When we launched our Let’s Talk English campaign earlier this year, our purpose was clear: to create an open space for the education community to explore how GCSE English teaching, learning and assessment could evolve to better serve every student. 

We didn’t start with answers or predetermined solutions; we started with questions — and an invitation for teachers, students and education leaders to share their experiences, insights and ideas about what English could become.

What do we mean when we ask why English does not feel creative any more? 

Partly, maybe, that after the age of 14, pupils have few opportunities to write fiction,  poetry or drama, at least for assessment. There is only one ‘recreative writing’ option at A-Level, and few students take it. The Creative Writing A-Level lasted only from 2014-2018. But then such opportunities haven’t existed for quite a few decades, and even then, they were permitted only intermittently, and reluctantly.

In the last year, the EA has been talking to teachers, academics, and leaders in the discipline about the English GCSEs. As part of our Let’s Talk English series, Dr Rebecca Fisher (CEO of the English Association) outlines the challenges with the GCSEs and recommendations for change as identified by the English subject community.