9 September 2026: Lessons from the new GCSE languages

This summer, the first cohort took the new GCSEs in languages. In this piece, Juliette Claro examines what the 2026 results really tell us about grading severity, curriculum constraints, and the future of language learning.

By Juliette Claro, Lecturer in Education - Secondary PGCE MFL, St Mary's University of London.

When outcomes matter more than relevance in language learning.

The publication of the 2026 GCSE results has once again pushed Modern Languages (ML) into the spotlight and not always for the right reasons. While Ofqual reports that outcomes in French, German and Spanish are slightly higher than last year , the Association for Language Learning (ALL) has highlighted a more complex picture: improved grades do not necessarily signal a healthier languages ecosystem. They may instead reflect the first cohort sitting the reformed GCSE specifications, which Ofqual confirms were designed to ensure students were “neither advantaged nor disadvantaged” by the changes. The deeper issues in ML linked with uptake at GCSE, A Level and later on at Higher Education continue. The main problem with languages remains unchanged: as long as exam outcomes are prioritised over relevance, authenticity and learner motivation, numbers of students opting for languages will continue to remain lower than other subjects often perceived as “easier” to get higher grade.

The Bell curve problem: winners, losers, and harsh grading

The annual GCSE cycle reinforces a familiar pattern. Grade boundaries shift to maintain comparability, ensuring that each year’s distribution fits the national curve. As Bob Moon explained last summer in 2025 , grade boundaries are damaging. Set only after marking is complete and adjusted according to paper difficulty, the bell curve creates inequalities where closing the gap becomes an illusion for teachers. Students are always competing within a fixed distribution rather than against objective mastery resulting in winners and losers. In languages, this has historically resulted in disproportionately harsh grading, the ability for native speakers and bilinguals to be ahead of the curve. This issues has been long acknowledged by subject associations and reinforced by FFT Education Datalab, which notes that grading in modern languages has been “unduly severe” for years.

This year’s slight rise in top grades in Spanish (+1.8 percentage points) and smaller increases in French and German may be encouraging, but they do not resolve the structural problem: a norm‑referenced system guarantees that some students will fail regardless of their actual proficiency. When outcomes matter more than competence and when curriculum time shrinks, teaching narrows the schemes of work to prepare for the exams, organise intervention sessions and boosters to meet the target grades at the cost of the learners’ experience in languages. Languages are a high‑stakes, low‑reward subject for many young people.

Reduced curriculum time and a narrow linguistic diet

Teachers know this story well. reduced curriculum time, often the result of accountability measures, Ofsted requirements and timetable constraints, forces departments to focus on what is most “exam efficient”: phonics, vocabulary lists, and grammar manipulation. These are essential components of language learning, but when they dominate, they can crowd out creativity, cultural exploration and communicative purpose which are essential to intrinsic motivation and relevance in language learning (Norton, 2013).

The ALL statement on the 2026 results emphasises that while the new GCSE themes have been refreshing for many colleagues, grading severity continues to distort classroom practice. Teachers are left balancing the desire to inspire with the need to secure grades in a system that rewards accuracy over fluency, recall over communication, and compliance over curiosity.

A different model: DELF, DELE and the CEFR

I wrote about this in a previous article in 2025, but if England wants to rebuild a love of languages, it must look beyond GCSE. Internationally recognised frameworks such as the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) offer a compelling alternative. The CEFR describes language proficiency across six levels (A1–C2) and assesses learners through authentic, situational tasks: booking a hotel, explaining a problem, debating an issue, or writing a formal email. It is a mastery‑based system, not a competitive one. You pass with 50% and learners can retake the exam. Learners either meet the standard or they do not. There are no bell curve, no artificial scarcity of top grades but the confidence of learners that that have reached a level of competence and proficiency in a language through authentic situational assessments. The CEFR emphasises real‑world communication, problem‑solving, and creativity which are precisely the elements young people and the industry crave. These alternatives to traditional exams such as GCSE and A Level would also align with the linguistic reality of England that one in five young people in the country speaks another language at home, making monolingualism a myth rather than a norm. In fact, Duolingo reports that the majority of its users are aged 16–24, suggesting that young people do want to learn languages may best not always in the way schools currently teach them and assess them. It would also encourage alternative pathways for a more vocational and practical approaches to language learning responding to the recent government expectations to make qualifications accessible and meaningful to all learners and not just for the more able

As European countries use the CEFRL in their national examinations to assess proficiency in foreign languages, and knowing that the Home Office uses the CEFRL at B1 and above to assess proficiency in English for naturalisation or British citizenship, it is legitimate to ask ourselves why we keep assessing our young people in Modern Languages using a qualification model and grading that is only recognised…in Britain?

Relevance over outcomes

The new GCSE content has brought some welcome changes. Teachers report that updated themes feel more relatable and culturally grounded. But relevance cannot flourish in a system where grading remains disproportionately harsh and curriculum time continues to shrink. If England is serious about reversing the decline in language uptake, it must adopt assessment models that value communication, creativity and cultural competence not just performance on a narrow set of exam tasks.

A question for the sector

So as we digest this year’s results, perhaps the real question is this: Do we want a languages curriculum that produces grades or one that produces linguists? Until England chooses the latter, the annual GCSE results will continue to tell the same story.

References:

Norton, B. (2013). Identity and Language Learning: Extending the Conversation. Multilingual Matters & Channel View Publications. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.18799909