Teaching GCSE
Introduction to teaching GCSE Citizenship Studies. ACT seminar, September 2023
What's great about teaching GCSE Citizenship?
It's exciting, current, active, rigorous, broad.
'We get to learn about what's happening in the world, and this helps make sense of things that are happening and why they are happening.'
Source questions.
Students need to be confident in their use of source materials, drawn for example, from articles in newspapers. They may be asked to identify, evaluate, explain or compare sources.
Typical citizen issues from the exam boards
Edexcel: Law in the UK doesn't keep up with changing attitudues, values and beliefs. Nor does it reflect the changing composition of the UK population.
AQA: Using a more proportional electoral system at UK general elections would strengthen democracy.
OCR: UK governments should encourage reasonable levels of immigration and emegration.
Summary of content and approach
GCSE course promotes responsible citizenship
The three exam boards all include short, source based and essay style questions
The course includes key concepts such as law, rights, democracy, media, global citizenship and action
The course requires a wide variety of knowledge
Students need to access source material and critically explore issues.
Take a look at Six Strategies for Effective Learning