Building background knowledge - the secret to success in GCSE English

It is easy to feel unsure about how to help your child when they start their GCSEs. You can't manage the curriculum of your child’s school, but there is core knowledge that you can help them to build for their GCSEs from day one.

Quotation Learning

The English Literature GCSE is a closed book exam, so when it comes to home revision I think students often tend to focus on learning hundreds of quotations. Whilst learning quotations is an important part of revision, it’s actually not just about learning the quotations - it's also about learning an interpretation of that quotation that you’ll be able to bring to whatever question you have to answer in the exam.

In the exam, we don't know what characters are going to come up, we don't know what themes are going to come up… which is just the same as any other subject! Extended responses that show an understanding of the quotation and its significance are necessary to achieve a good grade.

Building Background Knowledge

Different children will come to the GCSE with different background knowledge. At our school, what we really try to do is to build as much of that background knowledge as early on as possible, especially for the texts that we know they're going to study at GCSE.

It’s important to help students to learn what we describe as “key concepts” right from the beginning, which can help them to understand ideas that texts explore more easily. For example, to grasp the significance of a poem that explores colonial attitudes, they need to have a background knowledge of what colonialism is. Without this knowledge, it is much more challenging for students to access the meaning of the work they’re studying.

So, what can parents do to help their child to build background knowledge?

A good starting point is to encourage your child to read as much as possible. If they're already at GCSE age, it's useful to find out what texts they are going to study so they can read more broadly in that genre - it's about schema building!

Using Tassomai

Tassomai can really help build up a student’s background knowledge and boost their confidence ahead of exams. At Torquay Academy we use the program in a slightly different way to most schools and we’ve actually created some unique quiz question content of our own, but the principles of Tassomai are the same regardless.

What we've built for Tassomai helps to push the key vocabulary and concepts that we're covering. Tassomai is great for retrieval practice but where it's really powerful, we have found, is with students learning the precise terminology and key concepts that facilitate their ability to articulate challenging ideas. For example, learning the terms ‘hubris’ and ‘narcissism’ are key to a thorough examination of Mr Birling in An Inspector Calls. 

When teaching English in the past, we have found that it has often only been higher ability students that are really able to to capture and remember more sophisticated vocabulary that has been discussed within a lesson. We’ve found that using Tassomai can help with this kind of knowledge retention, so even if they aren’t able to recall this from class alone, they are able to over time. So sophisticated terms that are often floating around in the periphery of students’ minds can come with them into the exam.

- Kathrine Mortimore

@Kathrine_28

For more information on the award winning Tassomai and Torquay collaboration click here.