GCSE Resits Hub Project

By Bianca Fanciullacci, Head of English and Maths at Harrow, Richmond and Uxbridge Colleges

According to a recent article in TES, reading standards have been falling since 2018, fewer year 6 students are reaching expected reading standards for year 6 and only 29% of the young people surveyed by the National Literacy Trust enjoyed reading (Turner, 2024).   This may explain the rising numbers of GCSE English language retakes in FE colleges and the issues with reading engagement that teachers experience in the resit English classroom. Yet, despite these worrying statistics, it really is not all doom and gloom and there are definitely ways to engage reluctant readers to develop strategic reading skills and a sense of agency in their own reading journey.

An important point to note is that the GCSE language paper presupposes comprehension of a text in order for commentary, language analysis and evaluation to take place.  However, it can be a struggle to engage a resit learner in the process of reading.   I have often found myself paying attention to the debate that surrounds reluctant readers as those who have “cultural deficits” (Zipin, 2009).  Cultural Capital or lack thereof has often been given as a reason why resit learners do not engage well with the language exam or curriculum. Cultural Capital is usually connected to “the legitimate culture of the dominant classes” (Bourdieu, 1974) and “beaux-arts consumption” (Mikus et al, 2019, p197), and this can exclude children who are “not socialized into the preferences, attitudes and behaviours of the middle class…(and)…. struggle to conform to the expectations of the educational system” (Mikus et al, 2019, p198).  However, there is a solution which bridges the gap between the reluctance to read and the development of a reading skill set which is by developing a “curriculum that makes meaningful connection with ways of knowing in learners’ lives” (Zipin, 2009, p317). It is all about acknowledging learners’ “intelligence and knowledge assets” (Zipin, 2009. P317).  In short, taking an interest in learners and how their identity is shaped is key to developing a trust relationship which transforms “students’ diversities into pedagogical assets” (Moll and Gonzalez, 1997, p89)

It sounds like a daunting task to be able to focus on the students’ lived experiences and weave these into a curriculum that inspires a love of English language, but this notion can easily be translated into the English resit classroom.  

Firstly, there needs to be a focus on themes that are interesting to the cohort.  This is likely to stem from the demographics of the area.  This then creates a context for choosing appropriate texts which resonate with learners’ lived experiences. The best choice I ever made was to start the year with the first English lesson about identity. The learners discussed their names and the origins of their names. They read a non-fiction text about identity and responded to the text by answering some simple comprehension questions and then some gentle analysis and inference, all related to what they thought about the content and expressions used- how it related to their own lives.  Then they finished with a piece of writing about themselves. The piece then opened a dialogue between me and the learner and was an insight into their lives.   A thematic curriculum using contexts which the learners can connect to or empathise with will also help.  Flipping the curriculum and starting with non-fiction first has helped make meaningful relationships with learners as they can express their opinions about the chosen topics and teachers learn about their opinions and life experiences.  GCSE language allows for great teacher agency and for learners to experience texts in a different way by not following the prescribed way of summative assessment.  Therefore, this allows learners to “find a space for [them]selves” and “invite other responses than the merely formalist” (Yandell, 2018, p421). 

As we question learners and invite them to put themselves into the shoes of the narrator, or the writer in that situation, through a series of pre reading tasks, a connection is then established with the text that stimulates the reading process as the text is no longer part of the formal reading process required for English GCSE.  We make learners “active makers of meaning” and “texts become tools for thinking with and reading becomes a means of making sense both of ourselves and of the world” (Yandell, 2018, p422).

Our learners are not reluctant readers solely because they can’t read well. Many are just disillusioned by formal education and are open and willing to read if the conditions are right.  By focusing on our learners’ knowledge and opinions as assets we are able to support “reading pleasure among students from low-socio economic backgrounds [which] may improve their reading ability and narrow the achievement gap” (Mikus et al, 2020, p210).

References:

Bourdieu, P. (1974). “The School as a Conservative Force: Scholastic and Cultural Inequalities.” In Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education, edited by John Eggleston. 1. publ, 32–46. London: Methuen.

Gonzalez, N., Moll, L.C., & Amanti, C., (Eds.) (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Mikus, K., Tieben, N. and Schober, P.S., (2020). Children’s conversion of cultural capital into educational success: the symbolic and skill-generating functions of cultural capital. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(2), pp.197-217.

Turner, C (2024). Most teachers ‘at a loss’ with struggling readers | TES. [online] Available at: https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/teachers-at-loss-struggling-readers-pupils-classroom [Accessed 3 Jun. 2024].

Yandell, J., (2018).January. Exploring (and contesting) literary knowledge: pedagogy, agency and cultural capital. In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Languages and Arts (ICLA 2017) (Vol. 6, pp. 418-425). Atlantis.

Zipin, L., (2009). Dark funds of knowledge, deep funds of pedagogy: Exploring boundaries between lifeworlds and schools. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 30(3), pp.317-331.