In September 2015, students in secondary, sixth-form and further education began A-level courses in English (English Literature, English Language, and English Language and Literature), all of which had been newly modified as part of the educational reforms introduced by the coalition government in 2010. This recent modification process was part of a drive to reform school qualifications in England more generally and coincided with a range of other changes to the curriculum and assessment practices in English teaching from primary school upwards. For A level English specifications, the key changes were, in addition to revised content, a shift from a modular to a two-year linear system, the decoupling of AS- and A- level qualifications and a reduction in the weighting of coursework, now rebranded as Non-exam assessment (NEA) (see Ofqual 2015 for a summary of all changes following reform). This paper reports on a survey through which we explored how far undergraduate English course providers were first, aware of this latest round of reform, and second, had made or were making changes to their programmes in light of reform. In the context of discourse around the involvement of universities in reform and the need to develop meaningful links between school and university English, we were interested in the reality of higher education academics’ awareness of and interest in post-16 study. This paper begins by outlining the context and process of A level reform before examining the importance of higher education/school relationships with regards to the curriculum and transition. We then present the findings of the survey, and following this we offer some analysis and discussion of the implications for various stakeholders.
Giovanelli, MarcelloClark, BillyMacrae, Andrea
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\Department of English and Modern Languages
Year of publication: 2018Date of RADAR deposit: 2018-09-27