ALL Statement on 2022 A level and AS results.

ALL Statement on 2022 A level results.

 

ALL President Professor Kim Bower, speaking about this year’s A and AS results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland said.

“Above all we want to celebrate the fact that we have been able to return to near-normality for examinations, particularly since this cohort missed out on the GCSE experience.  We congratulate the A and AS-level modern language students and their teachers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who have had to deliver a course often punctuated by online teaching, a task which is very challenging in a subject which involves extensive listening and speaking.”

Ofqual announced as a policy decision that the grading for all subjects would be midway between the 2019 and 2021 results.  We are pleased to see that this is the case for modern languages.

However, the number of students studying A level languages remains a cause for concern.  French entries decreased by 5.4% from 8,383 in 2021 to 7,929 in 2022, Spanish entries decreased by 0.6% from 9,139 to 9088.  Indeed, entries for French represent the third biggest drop of any subject after English literature (down 9.4%) and English language and literature (down 5.8%).  Whilst German entries increased this year by 3.5% from 2,708 to 2,803 this is in a context where the number of A level candidates increased by 3.5% from last year.

Although there was an increase in numbers taking other languages (the total number was 5,385) this is still well below the 2018 figures (9,673). As we stated last year, the total number of students taking a language at A-level (19,830, or 25,348 if all languages are included) remains very low, (noting that Further Maths on its own has 14,520 entries) which raises concerns about the UK’s ability to produce enough qualified linguists for the country’s needs. It is essential that the matter of severe grading of modern language GCSEs be resolved so that more students are encouraged to continue with a language to GCSE and then on to A level.  We are pleased that Ofqual and awarding organisations have confirmed that this year’s French and German GCSE grades will be adjusted to bring them into line with the grades for GCSE Spanish, (a change agreed in 2019). However, this still does not address the ongoing issue that ML GCSE grades are systematically up to a grade lower than other EBacc subjects.

 

TECHNICAL NOTE

The important technical point is that the A-level results for 2022 are connected with the GCSE results in 2020.  That was the year that the Ofqual-directed change in GCSE French and German grades to bring them into line with GCSE Spanish was due to come into effect.  Teachers were explicitly told not to include that increase in the CAGs (Centre-Assessed Grades) at that point, as the adjustments would be handled by the awarding organisations. At the last minute, there was a U-turn from Gavin Williamson, the then Secretary of State for Education, and this increase was swamped by the general increase in CAGS relative to calculated grades. A level decisions were made based on old grading, not on unrevised grading.

 

You can find further details on the link here:

https://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/

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