Comparative analysis of the 2022 DfE GCSE Subject Content for French, German and Spanish and its implications for schools

ABSTRACT

In the high-stakes accountability English educational system, decisions made by government and agencies about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment drive school planning and actions. This paper analyses the drivers for the recent change to French German and Spanish GCSEs and highlights particular areas of the new specification which may damage the experience of language learners in the secondary school environment. After describing the context for the revisions we question why GCSE subject content has been revised when there is no evidence that a revision would improve uptake or grades. Our detailed comparison of the 2015 and 2022 subject content shows how the emphasis has shifted considerably from the requirement to demonstrate skills needed in realistic, authentic contexts, to demonstrating productive knowledge of a tightly prescribed list of vocabulary, grammar and phonics. We then identify the likely impact on schools of the new subject content. While the ostensible justification of change is to make more accessible and motivating, our view is that it will demotivate and will not reward broader skills which the whole spectrum of ability could demonstrate. We conclude by suggesting the real reason for the changes is part of a concerted government policy to reorientate the teaching of languages.

KEYWORDS:

• MFL curriculum
• GCSE Subject Content revision
• MFL assessment
• English Baccalaureate
• language skills
• linguistic knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Responsibility for education is devolved to the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

2 In 2020 and 2021, GCSEs were awarded based on teacher assessed grades only due to the coronavirus pandemic.

3 The issue of ‘severe grading’ refers to the longstanding historical anomaly which means that, on average, the grades obtained by students in ML are lower by up to one grade than other EBacc subjects. Figures taken from DfE Subject Transition Matrices. See ALL London pages http://www.all-london.org.uk/site/index.php/severe-grading/ and FFT Datalab https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2016/02/which-are-the-most-difficult-subjects-at-gcse/ for full details.

4 It appears that ‘skills’ are not favoured by Ofsted. The Ofsted Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, raises issues with the term ‘skills’, describing them often as ‘woolly’ in her commentary https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/hmcis-commentary-october-2017.

5 The DfE Guidance on the EBacc (20 August 2019) states that the government’s ambition is to see 75% of pupils studying the EBacc subject combination at GCSE by 2022 and 90% by2025.’ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-baccalaureate-ebacc/english-baccalaureate-ebacc.