Entering students for ‘community’ language exams webinar

Thursday 16th September 2021

4:30 PM – 5:30 PM

When exams were cancelled in 2020, NRCSE received many reports from supplementary schools that the majority if not all of their students who had been expecting to take early GCSEs in their home/heritage language were being withdrawn as centres understandably felt unable to provide an assessed grade in subjects they were not teaching.

Yet many students have been attending community-led supplementary classes at the weekend since primary. Unfortunately the majority of supplementary schools have no communication with their pupils’ mainstream schools especially once the children move into Secondary.

The cancellation of exams in 2020 and 2021 has highlighted a knowledge gap; when parents answer that their child speaks another language at home that doesn’t mean that they learn how to read and write at home.

This year following the announcement in January 2021 there was more time and in some local authorities schools that do have links with supplementary schools were able to enter students for home/heritage languages taking the assessments and grading of supplementary school teachers’ assessments into account.

Many more students were not able to receive a grade.

The Autumn 2021 series is an opportunity to enter any student who would’ve taken an exam in Summer 2021 had they been available. This includes students who haven’t reached age of 16 by 31/8/21 where schools would previously have entered students for home/heritage language accreditation in Yr 9 or 10.