WJEC Eduqas Entry Level Certificate: helping develop reading and writing skills across the key stages
Who is ELC English for?
The qualification and associated resources support learners who:
- are struggling with the accessing an untiered GCSE examination
- need more practical support in achieving their outcomes
- need confidence building ahead of starting a GCSE English qualification
- need a flexible assessment approach
- are working below the attainment credited at GCSE.
Overview
It is worth remembering that English is a spiral curriculum and concerns itself predominantly with three things: Reading, Writing and Oracy (Communication).
A spiral curriculum can be defined as a course of study in which learners will see the same topics or skills throughout their school career, with each encounter increasing in complexity and reinforcing previous learning. From primary school and right through secondary school, our aim is to develop, enhance and refine these skills with learners. A longer term programme of study, therefore, will continually return to Reading, Writing and Oracy (Communication) with increasing demand and sophistication. Some learners may take longer to move up the spiral.
There is a challenge for a teacher of English in selecting appropriate and interesting material for learners moving up the spiral, so to support the delivery of its reformed Entry Level Certificate in English qualification, WJEC Eduqas has produced a series of practical resources focused on developing learners' Reading, Writing and Communication skills:
Guidance for Teaching: including a scheme of work focusing on key skills and assessment items; amplification of the assessment objectives; detailed explanations of the three assessed components; frequently asked questions.
Co-teachability with GCSE English Language: including skills and content maps across the two qualifications; suggested course plans for delivering ELC English as a stepping-stone to GCSE, or as a co-taught English programme of study.
Training Videos: explaining the content of each of the three components.
Sample Assessment Materials
Sample Scheme of Work: The scheme of work suggests ways that teachers may wish to deliver the non-fiction reading and functional writing aspects of the qualification. As such it covers core Reading skills of retrieval, scanning, selection, summary, deduction, verbal reasoning, inference; Writing skills such as use of conjunctions, punctuation, sentence structure, presenting information clearly; and introduces familiarisation with key assessment items such as multiple choice questions, cloze, and matching.
The scheme of work is presented as a Word document but also as an interactive PowerPoint, compatible with interactive whiteboards.
Co-teachability
As a skills-based subject – rather than one that is content-driven – teachers are provided with the opportunity for co-teaching ELC English with other English qualifications given that the aspects to be studied of Reading, Writing and Communication are the same (just more or less demanding) regardless of stage, age or qualification followed.
The co-teachability of the two courses is mapped out in the WJEC Eduqas document, highlighting the common skills and offering suggestions for delivering the courses, either simultaneously over two years or using ELC English as a one-year stepping-stone in Year 9 or Year 10 prior to GCSE.
The resources discussed here, along with many, many more for KS3, GCSE and GCE – Language and Literature – can be found on our Digital Resources Website.
If you would like any information about WJEC Eduqas English qualifications, please contact the Subject Officer, Guy Melhuish.
