Embedding English in the curriculum – part 1
Its’ 2026, and GCSE English resit results have never been worse.
Source: JCQ National Results Data
The way I like to interpret this graph is as conclusive proof that the strategies we’re using to improve resit learners’ English skills do not work. A kinder way to say this might be: ‘the strategies do not work on today’s AI-crutch generation of learners’, but frankly, they’ve really never worked – especially since Gove’s 2010 reforms and the making of resits compulsory in 2014. Political interference aside, (and I’m sure I’m generalising here [but only a little]) I think the real reason for our sector’s failure is, ironically, FE & Skills teachers’ primary aim: to train learners to pass the exam.
But learners’ lack of skills needed to pass the exam is not the root-cause issue of their failure. Surely if it was, then this skills-focused strategy would have worked by now, given the decades of experience many English teachers have of working with resit learners.
I outlined my best hypothesis for this failure recidivism in a recent article for FEWeek (https://feweek.co.uk/english-resits-are-treating-the-symptom-not-the-cause/, 24 September 2026). A useful precis of this article, and a useful way to explore the root-cause issue is to ask:
- do learners fail GCSE English because they hate it? I think they do.
Of course, this will not be true of every learner, but it’s the question we need to hang on to when looking for the solution.
So, if the root-cause issue is that learners hate studying English, then the reparatory quality improvement action has to be to get learners to love it instead.
Just stop for a moment, sit back, and think about that sentence again: ‘we have to get learners to love studying English’. But what might that sort of educational experience actually look like…?
Donkey’s years ago (2003) I led the inspection of DV8 Training in Walthamstow (they’re now called Big Creative Education). My overriding memory of that experience was the inspection of part of their E2E (Entry to Employment) provision. The qualification learners were working towards was Level-2 English, but that wasn’t the name of the course – it was Magazine Journalism. These are E2E learners, remember, but once enrolled, they took on the much sexier handle of Music Journalists.
If I remember correctly, the magazine published just before inspection had (among very many others) an interview with the very young would-be rapper: Tinie Tempah. The learners responsible for that interview had: done their research, prepared their questions, set out a draft ‘angle’, organised the interview, conducted the interview, written for their target audience, written their piece to achieve their ‘angle’, edited, laid it out with the images they’d collected, and submitted it for publication.
I think the above list of skills is worth reading again, only this time, read it with my mapping document by your side as you do. This document maps all of the fabulous assessment criteria for both GCSE and Functional Skills English to the expert, independent learning skills we all want our learners to develop so that they can do well on any vocational programme.
The educational experience DV8 designed ensured that learners developed their English skills in a way that was meaningful to them. How many of the assessment criteria do you think learners covered?
And the real outcome? They loved it.
That was 23 years ago, but Alexis Michaelides’, founder of DV8/Big Creative Education, says his approach hasn’t changed one bit: ‘We’re constantly looking for creative ways to design inspiring and meaningful education experiences. A recent example is our work with the Mother advertising agency’. Mother has accounts with the likes of Google, IKEA and KFC. ‘The agency was interested to see how our young students would handle one of their live briefs – an ad campaign for Ruff Cosmetics, for dogs, ’ says Alexis.
The learners had to understand the brief, come up with inventive campaigns, then present these to the agency team. ‘The team was knocked out by the level of creativity’, says Alexis, ‘So much so that we’re now working in partnership with them to design a new ‘Creativity’ apprenticeship programme with this approach at its heart.’
So the challenge for all FE&S vocational teachers is: be creative. You could take DV8’s journalism, or modern-day blog approach directly and apply it to your subject area, or you could take the ethos of it – real, relevant, rewarding – and come up with something unique, bespoke to your area of learning, and valuable to your learners. So, what will you do to get your learners to love it, rather than loathe it?
In part 2, we’ll look at another specific example including a learning-experience plan. But in part 3, we’ll start to look at how GCSE English can move away from being about ‘literature’ and become the programme of study we all need – something that develops those fabulous 9 outcomes – skills converted by all.
Comments
No comments yet