How to adapt old resources for the new GCSE (first exams 2026) [3-min read]

If you've got folders full of amazing PowerPoints and worksheets for the old French, German and Spanish spec (2018), and are worrying that you just have to delete them all and start again from scratch... please don't!!

In this blog post, I want to give you five really easy ways of adapting your resources for the new GCSE:

1. Translate all rubrics and questions into English.

The instructions for speaking and writing tasks will all be in English for the new GCSEs, so one simple change you can make is to translate all of the rubrics for your speaking and writing tasks into English. The same goes for any reading and listening questions in the TL, as they will all be in English, too. Bonus tip! Use the "translate" feature in Word or PowerPoint to quickly translate existing rubrics from the TL into English.

2. Ensure you have the correct number of bullet points for writing tasks. 

For some of the writing tasks, the number of bullet points has changed, so you may need to remove or add a bullet point or two to make the tasks more closely aligned to the new GCSE.

3. Adapt rubrics and questions to make them more inclusive.

The new GCSEs have very much been designed with diversity and inclusion at their core, and tasks that you create for your students should reflect this. A simple switch would be removing the word "family" from writing task instructions and changing it to "the people you live with", for example.

4. Check model answers or reading/listening texts against the prescribed vocab lists. 

As long as you're not planning to sell the resources, you can use the MultilingProfiler - if you are selling resources, you'll need to buy a licence.

5. Use model answers for "new" tasks like dictations and reading aloud.

Follow my 'exploiting one text' method to use model answers to create dictations, reading aloud tasks, role-plays and reading/listening activities.