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Each month we ask teachers and experts from
the teaching community to give their views on a hot topic. If you
would like to read about a particular topic, email
us and we will approach someone to write about it. Choose from
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Beyond A Level: the Advanced Extension Award
Peter Doughty, Principal Examiner, Advanced Extension Award in English
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1 June 2004 |
This month, exams remain top of our agenda. As pupils across the UK sit public examinations, many of them will be aware that claims of grade inflation and declining standards are likely to surround the publication of results at all levels. There is no doubt that growing numbers of students are achieving straight A grades at A Level. Advanced Extension Awards were introduced by the Government as a way of distinguishing between them. The AEA is available in 17 subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Critical Thinking, Economics, English, French, Geography, German, History, Irish, Latin, Mathematics, Physics, Religious Studies, Spanish, Welsh and Welsh Second Language. In 2005, Psychology and Business Studies will be added to this list. In this month’s hot topic, Peter Doughty, Principal Examiner for AEA in English, records the experiences of pupils and examiners as he discusses the progress of the AEA English project. The generic QCA design specification for the Advanced Extension Award stipulated that the examination should be based on Advance GCE subject criteria where they exist, rather than individual specifications, and that it should test candidates' depth of understanding, their ability to think critically and creatively and their capacity to demonstrate understanding of connections between different elements of the same subject; since there is no separate syllabus for the AEA no additional teaching or resources should be required. AEAs are intended to differentiate between the most able candidates, particularly in subjects with a high proportion of A Grades at A Level. UCAS are moving towards allocating tariff points for achievement in the AEA examination in certain subjects. The English AEA is designed to accommodate candidates from Language, Literature and Language and Literature specifications, assessing their ability to understand and analyse texts/passages of different types and periods using appropriate conceptual frameworks, to understand and evaluate ways in which contextual variation and choices of form, style and vocabulary shape the meanings of texts, and to articulate independent opinions, informed by knowledge of possible approaches to interpretation and analysis. There is only one Assessment Objective: to assess candidates' abilities to apply and communicate effectively their knowledge and understanding of English, some of its methodologies and texts, using the skills of critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis. The examination structure developed to realise these aims presents candidates with a Reading Booklet of passages taken from various kinds of text with a common theme, including, in the papers set so far, transcriptions of actual speech, advertisements, poems, extracts from novels and other prose texts, and critical/theoretical material related to the theme and/or raising wider issues related to the study of language and literature. Passages are chosen to provide fruitful material for candidates from all three English routes at A Level. Candidates write two essays: one comparing at least two of the booklet passages in terms of language, presentation and treatment of the common theme; the second a more general discussion of the candidate's own experience of language/literature study, based on questions derived from the critical/theoretical passages in the booklet, considering material from the booklet and the candidate's personal areas of study. The themes of the two live examinations so far have been Childhood (a transcription of a child's speech, an advert for children's books, a traditional children's rhyme, passages from Vaughan, Austen, Dickens, Graves, Grace Nichols, Angela Carter, and Peter Coveney, Stephen Pinker on language, Mark Roberts and Peter Barry on critical issues) and Nature (a transcription and travel advert, Henry Howard, the Bible, Pope, Emerson, William Barnes, Anne Brontë, T.H.White, Zadie Smith, Ruskin, Blake and Moorhead on language, Terry Gifford and Julian Wolfreys on critical issues). The positive outcome of the AEA English project, from the examiner's perspective, is the pleasure of encountering a kind of writing that we have not seen before, and that seems to us to vindicate the examination design and the model of language/literature study embodied in Curriculum 2000. Most candidates show a good deal of confidence in the basic exercise of critical comparison and wider discussion of issues and texts, contextual factors are often knowledgeably considered, and the variety of material cited is often impressive. Candidates seem to have enjoyed the paper and appreciated the chance to discuss material both more intensively and extensively than other A Level papers allow. It's been particularly interesting and illuminating to see candidates evaluating their own experience of studying language/literature, and assessing the effectiveness of ways of approaching the activity of critical analysis. Many candidates write energetically and creatively about their own learning. The question inviting candidates to re-write one of the passages in another form and style has provoked well-managed and resourceful responses, though it seems clear that candidates do best in this exercise who have had some practice in the course of their study. Examiners have reported that working on this paper can be really exhilarating, not least because of the extraordinary range and variety of approach and exemplification in the candidates' work. It would be nice to think that the experience of the paper itself has made some contribution to the candidate's understanding of the subjects of their study – and there is some evidence in candidates' commentaries that this is the case. What do you think about AEAs? The head of QCA, Ken Boston, has recently declared that the A Level is a “world-class” qualification – so do we need AEAs at all? How will they fit into the Tomlinson reforms? And what about the Scottish system – are Advanced Highers high enough? Visit our messageboard or write your thoughts in an article and send it to us for publication! Stop press: Cambridge University calls for AEAs to be expanded (03/06/2004). See BBC News article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3773047.stm.
Peter Doughty retired recently as BA Humanities Course Leader at the Manchester Metropolitan University. He is the Chief Examiner for the English Literature specification at OCR, Principal Examiner for Advanced Extension Award in English and also Principal Examiner for the AS paper Poetry and Prose.
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