Government should review uninspiring and ‘mechanistic’ GCSE English – exam board

The Government should review GCSE English as teachers say it is uninspiring and “too mechanistic”, the leader of a major exam board has said.

Colin Hughes, chief executive of AQA, said pupils should also be given a chance to demonstrate literacy, oracy and numeracy skills that are useful in the “real world” through different qualifications.

The exam board – which recently launched a numeracy test to help pupils prepare for real-life situations – is hoping to develop similar tests for literacy and digital fluency skills, he said.

His comments come as the Government’s consultation into a review of curriculum and assessment in England – which is being led by education expert Professor Becky Francis – closes on Friday.

In its response to the call for evidence, AQA has asked the Government to explore reducing some subject content and the number of exam papers on a subject-by-subject basis to “reduce the burden”.

Mr Hughes told the PA news agency: “We will be saying to Becky Francis’s review that we think that GCSE English language is in quite urgent need of a revisit.

“There is a general feeling amongst English teachers that it’s become a bit too mechanistic.

“It’s not a very inspiring specification.”

The exam board believes updating the subject content in GCSE English language – with greater emphasis on oracy and multimodal texts – would improve the quality and balance of what pupils learn.

Mr Hughes said: “There’s been quite a lot of talk about ‘could we reduce the exam burden’, particularly at 16-plus, ie GCSEs, and we believe that there is an opportunity to do that.”

Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “What we do need to do is to maintain probably more or less the same amount of content that is required in the curriculum to be studied in most areas.

“But then we don’t have to assess it quite as heavily as we do.

“For example, do we have to have three GCSE maths papers? Could we do it all in two papers? Our view is there is a high probability that we could.”

Mr Hughes said AQA is “open to reform”, but he argued that overall GCSEs work and they are “liked and respected” and command public confidence.

He added: “We think a subject-by-subject evaluation of the potential for doing some things in a modular way, or reducing the number of components in Year 11, essentially for GCSEs, there’s definite potential there and that could help lift a bit of pressure off the system.”

In England, many pupils who do not secure at least a grade 4 – which is considered a “standard pass” – in English and/or maths GCSE are required to retake the subjects during post-16 education.

Education leaders have called for the Government’s policy of compulsory resits to be scrapped as they have warned that a significant number of teenagers who did not secure a pass in their maths and English GCSEs are being consigned to a “remorseless treadmill” of “demotivating” resits.

On resits, Mr Hughes told PA: “It should be possible for somebody who didn’t quite make it to get themselves across a line, whatever that line may be. So I’m very comfortable about the continuation of the resit policy.

“But what is really troublesome and concerning is the reasonably high proportion of young people who are resitting again and again and again.

“And when you talk to them they say ‘look, this course, this qualification, this examination, just isn’t for me. It’s not that I can’t speak or talk or even write, it just doesn’t work for me and it doesn’t help me show what I can do.’

“And our view is that we need a different approach to measuring some of those skills and capabilities that are actually useful in the real world.”

Mr Hughes said further education colleges are excited by the exam board’s plans for new qualifications which could give pupils a proficiency certificate, like a music grade, for their numeracy and literacy skills.

He said: “They see it as a real opportunity to enable those students – who they know are just going to keep banging their head against the Grade 4 wall in Maths and English – to show what they can do in some other way.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “It’s no secret that the curriculum and assessment system as it stands doesn’t adequately prepare children for work or life and this government is determined that will change so that every child has the tools they need to achieve and thrive.

“We are ambitious for our children and young people and our mission to break down barriers to opportunity means ensuring a cutting-edge curriculum that truly equips them for the future.”