English Literature Resources
Dear Parent/Carer
I hope you and your family are safe and well at home.
I just wanted to update you on your child’s GCSE in English Literature. As you know, all GCSE exams are cancelled this summer. This means Year 10 students will not be able to sit their exams in English Literature as planned. Initially, the Department for Education only planned for pupils in Year 11 to have GCSEs certified. However, schools and unions have successfully lobbied for the grading to also apply to other year groups and this has been successful. Therefore, Year 10 will also be awarded grades for subjects they had prepared to sit in this series of 2020 exams, In the case of Year 10 SHS pupils, this means they will receive their GCSE grade for English Literature.
Just like Year 11, they will be awarded the grade that we think they would have achieved if they had sat the exam in June. The government has asked teachers of Year 10 students, for whom we had already entered for their GCSE in English Literature, to submit grades based on their knowledge of students’ work and progress. Staff have been hard at work collating all their knowledge of your child’s progress and attainment, attitude and work ethic to calculate a fair and realistic grade we think your child would have achieved had they had the opportunity to sit the exam. Therefore, your child will receive a grade for GCSE English Literature that recognises their work in English this year.
Whilst working from home, and when we return to school, we are preparing your child for their English Language GCSE. The first component of this is the English Language Speaking and Listening qualification. This is a separately endorsed and certified qualification which is awarded at Pass, Merit and Distinction levels. We have posted home booklets (also available on website and classcharts) and have launched google classrooms so students can submit work that their English teacher can mark and give feedback to individual pupils. Video lessons are available on
youtube SHS ENGLISH which gives helpful support and guidance for your child as they create their presentation relating to discrimatination. For your information, this is what your child should be completing at home:
- So far they should have researched and written their introduction and submitted this for marking.
- Wednesday 13th May, they should have completed the main body of the speech which should be approximately 5 paragraphs in length.
- The finished speech, including conclusion, needs to be submitted by Friday 15th May.
- The next steps are to edit and improve, incorporating learning about effective presentation techniques and it would be helpful during this stage for your child to practice and perform this for you regularly. The final and edited version should be submitted to their teacher for marking by Friday 22nd May.
- Your child will perform their speech live to their peers upon their return to school and will lead a question and answer session based on their content.
It would be extremely helpful if you could speak to your child about their progress in preparing and submitting their speech in line with the above deadlines. Thank you.
After half term, your child will be moving to the next stage in their English Language skills preparations.
In the meantime, if there’s anything the English department can do to help your child please do not hesitate to contact us by email.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs Eggleton
Assistant Headteacher
