Ofqual Consultation GCSE French German and Spanish Conditions March - April 2022

 PLEASE RESPOND!

Please can I urge people to respond to the current Ofqual consultation on their conditions, requirements and guidance to exam bodies with respect to the new GCSE French German and Spanish. It must be submitted by Tuesday 19th April 2022.   There are 7 open-ended questions.

INFORMATION

• Here is a link to the Ofqual page with documents and direct link to the online response form
• Here is a direct link to the online response form.
• ALL has led a webinar in order to support members.   Here is a link to the page which has the recording (1 hour),  pdf of the PowerPoint presentation, participant ‘chat record’ and preparatory notes
• Here is a direct link to the recording

MY PERSONAL RESPONSE

I am putting together my own response, and all are welcome to look at this.  Please  me know of any  errors / misunderstandings.

Here is a link to my document on my Google drive.  It has a ‘summary’ (5 sides) and ‘full’ (9 sides) response.  Please do not be put off by the size!  I hope it helps others to consider their own responses.

WHY RESPOND?

It can be very tempting to give up on this, as the whole process of reviewing, proposing and approving this new GCSE has been patently contrary to the spirit of involving professionals and experts in subject teaching and assessment, not least by asking for responses at periods and within time frames which do not allow for easy discussion between teachers.  However, if we do not respond, at best we have absolutely no chance of influencing decisions, and at worst, it can appear that the profession is in agreement with change.

How disappointing it is that although over 1,000 signed the APPG statement in protest at the new subject content, this translated into only 400 rejecting it in the official consultation, such that the statistics showed a majority in favour.  We know the reasons (a superficially attractive proposal before you look into the consequences, a consultation launched at an inconsiderate time for schools knee-deep in TAGs, a government-funded body prepped up to promote the changes while the rest of us had to abandon what we were doing in order to invest time into analysing them.... etc. etc.) .. but it is still disappointing.

WHAT CHANGES WERE MADE TO THE SUBJECT CONTENT AS A RESULT OF CONSULTATION RESPONSES?

The introduction to the consultation outcome highlights the following:

Timing: A one-year delay to allow more time to prepare for changes

Vocabulary:

• A widening of vocabulary for selection (85% of top 2,000 rather than 90% of top 2,000)
• Definition of vocabulary widened to 'word families' to allow an increase in the number of words on which pupils can be tested
• the percentage of words AOs must select form top 2,000 reduced from 90% to 85% allowing greater flexibility in identifying lower frequency word families when creating specs
• AOs can add up to 20 additional vocabulary items of cultural, historical or geographical content
• For reading, AOs can use true and exact cognates 

Themes and topics:

a clear expectation that AOs identify broad themes and topics

 Question types

A requirement to demonstrate deduction and inference skills.  Now students required to infer plausible meanings of single words outside the vocabulary list when embedded in th econtext of written sentence (i.e. reading only - not listening)

 Grammar.  Minor adjustments:

2 technical annexes  - exemplification of  families of regular inflected words and all forms of the required words that must be listed.

 In addition, I noticed other changes including the following: 

• Explicit aim to understand relationships between the foreign language and  English (presumably allowing for cognates)
• Acknowledgement that words cannot always be clearly discernible when heard (qualified ‘as appropriate to pronunciation norms for each language)
• Adding requirement for some vocabulary outside the vocabulary list for the dictation
• Adding requirement for interactive unprepared questions (role play and visual stimuli)
• Explicitly allowing credit for words outside the word list
• Removal of original proposed para 16 which read ‘There will be an explicit and representative balance of different parts of speech such as nouns (concrete and abstract) pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions’
• There were also some changes in the grammar requirements, especially in French.  e.g. FOUNDATION: adding the ‘recevoir’ as a high frequency verb pattern, HIGHER: ,including plural form of imperfect and conditional at higher level. Adding ‘il y en aura’.  Sound/ spelling, including reference to intonation: ‘students will be expected to pronounce words with stress patterns that allow their speech to be clear an comprehensible.  Three sounds removed: eille, euill- and ouille
• German: including future tense plural forms werden + infinitive in foundation

Of course, this was not enough. 

In particular with regard to vocabulary, there was a dogmatic ideological refusal to concede to examining body requests to reduce the constraint to 80% of the top 3,000 words.  Why refuse this?  Surely the only reason can be knowing that by conceding to the request it would have made it easier for the boards to use an interesting, more relevant theme-based approach.

But please don’t give up!

Please, please do take the time to respond if you possibly can.  Being part of an organisation such as ALL means that you have access to resources where others have invested time in order to try to unpack the issues in a consultation, but we depend on individuals to submit responses in order to give weight to arguments.

THANK YOU!