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"Reflections of a language teacher.
Always learning."
Why students underperform in GCSE writing – and how over-scaffolding and misunderstandings about “complex language” make it worse
From a GCSE examiner’s point of view, I believe most students do not underperform in writing because they lack ideas, motivation or effort. Much more often, they underperform because they have been taught a version of GCSE writing that does not reflect how writing is actually assessed. Year after year, the same issues surface in exam papers. Students rely heavily on scaffolds , they misunderstand what “complex language” really means and accuracy at sentence level is sacr
Silvia Bastow
2 days ago7 min read
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