Reflections on the Curriculum and Assessment Review: Implications for Secondary English

Introduction of a Year 8 Reading Assessment

The report rightly highlights the tension between the need for benchmarks and the impact of assessment within education. Benchmarks are essential for setting clear standards, measuring progress, and ensuring consistency across systems. However, this must be balanced against the influence that testing and evaluation have on teaching and learning. Exams shape classroom practice, student motivation, and curriculum design, but an overemphasis on benchmarks risks narrowing the curriculum, encouraging teaching to the test, and prioritising exam results over deep understanding and broad knowledge.

This is why I feel ambivalent about introducing a diagnostic reading assessment at the end of Year 8. While the intention is laudable, identifying struggling readers early and providing targeted support, it assumes schools have the time and resources to act on this data. It also presumes the assessment will be detailed enough to pinpoint specific weaknesses. Yet, as the report notes, secondary schools already have access to individual Year 6 SATs data but often fail to use it effectively to support transition.

I welcome the report’s emphasis on curriculum flexibility and giving teachers greater autonomy to meet the needs of their students. With persistent gaps for SEND and disadvantaged pupils, empowering teachers to respond to the learners in front of them is more important than ever. However, this requires robust training, not just in interpreting performance data but in adapting lessons to address diverse needs. Reading difficulties vary widely: an autistic child who struggles with global comprehension faces very different challenges from a dyslexic child with phonological processing issues. Current teacher training often relies on generalised literacy strategies, leaving little time for nuanced approaches. Limited resources for interventions and an already crowded curriculum compound the problem.

Rather than adding another test, increased investment in ongoing teacher training, particularly in literacy and SEND, and more planning time to analyse and act on existing data would be a more effective solution. If schools cannot fully utilise KS2 SATs data, what makes us think we will have time to process data from new Year 8 assessments?

Proposed Changes to GCSE English Language

I agree that the text types currently used to assess reading and writing tasks feel outdated and disconnected from students’ lived experiences. Modernising these to include ephemeral and multi-modal texts, such as social media posts, blogs, and digital content, could make the curriculum more relevant and engaging. However, this raises important questions about the balance between relevance and rigour.

The 2015 GCSE English Language reforms deliberately removed image analysis and multi-modal interpretation to focus on core literacy skills: reading comprehension, linguistic and structural analysis, and transactional writing. This shift aimed to strengthen foundational literacy for further study and employment and align with international benchmarks by prioritising language over visual interpretation.

Now, the Curriculum and Assessment Review suggests reintroducing multi-modal and ephemeral texts. While this reflects the reality of modern communication, it raises concerns:

• Will analysing visual elements dilute the emphasis on language and structure?
• Could this lead to a weakening of core literacy skills and a decrease in rigour?
• How do we ensure that relevance does not come at the expense of depth and precision in reading and writing?

The challenge is finding a middle ground: incorporating contemporary text types without losing sight of the fundamental purpose of English Language, developing strong linguistic competence. If multimodal texts are included, assessment must still prioritise language analysis, not just visual interpretation.

The review also notes the high level of duplication between GCSE English Language and English Literature, as many skills, such as analysis, interpretation, and writing, are transferable. It makes sense to question whether this overlap is necessary. Broadening and modernising GCSE English Language to include a greater range of text types and genres seems the right choice in principle. However, this raises a practical concern: where will the additional curriculum time come from to teach this expanded content?

Currently, English teachers exploit the links between the two GCSEs to deliver both courses within the allocated curriculum time. In many schools, English receives roughly the same curriculum time as Maths at KS4, despite being two distinct GCSEs. This is feasible now because of the crossovers between Language and Literature. But with the proposed changes, this will become increasingly difficult.

The review does suggest a 10% reduction in exam content, which may help free up some time. However, whether this adjustment will be sufficient to accommodate the broader scope of the new specification remains uncertain.

Proposed Changes to GCSE English Literature

The review confirms that the core components, Shakespeare, a 19th-century novel, a post-1914 text from the British Isles, and poetry, will be retained. However, it argues for greater diversity in text choices, which presumably means changes within these components. Currently, literature exams total 4 hours. With a proposed 10% reduction in exam time (24 minutes), it will be interesting to see how exam boards achieve this.

The review also highlights the importance of students seeing themselves represented positively within the curriculum. How will exam boards manage this? Will text diversity be embedded in GCSE choices, or will it be limited to Key Stage 3? If the latter, how will school leaders sequence the curriculum to ensure knowledge builds progressively toward GCSE requirements?