Improvements to be made to A level foreign languages

Happy European Day of Languages!

 

And the day has been made happier for me by the good news that Ofqual have responded to concerns expressed by ALL and other language and Headteacher organisations about the assessment of AL ML and the relative under-awarding of A* grades. For a long time we have been drawing attention to this, (see links on ALL London website here and comments made at the end of the TES article here) and finally action is going to be taken!

 

Here is a link to a page where you can read the announcement and download the technical report.

 

Most importantly, Ofqual are requiring exam boards to take action for the Summer 2015 exams, as well as making recommendations for the new linear A-levels.  To reassure us, they stress that there will not be any change in what we have to teach or how we prepare the students for exams.  The exams will just be more fairly assessed. I really hope that this will give schools more confidence in encouraging students to take languages at A level.  We could not have afforded to wait until the launch of a new specification. 

There is also a press release on the HMC website issued jointly by all the headteachers unions, as it has been important that independent and state schools have been acting jointly. 

 

The story is featured in this week’s TES

Further links to press coverage:

The Independent
The Guardian
Times Ed
The BBC
The Telegraph

Over the weekend I'll put together a fuller analysis which will be issued through ALL in a special 'ALLnet on Monday.