27th August 2026
Introduction
ALL Subject Leaders and ALL London invited all to a free webinar, open to all MFL teachers. We thank the presenters, who give freely of their time and expertise.
Written summary now available
A public summary of the key points from the webinar is available here:
This provides an accessible overview of the main themes, data insights and commentary shared during the session.
Access to the full webinar recording and slides
The video recording, presentation slides and related links are available here:
Terms & Conditions (those relevant post-webinar)
- Disclaimer: ALL London is very happy to host these events. It does not charge participants, speakers kindly offer their service without payment and volunteers run the events. Speakers and participants are responsible for what they say and display.
- The purpose of this webinar is for language professionals to share ideas and resources relating to teaching languages in a relaxed, friendly and supportive environment.
- The presentations and spoken content are the intellectual property of the host and invited speakers. Participants agree not to record, transcribe, or use AI tools to capture or summarise the session. Anything the presenters choose to share will be made available afterwards on our website.
Session presenters
David Blow, ALL Fellow
David Blow is an Executive Head and ALL Fellow who has worked for many years with ASCL and CST analysing and explaining exam data, and in particular, highlighting the issue of severe grading and pushing for changes. Key documents relating to this issue are on this page of our website.
Adam Lamb, ALL Council Member
Adam is Director of Modern Foreign Languages for the United Learning Trust, and is an experienced marker and former Head of Department. He has been very involved in introducing the new specifications to the schools in the Trust. Adam shares advice and resources on his blog: https://senorcordero.wordpress.com/
Catherine Ames, ALL Council Member and ALL London Committee Member
Head of Languages and Lead Practitioner, The Grey Coat Hospital. Catherine leads the ALL Subject Leader SIG, is a member of both ALL Executive Council and the ALL London Committee and has contributed a great deal to ALL London events.
Helen Myers, ALL Invited Trustee and ALL London Chair
Chair of the ALL London branch, and member of ALL’s management board, Helen has been involved over many years with GCSE examination and curriculum issues, including severe grading. She makes her analyses available on her blog: helenmyers.blogspot.com
Session invitation
This free webinar explores the results in the new GCSEs in French, German and Spanish, so that teachers, senior leaders and others could have an accurate understanding of how the grading process has operated, the differences and similarities with the previous GCSEs and the implications for schools.
It looks at the differences in the approach for the new and previous specifications, and the implications for raw marks, grade boundaries and grade distributions.
It explains the principles behind the allocation of grades by Ofqual and the exam boards to GCSEs and A-levels in all subjects in this era of “comparable outcomes”, and unpick common misconceptions (and consequent risks for misleading information/people) about raw marks, grade boundaries, etc.
It looks at the longstanding and ongoing issue of “severe grading” at both GCSE (and A Level), and highlighted changes which have been made, and the further changes which are needed, some 50 years on from it first being identified!