Below is the first in a series of updates from our senior examining team for the 2008 GCE English specification that will be posted over the next few weeks.

Welcome to Edexcel GCE English 2008.
 
I’m Christopher Cooper. I have to confess to an A level examining track record going back to 1967 and I’m now Chair of Examiners. I was Head of English in one of the large Hampshire Sixth Form Colleges until retirement allowed me to focus exclusively on examining. What this means is that I work with the subject officers at Edexcel to oversee the assessment practices of all three AS/Advanced English specifications. Part of this work involves new developments including on-line marking and remote on-line awarding which will make assessment even more reliable and will ensure that the changes in the specifications for 2008 are innovative and exciting, whilst valuing proven best practice.
 
In creating the new specifications we in the Edexcel GCE English team have gone all out  to freshen up the whole examination experience for both teachers and candidates by subjecting the whole process to a total re-think. Here we are not just referring to the different reading levels candidates will need to employ or the new shorter answer questions which feature in each of the new Unit 1s, but to all the other innovations listed below that you can read about in detail on the GCE 2008 English web page:
                               
• e-Specs
• Edexcel English Resources
• Ask the Expert
• Edexcel English on-line community
• ResultsPlus
• PD&T Implementation programme
• Edexcel sponsorship of NATE conference 2008

So who are the new Chief Examiners? These are the people who will spearhead the three new specifications, they are:
 
for English Language and Literature: MARY JAY

Mary has been associated with the Language and Literature specification from the start and brings to the post a wealth of experience, professional judgment and enthusiasm.
 
For English Language: DANUTA REAH

Danuta is new to the Edexcel team but like Mary brings with her great experience and expertise and lots of new ideas. What’s more she is an established professional novelist in her own right.
 
For English Literature: RICHARD HOYES

Head of English and performance poet extraordinaire, Richard has worked as a senior member of the Edexcel A Level Eng Literature team for more years than he cares to admit to. He is particularly committed to coursework and works on Media with the QCA.
 
You will have the opportunity to get to know these Chief Examiners better as they will each be contributing to this community over the next month.
 
 
CJC
 
08 May 2008.

Hi Tom/Christopher

I should be interested to know how online marking will work in relation to coursework. Or will online marking only apply to the examination units?

At the moment my colleagues ad I are in the process of working out a coursework policy document, which will detail teaching and assessment procedures, deadlines for submission of drafts and final coursework, guidelines on referencing etc.

 My first thoughts have been: Unit structure -

1. reading and discussion/exploration of texts - background essay writing

2. define coursework tasks

3. set deadline for submission of draft

4. formative comment by teacher leading to redrafting

5. submission of final coursework for assessment

Any thoughts?

Regards

Tony 

Hi Tony,

Will try and get some feedback from you on this subject from the senior team.

Best

Tom

Hi again, Tony. Here's the response I've had from our senior subject team here at Edexcel. I hope it helps.

Thank you for your posting. I can confirm that unit 1 and 3 of the new English specifications will be marked online. This means that after every exam series you will be able to get candidate level information for each question by each assessment objective on ResultsPlus from Results Day onwards. The coursework units, 2 and 4 will continue to be marked and moderated in the traditional way.

Your first thoughts on planning for the coursework unit looks really interesting, we would particularly like to see more of what you come up with, particular around the exploration of texts and defining coursework tasks. The coursework submission deadlines will be the same for all awarding bodies by and will be published by the Joint Council for Qualifications http://www.jcq.org.uk.

Hi Tom

Here's a suggestion for Cwk. Your feedback would be appreciated:

Macbeth is studied, and King Lear is used to explore the ways in which power is abused. An account of the ***' response to the assassination attempt on Hitler is read to explore how power has been abused in history. (2000 words)

Either Construct an online encyclopaedia entry for an historical analysis of the events surrounding the murders of Lady Macduff and her children. (500 words)

Or Write a review of how a director has presented the horror of abused power on film (Polanski's Macbeth/Paul Scofield's King Lear) (500 words)

With the main text, the teacher would approach studying 'holistically', ie read, discuss, write on a variety of themes and ideas, not just power. When KL is introduced, it is read in a much more directed way, ie looking specifically at abuse of power and then referenced back to Macbeth - eg Lear's making daughters play his power games in Act 1 - Cornwall's abuse of Gloster (because there is noone to stop him) etc. The cwk task would be introduced at this stage and students would begin to draft their responses, having read the Nazi historical document. Later we would look at Wikipedia, see films, look at film crits in preparation for the Creative Critical response.

 Thoughts, anyone?

Regards, Tony

Hi Tony.

I can take your suggestions back to our subject team again, but I'm keen to see what the general community makes of your ideas first. We're in the process of promoting the Edexcel Communities area to really start to make the most of its potential as a great source of peer-to-peer support for teaching staff following our new specifications.

Best,

Tom