AQA GCSE English Language and English Literature Advanced Student Book

Exam Board: AQALevel & Subject: GCSE 9-1 English Language, GCSE 9-1 English LiteratureFirst teaching: September 2015Next exams: June 2023 AQA approved Teach AQA’s GCSEs in English Literature and English Language as one coherent course with Student Books that help students to build and apply the skills that underpin both qualifications. Offer your students the right level of challenge. The Advanced Student Book revisits the Assessment Objectives for English Language and English Literature from the Core Student Book at a more sophisticated level, offering extra challenge to more able students.Help all students make good progress. Each chapter follows the hierarchy of skills and knowledge in the mark schemes, so students have a clear sequence of learning. End-of-chapter ‘Apply your skills’ practice tasks, annotated answers and self-assessment guidance helps students understand how to improve their work.Get to grips with the new specifications with expert suggestions from leading professionals as to how you could plan and teach the course. Our practical, ready-made resources can be used in your first years of teaching the specifications, and edited and adapted to your requirements.Save time updating your English Language resources with our comprehensive selection of passages from nineteenth- to twenty-first century literature and literary nonfiction, perfect for building students’ confidence in tackling unseen texts.

The structure seems comprehensive and appropriate as it shows progression and deals with the different aspects of the course in a way that seems logical and should promote learning rather than jumping around from topic to topic. I think it is the progression within each section that works well. It doesn’t take too long to get to the point where the student is actually devising a strong answer based on the build-up of tasks. There is a sense of achievement without overplaying each section. In reality students would need to be able to synthesise the skills into responses so it helps to build these individual skills quite swiftly in terms of the text book exercises. The focus of each exercise is clear and precise enough for skill development. I particularly like the applying skills and peer/self assessment sections and would really value these aspects being promoted in the textbooks as they are often left to the teacher to be added in when their value could be promoted in the actual text. I would definitely find these sections useful. They are exactly what makes the difference between a textbook I would purchase and one that I would not. Rachel Withington, St Ninian’s High School, Isle of Man

Sarah Darragh has worked in English education and assessment for over twenty years, and is an experienced teacher, trainer and writer of educational titles. Jo Heathcote is a highly experienced English Language and Literature classroom practitioner and a GCSE assessment expert. Jo is a practising teacher in Manchester, who has published resources and delivered training in all aspects of the Key stage 4 curriculum. Mike Gould is a former Head of English and Senior Lecturer in Education who has written over 150 books and digital resources for students and teachers, including Grammar for GCSE English and the bestselling Collins Cambridge IGCSE English series.