Heidi Drake

Yes, so little actual textual response in a lot of what is written. It's so hard training it out of students. Asking them to make their responses ideas led rather than spotting features in a text and trying to construct out of that.

16.01.2026 09:40 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

We had a wonderful morning launching The Quotation Bank App to Year 11 at St Bede's School in Cambridge this morning! 😊

St Bede's have set up pupils with a full site licence, giving all pupils access to Quotation Bank: Exam Revision at
🏠 home
🏫 in school
🚌 on the go.
Site licence just £595 +VAT!

12.01.2026 21:02 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

I dare say also awful. But, your English Language GCSE grade is a gatekeeping qualification to what comes next. It is beyond unacceptable when the system relies on continually throwing money at the problem to get the mark you should have got.

16.01.2026 09:26 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

line with the mark scheme. And yet, I have seen accurate, varied work awarded only half marks on AO6 rather than the top band that they should have got. This was then not corrected at first review and had to be appealed. It was clear as day that it had been undermarked.

16.01.2026 09:24 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

AI marking is most accurate in those subjects that benefit least from it as their marking is quicker already. We already have some short recall questions marked by computer. What really irritates me about English Language is the obviously poor marking of AO6. This should be the easiest to mark in..

16.01.2026 09:24 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

It is seriously affecting performance at GCSE in English. Examiners can't read students' work and able students are losing marks and grades due to this. It has accelerated post-Covid.

16.01.2026 09:21 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It needs to be practised often. In secondary schools in England students don't write at length across the board as much as they used to. I hate to be all 'back in my day' but the only subject I didn't write in length in all week was Maths. Something is being lost. And...

16.01.2026 09:21 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Mock season is upon us. The thing I'm struck most by is how much the legibility of students work has deteriorated over the years of my career. When I see colleagues in other subjects discussing proudly how little their students write in lessons, I can see why it happens. Like any skill...

16.01.2026 09:21 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

It is an option available to every student and it is quite frankly scandalous that this nonsense happens with English every year. We raise this every year. And yet it is never taken up by the mainstream and nothing changes. There isn't enough training or quality assurance.

15.01.2026 10:06 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 1

Both of these appeals were written by teachers who marked for the board in question. We observed marking the flew in the face of training and guidance of the chief examiner and in the Literature case showed the marker didn't understand the text! This option is expensive (circa £100).

15.01.2026 10:06 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

We put in two formal appeals after no change (one on behalf of a student from another school who refused to do the work for theirs!). Both were changed. In both cases I could have pushed for further changes but focused in on a question that I was on the surest ground in my appeal.

15.01.2026 10:06 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0