There is an urgent need provide more help to students struggling with English and Maths, with issues across the education journey from primary to post-16, according to a panel of experts assembled by OCR and led by chief executive Jill Duffy at the Festival of Education this week. 

The panel discussion entitled Getting Reform Right: What comes first? brought together experts in English and maths and teachers with extensive frontline experience. 

OCR has been leading conversations on much-needed education reform and helping to inform the ongoing Curriculum and Assessment Review, which cited OCR’s recent Striking the Balance report. This week’s panel discussion was a chance for experts to have their say on what the government-commissioned review should focus its efforts on, with limited capacity in the system for widespread change. 

Joining Jill on the panel were maths teacher and broadcaster Bobby Seagull, Interim CEO of Get Further and former FE English teacher Alice Eardley, and Head of English and Innovation Lead at Thames Christian School Madeleine Champagnie. 

Opening the discussion, Jill Duffy said: “Ofqual provisional statistics show another year of declining popularity for A Level English. We have spoken to a lot of English teachers over the past few years, and they are clear that a demotivating and dispiriting GCSE experience is putting students off the subject. 

“When we speak to teachers we hear real frustration about this. It’s not just about making the subject unpopular. It’s frustration that the current English Language GCSE is a completely missed opportunity.”

Madeleine Champagnie said the subject could become too “formulaic”, meaning students' analytical skills and creativity were deprioritised in favour of memorisation. The analytical aspect of the subject is increasingly important, she added: “Showing your process in English is becoming as important as in maths because if we’re asking young people to use AI intelligently we need them to think and create evaluatively and metacognitively.”

Alice Eardley said that her experience of teaching English Language to post-16 students was that the creative writing aspect of the current subject was popular with students, and she also praised the freedom the current GCSE gives teachers to choose texts. However, she called for a more formal focus on oracy in the subject. She said: “A lot of my students struggled with reading but had the gift of the gab. Giving them the opportunity to talk about something they’re passionate about was really valuable, and it’s a shame we can’t reward them for something they excel in.”

There was also extensive discussion of maths, and the proportion of young people struggling to achieve a Grade 4 in the subject at GCSE. 

Bobby Seagull said: “About 200,000 students are not getting a GCSE pass. That means every five years we’re telling about a million young people they can’t do maths. They take that negativity about the subject throughout their lives.” He added that reducing some of the content of the maths GCSE, and reducing the number of exams, could help reduce that anxiety and give teachers more time to teach, citing last year’s OCR report Striking the Balance.