Plan B Forum

Poet laureate Simon Armitage and former children’s laureate Michael Rosen are among the top UK poets decrying the government’s decision to make poetry optional for GCSE students next year, describing it as “a dangerous first step”.

Ofqual announced on Tuesday that, due to the impact of coronavirus on education, it would allow exam boards to change their assessment criteria for GCSE English literature next summer. While students will still be assessed on a Shakespeare play, they will only have to focus on two out of the three remaining areas – poetry, the 19th-century novel, and fiction or drama from the British Isles after 1914.

Armitage, whose work has been part of the GCSE syllabus for the last two decades, said the decision was sad.


“This is a time when poetry seems to be really having its moment, because of the comfort, consolation and form of expression that people have found in poetry over these months. Among younger people, it seems a very vibrant, popular art form,” said Armitage. “It’s a worry that making it optional might have a knock-on effect and just make it one of those add-ons that it’s been at times in the past.”

“Poetry is language at play, and a lot of the time in a school or classroom environment, students are expected to use language in a very rational, logical and informational way. To be denied the opportunity to think of language as nuanced and playful is a pity,” he added.

Rosen called the decision wrong.

continues here..