OCR exam board boosts diversity in English Literature texts

Exam board OCR has increased the diversity of its A Level and GCSE English Literature syllabus, with new titles including Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton). 

To widen the diversity of works English Literature students can engage with, OCR is adding five novels at A-Level, as well as a new play and new poems for its anthology at GCSE, for teaching from September 2022. OCR will be the first exam board to offer Evaristo’s Booker-winning novel as a text for A-Level students. 

The four new novels added to OCR’s A-Level English Literature course from next September will be Passing by Nella Larsen (Penguin), The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Headline), Rebecca  by Daphne Du Maurier (Little, Brown) and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Penguin). 

For GCSE, students will now have the chance to study Leave Taking by award-winning playwright Winsome Pinnock (Nick Hern Books) as a modern drama text, as well as a refreshed selection of poems. 

The number of texts by writers of colour, the majority of whom are women, will increase overall by 19 and will form 28% (up from 13%) of the texts available across both A-Level and GCSE. In all, 62% of the new works being added for next year are by women. 

OCR is developing a package of support to help English teachers to deliver these texts from next year, including supplementary materials to support teaching and assessment, as well as a full programme of free online training and events.  

The bolstered syllabuses follow a report released this summer by Lit in Colour, a joint campaign by Penguin Random House UK and the Runnymede Trust to make English Literature in schools more inclusive, which highlighted the need for greater diversity in the English curriculum. The report found fewer than 1% of English Literature students study a book by a writer of colour at GCSE, despite the fact 34% of school students in England are Black, Asian or minority ethnic. 

The new texts are part of OCR’s broader drive to improve diversity which goes beyond English Literature, with changes also made to its History syllabus as well as Religious Studies and Media Studies.  

Evaristo (pictured) commented: “I feel very privileged to know that my work will be taught in schools alongside other books that broaden our understanding of the role of literature in contemporary society, and which explore what it means to be human from multiple, instead of limited, perspectives.” 

Jill Duffy, OCR c.e.o., said: “We’re committed to increasing the breadth of writing that young people can engage with. The quality of these diverse works will not only support students to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of English Literature, but provide an opportunity to engage with work that is more relevant to their lives and to the lives of fellow students.”