This paper explores GCSE English re-sits in post-16 education. The re-sit policy was introduced in England and Wales to improve national literacy rates, yet persistently poor pass rates have drawn robust criticism of the policy. This article argues that traditional discourses of literacy predominate and contribute towards antagonisms between re-sit students and subject English. The high-stakes nature of the qualification and associated performativity pressures compound the difficulties. High levels of test-teaching and technique-spotting impair the ambit of the GCSE re-sit programme to deliver the type of literacy which the policy purports to improve. This autoethnographic study correlates the GCSE re-sit landscape with Paulo Freire's 'banking model' of education and uses the work of The New Literacies Studies to suggest that dominant "autonomous" discourses of literacy are impeding educators' appreciation of literacies as situated practices.