make my HODs life any easier, & led to a department agreement that we all teach the same texts going forward.

Boring but sensible.

[Piggywaspushed]

That's such a bone of contention in our department!!

[AlexanderHamilton]

In terms of RG universities one of the subjects that comes really high up in terms of A levels that successful students have is drama!

[noblegiraffe]

Oh just look at that graph. Maths near the top - woohoo! Education worse than English. So any mathematicians who go into education must be right muppets.

[Piggywaspushed]

... which plenty do!

What is it that mathematicians are doing post degree that is so well paid out of interest?

[YellowPrimula]

Banking, actuaries ( awful exams though) , underwriting, accountancy ( starts relatively low but climbs, more exams ) ,

[Piggywaspushed]

Didn't think of Banking! Of course!

[Piggywaspushed]

They can't all graduate and become Bankers though??