Pupils sitting English literature GCSE in 2021 will be able to sit exams in just three areas of the course, rather than four, according to Ofqual.
In a response to its consultation on the 2021 exam series, published today, the exams regulator said, while it had proposed there should be no changes to GCSE English assessment, more respondents disagreed than agreed with this proposal.
Nearly half - 48 per cent - of respondents disagreed, while 38 per cent agreed.
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Furthermore, Ofqual said that many respondents “expressed significant concern about being able to cover all of the required subject content in the time available and highlighted the difficulties for students in trying to get to grips with complex literary texts remotely”.
Teachers also referred to the way English literature GCSE was often taught in conjunction with English language, and that a change in one would support the delivery of the other.
For 2021 only, the government has therefore decided that there can be a choice of topics students are required to answer in their English literature GCSE exams.
While pupils must answer a question on their school’s chosen Shakespeare play, they can choose to answer from two of the three remaining content areas - poetry; the 19th-century novel; and post-1914 fiction or drama from the British Isles. Effectively, this means schools can drop one of their set literature texts for the coming year.
Ofqual also confirmed there would be a choice of topics for GCSE history and ancient history.
And it said pupils would not need to be assessed in GCSE geography fieldwork next year because of potential public health concerns.
However, there will still be a fieldwork requirement for A-level and AS level geography.
Apart from GCSE history, ancient history and English literature, there will be no further choice in the questions pupils answer in other subjects.
