Message from ISMLA / ALL-London:
First of all, our thanks to all the schools who contributed to this year’s survey. We received between 80 and 90 responses to both the AS and A2 questions, representing 1704 candidate entries at the former level and 1296 at the latter. It is excellent to have such a broad sample of experience from which we can draw conclusions and, in due course, approach the examination boards with our concerns.
The language being sat most frequently at schools was still French (around 39% of entries), followed by Spanish (30%) and German (24%). Other languages account for the remaining 7%. The most prevalent board by far was AQA, which represents 56% of the examinations taken. Next was Edexcel (23%), followed by OCR (16%) and WJEC (5%). Some languages, such as Russian and Italian, are offered only by Edexcel.
Overall slightly under half the schools felt results had been roughly the same as in 2009. Among remaining respondents, 32% of all schools believed their results had been worse, while 20% had seen an improvement. 2010 was, as we all know, the first year in which the new AS/A2 course could be completed in full, and hence the first opportunity to score the A-level A*. Just under half the schools were disappointed with the numbers achieving the new top grade, while those who felt their A* strike rate to have been roughly as expected (43%) massively outnumbered those who had been pleasantly surprised (8%).
Work undertaken by ALL London on severe grading seems to confirm the relative difficulty of attaining A-level A* in Modern Languages. The combined A*/A rate tends to be impressive for subjects having what ALL London describes as an “intake profile with more higher-attaining students”. On the first year’s data, this is indeed the case for French (39%), German (41%) and Spanish (38%). Subjects considered to fall into the same bracket include Maths (45%) and Physics (33%). The average A*/A rate for all subjects was 27%. One might expect, then, to see high proportions of these able students getting the very top grade. However, although the average A* rate as a fraction of the A*/A figure was 30%, scores for Modern Languages fell away: 20% for French, 24% for German and 22% for Spanish. By comparison, Maths and Physics beat the average with 38% and 31% respectively. A further comparison might be made with History, for instance, where the combined A*/A figure of 28% was substantially below that for Modern Languages, while the A* proportion was better at 25% of A*/A.
Just over half of schools responding to our survey felt AS writing marks were in line with expectations, with the remainder more or less evenly split between those who were pleased and those who were disappointed. At A2 writing, slightly more saw the results as expected, and the disappointed group also went up to 29% while only 14% thought their candidates had done better.
More surprised reactions were reserved for speaking, which has again been the area in which most detailed concern has been expressed. At AS, exactly the same proportion reported results better than or as expected (28% apiece), while 44% were disappointed. That figure rose to 46% at A2, where 35% were unsurprised and just 19% felt pleased by their candidates’ results. Several schools felt that oral markers were over-suspicious of a confident performance and mistook fluency for inappropriate pre-preparation. The difference should be clear between a good conversation developing organically, as the boards wish, and a teacher-examiner running through a list of questions. There was also some concern about the extent to which external oral examiners – still used by about a quarter of schools – were up on the current topics and marking guidelines.
While a majority of schools had found examination board INSET useful, there was some feeling that advice offered there did not always marry up with practice among markers and moderators. Confidence in the process has been further dented for some by their experience of re-marking, where several results have come back with unprecedented mark gains – begging at least two obvious questions in the process.