Devasted that Luljeta Nuzi has died after a long fight with cancer. An incredible, dynamic, fierce woman whose optimism and passion for equality for all, in education, as women, as members of refugee and global majority communities will remain an inspiration for those who met her. I first met Luljeta in 2009 when she came […]
New Community Language Examination Centre open for entries
CLEx (NRCSE Community Language Examination Centre) is open to entries from students attending any of our subscribing supplementary schools who are trying to find an examination centre for the following languages:
German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Urdu.
For any information about CLEx please email us, or complete our preliminary registration form and we will get in touch. The closing date for completing your registration with us is is 16/4/21.
We believe strongly that the best place for young people to enter a home/heritage language GCSE is through their mainstream schools if at all possible. There are also community-led supplementary schools that are also registered examination centres for their own students and affiliated settings. For Gujarati we recommend you check whether you can enter through BAPS Swaminarayan. For Persian we recommend Rustam. For Russian we recommend Znaniye. For Polish we recommend the Polish Educational Society. For Greek we recommend getting touch with the Cyprus Educational Mission.
We have been approved for CLEx!
The power of partnership!! Feeling so positive about what we have achieved together with Nuriye Mertcan, Turkish Language Culture & Education Consortium, Vicky Gough, British Council Arabic Language and Culture Programme with QFI and Pearson.
NRCSE has established the Community Language Examination Centre, CLEx, to enable more students to achieve a qualification in their home or heritage language. In 2020, 1,000s of young people were withdrawn from entering the language qualification they had studied so hard for. In January 2021, when the government announced that summer exams would again be cancelled, the same thing started to happen. Mainstream schools were reluctant to enter their own students for subjects they were not studying in the mainstream school and refused to enter private candidates altogether.
For this reason, working with Pearson, we created a partnership with Turkegitim Konsorsiyomu and the British Council to become CLEx, an approved examination centre for community languages.
We have also been campaigning with the APPG for Modern Foreign Languages, the Association for School and College Leaders and colleagues across the secondary languages area to request that Ofqual consider carefully the situation facing young people studying home or heritage languages. Already an extension to the entry deadlines has been given and students have a further 4 weeks to register. Entry deadline is now 21st March. We await the considered response to the public consultation about how GCSE and A level grades should be awarded this year and what support will be given to ‘private’ candidates.
If you have students in Yr 10 and above who are ready to take their GCSE or A level in Turkish or Arabic and have been unable to find a centre to accept them – we can help. See the slides below and get in touch with the examination team at CLEx exams@nrcse.org.uk
Language GCSE exam entry 2018
From 2018, learners taken GCSE exams for the first time in most subjects will have their GCSE results recorded using grades 9 to 1
For most languages, and for resits in all subjects, the existing GCSE structure will operate and the results will be recorded as A* to G
The differences between the old and new grading systems are not in themselves a reason to exclude languages from being taken until the reformed exam is introduced. Both are still GCSEs and will appear on students’ certificates. Further information is available on the Gov.uk website.
This has been confirmed by AQA as well as by Ofqual. If your pupils are finding it difficult to be entered for Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Modern Greek, Gujarati, Italian, Modern Hebrew, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Urdu there are a number of things you should do, immediately:
- Use the attached template letter to write to the mainstream schools your pupils attend (you will need to fill in relevant information about your language) which has been kindly provided by the Polish Educational Society.
- Contact the exam board to find out where they can take the exam.
- Let us know (by logging in and leaving a comment below or by emailing me Pascale), NRCSE has been developing contacts with schools that will accept external entrants, we are also campaigning for more consistent information to be sent out to all language departments and for schools to understand the importance of facilitating access to language exams.
Latest stats for ‘lesser-taught’ languages
The wonderful Teresa Tinsley, who writes Language Trends each year and is a champion for language learning, has prepared this chart for us.
Showing entries for GCSE and A level examinations in all 16 languages that currently have GB exams available, the chart also shows trends in the numbers entering those exams since 2011.
You will remember that we all had to campaign very hard in 2016 to retain the range of languages with an GB exam available. Working together we were successful in convincing Pearson Edexcel to take over exams that were due to be shelved.
But the hard work has only just begun.
The new exams are being developed now, they will be available for teaching next year and for examination the year after. We need to ensure that teachers are properly trained to teach the new syllabus, we need to ensure children can be presented for those exams in their mainstream schools or join together in language communities to offer centralised examination centres in the way the Tamil community has done. And you need to convince your pupils and their parents to continue their language education so that they can take the exams.
Here are the GCSE entries, you can check A levels on Teresa’s blog
