When did English A-level become a science?

Now that my youngest has got her A-level grades, I’m finally free to say just how much I have loathed the past 20 or so years I have spent helping my children with their English homework.

This is a sad admission. After all, I studied English at university and still love reading classic literature and learning poetry by heart. But when I read that the number of 18-year-olds taking English A-level has plummeted to its lowest level since 2001 I wasn’t at all surprised. If I were that age, I’m not sure I’d choose to do English either.

The first taste I had of just how grisly English has become was when I helped the Rat with his GCSEs. I don’t think at any stage he was required to complete an actual book. Instead, he studied what were known as ‘texts’ — gobbets of often third-rate prose and poetry, selected either for its diversity (Maya Angelou) or its accessibility (including, I seem to remember, random verbiage written by children).