Some years ago, the AQA English Language GCSE paper offered an extract from Joanne Harris’ Fule’s Gold. The tired old teacher Mr Fisher reads a piece of student work that is so good, he is breathless as he marks it. Most of us will know that joy of finding a nugget amid the dross. However, the story continues and Mr Fisher tries to pass off his student’s success as his own.
Most of us have done that, too, usually in September when results are being analysed. The successes? Yes, they’re mine. The failures? Well, what could I do?
I work in the City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College. We achieve astonishing results in GCSE English, consistently outstripping benchmarks. Where benchmarks are around 25 per cent, we consistently achieve above 55 per cent. Some of our classes outstrip even that and achieve above 60 per cent and even 70 per cent. This is extraordinary. We all know what this cohort can be like: demoralised, dejected, dispirited.
It is easy as a teacher to reflect that. They have failed before. They start to feel hopeless. And you have taught so many students who have failed that you can feel hopeless, too. My students often come from an environment where hopelessness is in the air.
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My classroom has to be a place of hope. When I can stand before a class of resit students and tell them that most of them will pass this course, if only they do what I say, hope is reborn. The prospect of never having to see me again seems to put fire under their feet.
What I have done to bring such pass rates within reach is very simple. My students have often reached the limit of their abilities so I cannot expect them to leap from grade 3 to 5. I have to narrow my focus and limit my instruction to them. They need to know that a focus on a few things can have a big impact.
I start with where they are dropping marks. The area of greatest weakness is nearly always in section B - the writing section. Over both papers, this accounts for half of the overall marks and my students usually start off a long way from achieving well. So I spend an inordinate amount of time on section B. We have four-and-a-half hours a week together. This is essential. With any less, it’s simply not possible to consolidate.
A two-step approach
Step one: I focus on my students’ spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG). 32/160 marks are awarded for SPaG. Most of my students score around 8/32 over both papers. When they see that there are 24 marks waiting to be won, they start to see the way ahead. Gaining 24 extra marks could lead to a two-grade uplift. Then I break that down.
Spelling: they learn the “Dirty 30” - the most commonly misspelt words in GCSE. They learn them and use them, whatever they’re writing about and whatever else they misspell.
Punctuation: they learn and use five main punctuation marks - full stops, commas, semi-colons, speech marks and apostrophes. They do this again and again and again and they use them again and again and again. And then they do it again.
Grammar: they learn the main sentence types - simple, complex, compound and minor - and use them to effect.
And I give them my motto: “Short and strong is better than long and wrong.” It’s good life advice as well. I ask my students to write only two sides of perfect SPaG, rather than six sides that expose their weaknesses. All this has revolutionised my outcomes.
Step 2: we focus on content. For the fiction piece, we use a scheme called No Nonsense Narrative. I discard overly complex Todorov talk and talk about stories having beginnings, middles and ends. We look at jokes and anecdotes and see how they surprise but follow the structure. And then they write in the first person, in a limited time frame, with a limited cast and with a limited focus. No zombies, no violence, no football matches. I limit, limit, limit, cut down, cut down, cut down.
There’s a school of writing in France called the Oulipo school. They place constraints on themselves to free creativity. So a story is written without the letter ‘e’, for example. I’d never try that with a class but I applaud the approach. I put boundaries around my students. I limit them. Like the bars you can raise on the edge of a bowling alley, it keeps them from falling into the gutter.
They slowly start to taste success. For some of them, for the first time. And most of them pass. And then I can claim their success as my own. Just like tired old Mr Fisher.
David Murray is an English tutor at City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College. He tweets @DavidMurray1970.
