How to get great results in GCSE English

Identifying where learning comes from is an inexact science, and despite the over-confident title of this post, we can’t say with full certainty what works. We especially can’t dictate what will work in other schools with contexts, challenges and opportunities that are unknown to us and different to our own. However, and with that caveat in mind, this post considers aspects of teaching at our school which seem to make the most difference in promoting achievement.

English Literature GCSE results in particular make for an interesting case study. Our school is placed in the first percentile for progress according to FFT, and disadvantaged students make more progress than the average for the cohort. Last year, 120 /225 students outperformed FFT5 estimates. Something's going very right here - but what?

Last week, we tried conducting a post-mortem on a successful former Year 11 GCSE student’s book, by photographing every page and analysing it to identify its key features. What did the teacher and student actually do in lessons to earn the success? 

In no particular order, here’s what we noticed.

1. The students did lots and lots and lots of work. The book I looked at (a standard workbook, containing 80 pages of A4) was the student’s second book of the year, with the first piece of work dated 14^th December. Their first book had already been filled between Sept – Dec. This second book was filled between December and March. Students have 7 lessons per fortnight, and the sheer quantity of work produced in that time is striking – there are no wasted lessons, and it’s clear that students spend a high proportion of their time doing activities which require them to think hard and put in lots of effort. Almost all tasks and activities are completed and brought to a conclusion – there is very little unfinished work.
2. The teacher set a limited variety of tasks. In fact, there were two activities which students completed almost all of the time: a) annotation of texts, and b) extended written responses. 44/80 pages contained extended writing - a substantial paragraph or more. 23/80 pages were pure extended writing – ie the student had written from the top of the page to the bottom. 12/80 pages contained annotated texts.

The students spent almost all their time either thinking about and analysing texts, or writing about them. The book was notable for the absence of other tasks: no tables, storyboards, brainstorms, drawings, graphs, character-profiles, collages, posters, mindmaps, comic strips, imagined Victor Frankenstein twitter feeds etc etc. Because of this, students become highly accomplished at the core business of the subject. Crucially, the teacher also gets good value from the feedback they give. The hallowed ‘response to feedback’ holy grail is built in and unavoidable – students who are given advice on how to improve their writing or annotation are never far from an opportunity to put this into action.

Is this potentially a failing of our provision? Could it not be argued that in fact this obstinate refusal to vary approaches and activities is evidence of a diminished and uncreative GCSE? Where’s the fun, the colour, the catering to different learning styles and preferences? It’s hard to be definite of course, but I’d argue exactly the opposite is true – it’s because of the intense and unwavering focus of the teaching onto the core elements of the subject – reading, thinking, writing – that students benefit from an enriching experience, with real accomplishment and growth at its heart. It’s wrong to say there is no creativity – it’s absolutely there, in the developing quality, precision and articulacy of the writing, and the increasingly sophisticated thinking and understanding on show.

3. Clear and well-organised resources – there are no loose sheets. All sheets or resources that the teacher has given out are trimmed down and stuck in neatly – no A4 sheets stuck onto A4 pages. It’s difficult to be certain that this makes a difference, but it does mean that the work in the book is clear and coherent – it looks good, and may well contribute to a sense of student pride in their work. We felt proud just looking at it; there’s a sense of commitment and quality throughout.
4. Extensive provision and use of differentiated models, stuck in books alongside student work. Almost all tasks are accompanied by two models: one basic model, and one advanced model. Often, these models are annotated, and all have been investigated by the students in some way – usually taking the approach of ‘why is the better one stronger?’.
5. A clear and straightforward learning intention for each lesson – in this case, the students had written down the LI for each lesson. This is not a requirement from the school, but it did in this case seem to give a sense of coherence and organisation and may well have helped the student with revision. No learning intention was longer than one simple sentence.

Clearly, the factors contributing to success are complex and diverse, and can’t in truth be condensed into 5 definitive points. It’s hard to judge the impact of other influences – the particular cohorts of students that come to us, the general school culture, the influence of parents and the culture of our particular catchment area, the texts we teach, the fact that we don’t use target grades. And as always, none of the techniques and strategies would matter without the people. We are so fortunate to have a team of English teachers who are a superb group of professionals: committed, reflective, hard-working, interested and great fun. The quality of relationships, both amongst the teachers and between teachers and students, is a palpable strength – lessons are typically relaxed with plenty of laughter and ‘good bantz’... but then the teachers make sure that the students do the work. Teachers are comfortable leading discussion and giving instruction, and classes are sparky and lively – but they know that it’s almost always better for students to work independently when it comes to applying what they’ve learnt.

To conclude, I found this approach – to forensically reflect on and record the key features of a successful student’s work after we know that ‘it worked’ – to be highly enlightening and useful. Next step – do the same for Science, Maths, History etc, so that all subjects have  a ‘what works’ resource to refer to as we beat on, boats against the current, with each fresh year to come.