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Abstract
English is the most popular and successful of the subjects currently offered at Advanced Extension Award, a UK examination for the ablest 18‐year‐olds. Government plans for post‐16 reform suggest that AEAs may not continue as a separate examination for much longer. This paper discusses the reasons for the popularity of AEA English, and two key issues for the future which its success raises: the way forward for curriculum reform of English subjects post‐16, and whether AEA, or AEA‐style assessment, can satisfy the demand of elite universities for a means of identifying top students.
Notes
1. For more discussion of my school involvement in the early years of English AEA, see Warner (Citation2001, Citation2002).
2. Examples of students' work in this regard are quoted in Doughty (Citation2005). Cary Bazalgette (Citation2004) might take heart from the fact that this is an area of English which takes media texts and popular culture seriously.
4. See www.aqa.org.uk LTA3 Mark Scheme, p. 21.
5. Letter to The Times Educational Supplement (24 August 2001).
6. Letter to The Daily Telegraph (24 August 2002).
7. Geoff Lucas, Secretary of Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, an association of leading UK independent schools, The Times Educational Supplement (29 August 2003), p. 2.
8. The Daily Telegraph (28 August 2004), p. 7.
9. See www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/info/responses/reform1419 (accessed 12 November 2005).
10. Quoted in The Daily Telegraph (3 June 2004), p. 2.
11. See also the comment by the Downing College access officer posted 6 October 2005. Available at: http://forum.downingjcr.co.uk/thread (accessed 13 April 2006).
12. See www.english.ox.ac.uk/news/news.htm (accessed 13 April 2006).
13. See, for example, ‘A levels “should stretch all students”’, The Times (11 February 2006).
14. From the QCA document ‘Advanced Extension Awards’ sent to schools.
15. See Case Study No. 18 at www.nc.uk.net/gt/general/07_case_studies.
. A version of this article was delivered at the Why English? conference in Oxford, October 2006.