Thread by @HuntingEnglish

1/ Tomorrow is A level results day. Quite rightly, leaping students, top scoring twins, & that 11 year old who is off to Oxford, will fill the headlines. For those especially interested in English, anxious talk will attend the falling numbers of pupils taking A level English.

2/ The problem is that we know that A level English numbers are falling, but despite protestations, we are not really sure why. I don't know why either, so I thought it may be useful to survey some of the debates and the evidence that attends the potential causes.

3/ The first argument could be summarised as the 'utilitarian issue': raising up STEM, with the inevitable fall of seemingly 'less useful' subjects. @miss_mcinerney skewers this debate nicely here: bit.ly/2JJ8Grz. Indeed, DFE cash incentives for schools for pupils to

4/ Take A level maths, alongside lots of advertising power being lavished to promote STEM, has been accompanied by a rise in maths entries - though it's slow going (from 88,205 to 90,955 between 2017 and 2018). The complaint is that parents & students are seeing English as a less

5/ viable option at university because it doesn't lead to a career - alongside a drop in university numbers taking English too (costly as uni proves now with tuition fees). Yet, these insights are values-laden & have been long-played out in society & are forcefully contested.

6/ The second debatable cause for the drop in English A level entries could be university entry requirements &/or changes to AS levels. Given the demographic dip in students (oh yes, that is another potential cause!), we see universities adapting their entry requirements. Much to

7/ The annoyance of teachers, a vast 97,045 (38%) of students get unconditional offers. In this climate, why take a fourth A level? Why potentially compromise your grades? With no AS to have a taste of A level English Lang or Lit, why not play safe with your options?

8/ AS level entries have dropped from 659,880 in 2017 to 269,090 in 2018. We simply don't know what impact this has on attitudes to A level, valuing English, enjoying it or not. Is a two year English course less attractive? Was English Language the old 4th choice 'all rounder'?

9/ A third argument is that reformed GCSEs are putting off students taking A level English. It is a view forcefully put in the @guardian today: buff.ly/2YU9bcR. GCSE Language, it is argued, is "sucking the joy out of the study of how we communicate". These are opinions

10/ that are hard too substantiate. NATE teacher questionnaires suggest an issue with Govian reforms, whereas many anecdotes today on Twitter dispute such claims. Without some detailed data into student perceptions, it's hard to know. This cause could presuppose that when numbers

11/ for A level English were higher 4 or 5 years ago, that GCSEs were better; more fun; more interesting. I don't see many people making the claim for the last GCSE English iteration (or the one before that...or the one before that). Changes in GCSEs also involve grades. We have

12/ moved from a system of iGCSEs, coursework, & a resit culture where A*/A/B/Cs were easier to come by. We could argue it's the changing (tacit lowering) of GCSE grades that has impacted upon A level numbers in English. It is another conjecture that causes debate with consensus.

13/ So we return to national data. Overall, there was a 3% drop in entries last year - 25,78 entries (bit.ly/2QSMPPY). The general trend is a decline. The specific answers for the concurrent drop in English entries are less clear. We need more evidence about the issue.

14/ Best wishes to every teacher going into school tomorrow to share successes & struggles with your A level students. May you all leap with the joy & power of a thousand 6th formers!

Meanwhile, look beyond the headlines that claim simple answers to complex national trends. END