Navigating GCSE and A level reform

Following the release of the government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, which acknowledges the urgent need to rethink how GCSE resits can better support students, we're reflecting on the insights gathered through our Resit Rethink campaign to date.

Earlier this year, we spoke with 1000 college students and 1000 college tutors to understand what’s working - and what isn’t - in GCSE English and maths resits.

The findings are clear: resits have the potential to support progress but the current model doesn’t always students up to succeed.

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.