Rigour In English GCSE Is Not A Question Of Pumping Up The Pass Level
If we want to improve education in English we need to consider the content of knowledge, rather than changing examination metrics and rubrics to look better in international comparative assessment systems
This summer sees the first cohort of pupils sitting the new GCSEs (9-1) in English and Mathematics which were introduced two years ago by then Secretary for Education, Nicky Morgan.
The old grades of A* to G will be replaced with level 9-1, the point being to introduce a greater differentiation at the top end of exam performance. So A* and A will change to levels 9-7; and B and C grades will change to levels 6-4. Grades D-G, on the other hand, will be less differentiated as they will change to levels 3-1. The accepted level for “a good pass” is level 5, which is at the boundary of a low B/high C in older parlance. So the bar has been set higher in terms of qualification criteria.
For Nicky Morgan upping the stakes for GCSE exams “will help pupils achieve in life” – a shorthand expression behind which sits mountains of think-tank, educational quango-led reports which assert that all society’s goods – whether defined as social mobility, greater economic performance or, more lately, less politically biased citizens (who are likely to vote in accordance to the same values as those who write such reports) – can be achieved by improving education. And the measure of improved education is, naturally, improved performance in national examinations.
To this end, all other GCSE subjects will also be changing to levels by 2019. It is claimed that these measures will bring England into line with other “top performing education systems around the world” – a phrase that I suspect teachers greet either with a weary sigh of ‘here we go again’, or with enthusiasm at the thought of being the bearers of rigour and improved life chances for pupils.
The reality lies somewhere else altogether. Given the inchoate mess that examinations in English were prior to the 2015 reforms, there are some elements of the new examination which can, with an important proviso, be welcomed. The ending of tiered paper is one of them, and in some ways only extends earlier calls from some to scrap the two-tier system of assessment of O-Levels and CSEs.
In English pupils will sit two exams of two hours each, with each paper containing questions from unseen texts: one on non-fiction texts and the other on literary texts. So the cognitive demand is definitely up – no more preparing model answers to help pupils pull out a “here’s one I made earlier” type answer! Surely, this can only be a good move?
And yet…here’s the rub. These are technical improvement which improve the quality of the exams; but to assume that this will improve education (leaving aside pupils’ life chances) is to assume far too much.
Decades of instrumentalism in educational discourse, policy and, alas, professional practice, means that if we want to improve education in English, we need to spend at least as much time and effort considering the substantive content of knowledge in English, and make value judgements about what main model of English to which we want our pupils to be introduced, as we do to improving examination metrics and rubrics so our performance in international comparative assessment of systems looks better. This requires a different sort of question and response altogether, and most importantly, it involves looking at how English Literature is being treated.
Given that within the other two forms of government measures (Progress 8 and the EBacc) English Literature will remain optional, for many pupils their only introduction to literature may well be the literary component of the English Language GCSE. This would be an educational, and quite possibly, an ethical disaster. Why? Well a quick comparison of Assessment Objective One for the English Language exam with that for English Literature is revealing.
Assessment Objective One for English Language is:
Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas Select and synthesise evidence from different texts.
For English Literature it is:Read, understand and respond to texts. Students should be able to: maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations.
Literature is essentially an aesthetic form of knowledge – it is not about information, whether explicitly comprehended or implicitly inferred.It is primarily about two, intimately related things: human experience at a universal level; and the artistic forms the author is able to create which evoke experience more concretely – provided teachers have both the knowledge and experience of literature themselves, and the freedom of practice to bring the powerful pleasures of literary interpretation to life in the classroom. In the process, comprehension and inferring will play a part, but most importantly, so will making reasoned judgements, and being taught the language with which to make improved understandings objective.
Neither of these Assessment Objectives show much recognition of this important aspect of literature although the latter is arguably, closer in that it at least recognises that an informed personal response is something to be developed. There are two important reasons for teaching English Literature as an aesthetic form of knowledge rather than as a form of communication or source of information.
Firstly, it introduces pupils to the difference between an unformed opinion or response, and a more objective judgement.
Secondly, it can introduce pupils to an important part of a shared culture – the texts within the curriculum do not need to be set in stone, they just need to be good literature.
A pupil who can write a reasonable literary essay, and who knows the difference between a summary, paraphrase and précis, will be able to deal with most other forms of written communication. And an education system which can value and provide the conditions in which teachers are free to teach their subject for its own sake is more likely to improve the education of all pupils, irrespective of final destinations in terms of qualifications (including level 5s), jobs or voting patterns.
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert has worked in secondary and higher education for over 25 years. She is a doctoral candidate in the philosophy and sociology of education at Cambridge University. She is a governor at the East London Science School where she sits on the curriculum committee, and writes on educational issues for public and academic audiences. Most recently, she has contributed to the SCETT (Standing Committee for the Education and Training of Teachers) publication ‘The Role of the Teacher Today’. Download our AQA English Language Paper 1 ultimate revision booklet.
