English Literature GCSE

On this page

• English Literature GCSE Summary
• Why have we chosen AQA?
• How we’re approaching English Literature GCSE
• Rough plan
• Learning resources

Why have we chosen AQA?

As I do every time we need to choose an exam board, I looked through the amazing HE Exams Wiki which details all of the exam boards available for English Literature and gives a concise overview of what’s in each syllabus.

We didn’t have strong opinions about which texts we wanted to do and our girls don’t have any SEN issues we need to factor in. We also have access to exam centres that between them cover all exam boards and subjects and so we could have picked any board really!

We opted for AQA in the end as this is by far the most common board; a whopping 485,549 candidates used this board for English Literature in 2023. This means that there are plenty of resources for this board and all the main study guides (like CGP, York Notes and Twinkl) write specifically for AQA.

How we’re approaching English Literature GCSE

We’re going slow and steady with this subject, and all four of us will do sessions together. I did English Literature at A level so I feel we’re okay to self-study this subject but we may bring in tutor support for exam technique and marking mock exams – we’ll see how we go!

Choice of texts and prior experience

The girls really didn’t mind what texts we chose. They said they trusted our judgement! Between us, Dom and I have read a good number of the texts on the syllabus and we narrowed it down to a few options which we then discussed with the girls for them to make the final decisions.

We’ve done several book studies in the past and so we’ve got experience of studying books together but I’d imagine we’ll be spending a lot more time on character and theme analysis than we have previously. The girls will also have to perfect the art of memorising quotations to use in essays.

We’ve not studied much Shakespeare in detail before but the girls are very familiar with many of his plays and the context and style of his writing. We did look at Macbeth at KS2/3 level a few years ago using a unit study I created (I did Macbeth myself at GCSE which helped) and it’s because of this prior learning that the girls have picked Macbeth again.

We have little experience of poetry so this will be the most challenging part of the syllabus for us. We’re looking forward to the challenge though!

Is sitting English Literature early a good idea?

English Literature is a subject that people always recommend to leave as late as possible and to do as close to the usual age of 16 as possible. The AQA results statistics for the June 2023 exams clearly show why – year 11 aged children statistically perform much better.

We will be doing this subject all together and plan for the girls to sit this in June 2026 so Aggie will be 15.5 (year 10) and Peggy 14 (year 9). But….we don’t want Peggy to be disadvantaged by sitting it at a younger age. So, we’ll decide nearer the time if Peggy will actually sit the exam in 2026. She has another year in 2027/28 when we get back from our gap year to try it then if she prefers.

Above is our plan for the next two academic years. This leaves us with a long revision period in 2026 but I’m sure something will overrun to eat into it!

In April and May 2025 I’ve been realistic over the fact we’ll be concentrating on GCSE exams for German, Business and Sociology and so I’m sure very little English will get done in those months.

Something we’ve learned the hard way, from doing GCSEs in June 2024, is not to leave exam technique and practice until the final months before the exams. We’ll therefore be doing questions as early as possible and will do past papers after completing each text. This will help us decide whether we do need tutor support and if Peggy is okay to sit it in 2026.

For how we’re approaching each text, you can find out more detail by clicking on the images below.

Learning resources