3 Reasons Your Child's GCSE English Grade Is Lower Than It Should Be

Shaan K is a Law student at the University of Warwick and a specialist GCSE English Tutor on Sherpa. He achieved ten Grade 9s at GCSE and an A* in A-Level English Language at Merchant Taylors’ School, ranked first in his cohort.

His online tutoring focuses on one thing: teaching students exactly what examiners reward, and the structures that deliver it under exam pressure.

Here, he explains the three writing habits that are holding most GCSE English students back.

3 Reasons Your Child's GCSE English Grade Is Lower Than It Should Be

By Shaan Kalyan | GCSE English Specialist | Sherpa Tutor

Last week, thousands of Year 11 students opened their GCSE results. Some parents will be confused by a 4 or a 5 next to GCSE English, especially when their child clearly knows the book or the poem inside out.

Here's the thing most parents don't realise: it's almost never about how much your child knows. It's about three small habits in how they write their answers, and all three can be fixed in weeks, not months.

Mistake 1: Not Actually Answering the Question

Imagine asking someone what the weather's like today, and they give you a beautiful description of the clouds, but never actually tell you whether it's going to rain.

A lot of Grade 4-5 essays do exactly this. A student might write something true and interesting like "the writer describes the room as cold", but never finishes the thought by connecting it back to the actual question on the page. The examiner is left thinking, "Yes, and? What's your answer?"

The Fix

Every paragraph needs to end with a sentence that directly answers the question, using the same words the question uses. Not a clever point left hanging. A clear answer, every time.

Mistake 2: No Structure to the Essay

Picture a house built without a floor plan. Some individual rooms might look lovely, but you can't walk from one to the next, and nothing quite connects.

That's what it looks like when a student writes every paragraph differently: a long quote with barely any comment here, lots of opinion with no evidence there. The examiner can't see a plan, so the whole essay reads as messier than it actually is.

The Fix 

The same simple shape, every paragraph, no exceptions. Make the point. Give the evidence. Explain it. Answer the question. Then repeat exactly that shape for the next point.

Mistake 3: Only Looking at the Beginning

This is the most common mistake, and the easiest one to fix. A student gets excited by the opening lines of the poem or extract in GCSE English Literature, writes a lot about them, and by the time they reach the end, either the time or the energy has run out.

It's a bit like being asked to review a whole film and only talking about the first ten minutes.

The Fix

Before writing a single word, pick one moment near the start and one moment near the end. Build the whole essay around both. That way the entire poem or extract gets covered properly, not just the part that grabbed attention first.

What This Means for Results Day

None of this is about talent, and none of it needs a whole term to fix. These are three habits, and habits change fast once someone points them out clearly and show exactly what to do differently.

If tomorrow's result isn't the one your child needed, the November resit window is the next chance, and these three fixes are the fastest way to use those weeks well. And if your child gets the grade they needed and is moving into Year 12, the same three habits matter even more at A-Level, especially for A-Level English.

If you'd like to talk through what tomorrow's result means for your child, I offer a free introductory meeting. My profile is linked here.