GCSE overview

Hi,

I've had a few people asking about the English GCSE curriculum, so I thought I would use this forum to tell you a bit more about it. 

As some of you may know already, it is a brand new syllabus, so your son/daughter will be part of the very first cohort in the country to complete it. We will be following the Eduqas syllabus (which is part of WJEC). We have covered creative writing this half term, and over the next term and a half we will cover persuasive/transactional writing by focussing on formal and informal letters, reviews, articles, speeches, leaflets and reports. In the Summer term we will focus on reading comprehension, both of fiction and non-fiction texts. Below is an overview of the course; there is no controlled assessment so everything comes down to the two exam papers. 

Paper 1: ·         40% ·         1 hour, 45 minutes (plus extra time) ·         Fiction ·         Reading section: one extract to read and answer questions on ·         Writing section: one creative writing task

Paper 2: ·         60% ·         2 hours (plus extra time) ·         Non-fiction ·         Reading section: two extracts to read and answer questions on ·         Writing section: two persuasive/transactional writing tasks

You can find an example of the specimen exam paper here:

http://www.eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/english-language/gcse/

You need to scroll down and click on the ‘assessment materials’ tab, then click ‘view assessment materials’.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me via the school office.