Is Speaking Graded?

On a large online forum where GCSE students ask each other for help, one student started a thread with this title:

“need help for GCSE English Speech!!! (AQA exam board – it’s in 3 weeks!!!)”

In sixteen months of threads that we studied, students started thirteen conversations about the same speech. One of those threads alone had thirty-two replies.

Here is the puzzle. In England, that speech adds nothing at all to the GCSE English Language grade. A brilliant talk and no talk at all would leave the number from 1 to 9 on the certificate exactly the same. So why does every school make its students do it, and does anybody ever look at the result?

A speech with no marks

Suppose your child comes home and says the speech is next Thursday, and adds that it does not even count. What would you say?

Before you answer, it helps to know what the task is. The Department for Education sets the content that every GCSE English Language course must cover, and one of its requirements is that students learn to “listen to and understand spoken language, and use spoken Standard English effectively”. The same document then says this.

“Spoken language will be reported on as part of the qualification, but it will not form part of the final mark and grade.”^[1]

All four exam boards in England follow that rule. Each states it in its own words. AQA lists the speech as a “separate endorsement (0% weighting of GCSE)”.^[2] Edexcel says: “There are no marks for the Spoken Language endorsement.”^[3] OCR says the result “will not contribute to the overall GCSE grade and will appear on all learners’ certificates as a separately reported grade”.^[4] Eduqas calls it “unweighted in the qualification”.^[5] An endorsement, in this sense, is a separate result printed beside the main grade.

The task itself is the same with every board, because the boards share one set of criteria. Your child chooses a topic and agrees it with the teacher in advance. They then give a prepared, formal presentation, which can be a talk, a speech, a debate or a dialogue. AQA’s guide is that it “should be no more than ten minutes”.^[2] Afterwards the audience asks questions and gives feedback, and your child has to answer. The teacher assesses the talk, and the school sends recordings of some students’ talks to the exam board so that the grades can be checked.

The weakest part sets the grade

There are no marks for the speech. Each student receives one of four results: Pass, Merit, Distinction or Not Classified.

The grades work in an unusual way. AQA calls it a “competency” basis: “a student must hit all the criteria in one grade before moving on to the next.”^[2] So a grade is only as high as the weakest part of the talk. A student who speaks very well but answers the audience’s questions briefly can stay at Pass, because answering the questions is one of the criteria.

At the top, a Distinction asks for sophisticated ideas and vocabulary, a talk organised “to engage the audience”, and a student who “listens to questions/ feedback, responds perceptively and if appropriate elaborates with further ideas and information”.^[2] So the questions at the end are part of the test itself.

A student who does not attempt the speech at all is recorded as “Not Classified”.^[2] Their 1 to 9 grade in English Language is still awarded in the normal way.

Valued, but taken out

The obvious answer to the puzzle is that nobody thinks speaking matters. The history shows the opposite.

Speaking and listening used to count towards the GCSE English grade. In 2013, Ofqual, the regulator for exams in England, decided that it would stop counting. It had held a consultation first, and it said the responses “showed that speaking and listening are widely-valued skills”.^[6] The reason Ofqual gave was fairness.

“There is no way that the exam boards can make sure these assessments are administered and marked sufficiently consistently across all schools and colleges.”^[6]

Every talk is marked by the student’s own teacher, and no two schools hear the same talks. A mark from one school could not be relied on to mean the same as a mark from another. People valued speaking, but it could not be marked fairly enough to share a grade with written exams. So it was taken out of the grade. Before the new GCSE began, Ofqual confirmed the result: “The 9 to 1 grade will be based on students’ performance in their written exams only.”^[7]

Two places where the talk does count

Not every family reading this is in England, and two exam systems work differently.

In Northern Ireland, CCEA’s GCSE English Language includes a unit called Speaking and Listening. It carries 20 per cent of the whole qualification, and students complete three tasks: “an individual presentation and interaction, a discussion and a role play”.^[8]

In Wales, the new WJEC GCSE English Language and Literature, first awarded in 2027, includes “an individually researched oral presentation”. It is one of two tasks in a unit worth 20 per cent of the Single Award.^[9] In both places, speaking helps to decide the grade itself.

In the IGCSE, speaking is optional

The two main IGCSEs in English Language both offer a speaking result, but in each case it is optional.

Pearson Edexcel’s International GCSE English Language, in both its A and B versions, has an optional Spoken Language Endorsement. The task and the Pass, Merit and Distinction grades are the same as the GCSE’s. “If a student completes the endorsement, it will appear on their certificate as a separately reported grade, alongside the overall grade issued.”^[10]

Cambridge’s IGCSE First Language English, in both the 0500 and the 0990 versions, has a Speaking and Listening Test called Component 4. It lasts about ten to twelve minutes: an individual talk of three to four minutes, then a conversation with the teacher of seven to eight minutes about the chosen topic. It is graded from 1, the highest, to 5. Its result does not count towards the main IGCSE grade.^[11] The syllabus says that schools “may also choose to enter candidates” for it, so whether your child takes it is usually the school’s decision.^[11]

The admissions pages we checked never mention it

For this question we went to the admissions pages themselves. We searched the published entry requirements of six sixth-form colleges in different parts of England, from Bolton and Leeds to Blackpool and Farnborough. Every one of them asks for a grade in GCSE English Language, usually a 4 or a 5. None of them mentions the spoken language grade.

The universities we checked gave the same picture. The general entry pages of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Imperial, Bristol and Exeter do not mention it either. UCAS, which runs university applications, gives no points to any GCSE. Its own page says: “Tariff points only apply to Level 3/SCQF Level 6 qualifications, not Level 2 qualifications such as GCSEs.”^[12]

So, for a student taking a GCSE in England, we found no college, sixth form or university that asks for the spoken language grade. We cannot promise that no course anywhere asks for it, and a family with a particular course in mind should check that course’s own page.

Where the optional test can decide

The surprise came from the IGCSE, which is the version where the speaking result is optional.

Some universities ask students from other countries to prove their English before they can be offered a place. King’s College London is one of them, and it accepts an IGCSE as that proof only when speaking is included. Its English language requirements page says this.

“All IGCSE English qualifications requiring Speaking and/or Listening must have this separately endorsed on their Candidate Statement of Results and/or certificate.”^[13]

For Cambridge 0500, King’s asks for “Grade B plus Speaking and Listening at grade 2”. For Edexcel’s English Language A, it asks for “Grade 6 including spoken language endorsement at merit”. For GCSE English Language, by contrast, it asks only for “Grade B or 6”.^[13] Oxford Brookes asks for Cambridge 0500 at “Grade C with 2 in Speaking/Listening”.^[14]

These rules do not apply to every applicant. King’s says that UK nationals who have completed an A-level or an equivalent qualification in a majority English-speaking country do not need to take an extra English test.^[13] Other applicants, including students from other countries, have to show proof. If their school did not enter them for the optional speaking test, their IGCSE may not be accepted as proof of English, and they may need to take a separate English language test instead.

So what would you tell your child on Thursday? The answer depends on where your child is. For a GCSE student in England, the speech adds nothing to the grade and, as far as we could find, nothing to any application. It still appears on the certificate permanently. For an IGCSE student who may apply to a university as an international student, the optional speaking test can decide whether the IGCSE counts as proof of their English at all.

Four things to do this week

1. Check which qualification your child is taking. Ask the school for the exam board and whether the course is a GCSE or an IGCSE, because the speaking rules are different for each.

2. If it is an IGCSE, ask whether the school enters students for the speaking test. For Cambridge it is Component 4; for Edexcel it is the Spoken Language Endorsement. This matters most if your child may apply to a university as an international student.

3. Ask about the questions, not only the talk. The top grade needs a student who “responds perceptively” to the audience’s questions. Listen to the talk at home and ask two questions afterwards, so your child practises answering without notes.

4. Start the talk early. AQA warns that “lack of preparation is likely to prevent access to the criteria for the higher grades”.^[2] The topic has to be agreed with the teacher in advance, so choosing it is the first step.

If your child is resitting English Language, the spoken language result can usually be carried forward rather than taken again. We explain how in Manchester Says No.

If you would like to know where your child’s own writing stands today, our free assessment takes five minutes.

Sources