Our new plans for GCSE English Literature

Published: Tuesday 15 Sep 2020

Update Tuesday 15 Sep 2020: Ofqual has approved our revised changes to GCSE English Literature for summer 2021. Read about these revised changes.

We’ve listened to feedback about our changes to GCSE English Literature for summer 2021. As a result, we’ve been reconsidering our changes – so, as promised, here’s an update for you.

Subject to Ofqual’s approval, we hope to be able to offer you a choice of two of the following:

• Anthology of poetry
• Modern text
• 19th century novel.

Shakespeare and unseen poetry would still be compulsory.

We realise you may have been expecting all poetry to be optional. Unfortunately this just isn’t possible, as the anthology and unseen poetry add up to almost 40% of our course – whereas the modern text and 19th century novel each account for around 20%. So making all poetry optional would risk not complying with regulations.

We hope you’ll be happy with these changes. They’re fair for schools that want to continue with poetry as well as those that don’t, as they allow everyone to drop one set text and cover a similar proportion of the course.

We’ve already sent these changes to Ofqual for approval, so we’ll publish further information when we’ve heard from them - which we expect to be soon.

See all updates