One novel and five poems!
While I can (just about) see the point of a functional English GCSE for kids with English as a second language…but the claim that it’s suitable for “post-16s who need a language qualification but would not wish to tackle the reading requirements of the English literature course” is, erm, difficult to comprehend. If I remember the reading was one short novel and a small selection of poems.
Granted, English GCSE might be tricky for some people, but so are Maths and Science. If we’re not careful we might end up with a large proportion of the next generation having never read a poem or heard of Shakespeare!
