A blog providing ideas and resources for those teachers hoping to teach the new GCSE Specification, first announced in April 2022. Draft subject content released for consultation in June 2026 - for first teaching from 2028 or 2029.
The Daily Telegraph has connected the new specification with a conservation need. There are millions of deer in the countrysde, and when there are too many and they aren't managed this can lead to damage to trees, hedgerows and habitat for birds. There is a suggestion that more young people should be trained in deer management methods.
Charles Smith-Jones, of the British Deer Society, said: “The interest is out there, and it’s a question of developing the enthusiasms, and then creating the opportunities.”
He noted that there was a new natural history GCSE, which might help raise awareness, adding:
“I hope the GCSE goes beyond ‘isn’t wildlife lovely’ and looks at the realities of conservation, and what we need to do to maintain a balance of deer in the countryside.”
It's an interesting perspective... I wonder whether the final subject content and specification will allow for such discussions to take place.
We recently lost a real hero of Natural History: Dr. Jane Goodall.
She had spent her life speaking about the need to conserve nature, and habitats, particularly for primates.
There are many quotes which are attributed to her, where she shows the true value of connecting with nature.
She also recorded a Netflix special interview for "Famous Last Words" which she said could only be shown after her passing and in this she named the people she thought were having the greatest impact on the natural world through the actions of their companies or political decisions.
Who would be on your list of people to mention as part of a GCSE Natural History specification??
What is your local river? Can you get out to it to do fieldwork easily?
What fieldwork would be appropriate for the GCSE Natural History?
One river that I have completed fieldwork on most recently is the River Glaven.
This is a fairly short river which flows through North Norfolk.
Rising from tiny chalk headwaters in lower Bodham and Baconsthorpe, the River Glaven flows for approximately 17 km. Its main course begins just below Selbrigg Pond, where three tributaries combine at the outfall. From there, the river winds through wooded hills of glacial debris, traverses lush countryside, and meanders through picturesque flint villages, before meeting the sea behind Blakeney Point.
Image: Selbrigg Pond, where the Glaven comes to life.
I have followed the river for most of that route.
At Letheringsett mill there is a useful stretch where fieldwork can be carried out.
Image: Letheringsett
The River Glaven faces challenges from abstraction, climate change and development. These pressures affect water levels and temperatures, ultimately impacting the wildlife and communities that depend on this precious chalk stream.
One of the aspects of the new draft specification is the suggestion that students are exposed to fieldwork which takes them to areas of interest locally. The cost of fieldwork visits will be one thing which potentially limits the uptake of the new specification. Locally based fieldwork, and on-site fieldwork guidance will be important here.
There are a number of excellent locations where students may be taken.
If I was teaching in Norfolk again, I would aim to head for Cley Marsh reserve. We have previously taken students there from Ely to carry out GCSE fieldwork exploring the management of the land for habitats. The area has been expanded over the years with additional land purchases and they have an active education programme.
Cley Reserve has an important place in the history of conservation. This is partly explored in this article in KL Magazine (a local magazine that I read when it comes out).
Cottar's, Africa's oldest family-run safari company, has launched an innovative five-day educational experience for teenagers, specifically designed around the UK's new Natural History GCSE curriculum. Olivia Palamountain reports
Cottar's Safaris will debut "Tracks for Tomorrow" in October 2025 at its 1920s Camp in Kenya's Olderkesi Conservancy in the Maasai Mara.
Targeting young people aged 14-18 with hands-on conservation learning, the programme represents a unique approach to educational travel, with activities specifically aligned to Natural History GCSE educational goals including observation, field studies, sustainability, and ecosystem awareness. Participants receive a certificate of completion, creating a lasting milestone in their conservation education.
The programme launches as the UK introduces its new Natural History GCSE, creating a timely educational tourism opportunity that bridges classroom learning with real-world conservation experience in one of Africa's most significant wildlife areas.
Intrigued because the curriculum for the new Natural History GCSE isn't yet confirmed, following an earlier draft consultation - which produced something which will inevitably change substantially following other consultation processes.
The trip sounds excellent to be fair... it includes:
Innovative programme elements include wild foraging for edible plants and insects, seedball reforestation projects, and a choice between deep-diving into cheetah conservation or raptor studies with daily updates on 500 monitored nests.
The programme blends traditional Maasai cultural education through "Warrior School" with modern conservation challenges, including sustainability tasks where teens design eco-friendly camps or develop ideas to reduce travel carbon footprints.
However, the price may put it out of the reach of most schools.
Students should perhaps be familiar with some of the legislation which protects the country's natural history - although not always successfully.
This can be referred to when they talk about the background to protections for land and animals.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 was a governmental bill passed through the U.K parliament on the 30th of October 1981, its jurisdiction covering England, Scotland and Wales.
Its main purpose was to comply and uphold with numerous European Union laws and conventions on conservation of wildlife and habitats, these include the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife, the European Union Directives on the Conservation of Wild Birds and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.
All of these EU bills expected greater conservation of individual species at risk but also direct protection of the habitats to facilitate the conservation process.
The Act is important and no doubt will be tinkered with going forward to meet the needs of governments who decide that they value other things over wildlife and the countryside, such as house building or energy infrastructure.
Each video explores a different ecological concept.
For example, here is a video on Fens.
Notes included:
Fen are groundwater-fed, base-rich habitats.
They arise where rainwater permeates spongy calcium-rich rocks, resulting in mineral-rich water. Calcium carbonate dissolves to produce bicarbonate, which acts as a pH buffer, keeping the pH neutral. Where the water table in the ground intercepts the ground level the water comes out as springs or seeps into the fen. So fens are wet, ground-fed, base-rich habitats. The seeping water moves slowly so the soil surface has little oxygen- is anaerobic- so the vegetation rots slowly forming peat. This, in turn, means fens are low in the key nutrients of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium, as these are locked up in the peat. The calcium can also bind the available phosphorus reducing the fertility further. The fen community includes specialist plants that tolerate low oxygen conditions, calcium carbonate deposits and low nutrient availability. The diversity in geology, hydrology, topology, fertility and disturbance results in a mix of open water, low habitats, dense vegetation and woodland, which provides a huge diversity of habitats and species. Cutting vegetation and grazing no doubt have kept habitats open whilst peat digging has created many habitats we now consider important. Once drained, these well irrigated, base-rich, high organic content soils are attractive for farming. Hence less than 1% of fens remain. The remaining sites are complex to manage. Maintaining the hydrology, water quality and disturbance is key.
Filmed at Thelnetham Fen, Suffolk Wildlife Trust, reserve.
It is an important place in the history of British birdwatching and conservation.
Its education centre was opened by Sir David Attenborough, who described the place as being particularly significant in these respects.
It also has a rather wonderful view of the reserve and hides heading out to the shingle beach, which can be enjoyed with a cheese and tomato toastie if you're feeling peckish.
There's a good visitor centre space with a series of different art exhibitions and several purchasing opportunities.
The reserve talks about this landscape being a "living landscape" and "a living coast".
It is subtitled 'The Fight to Save our Wild Places' and focusses on a number of locations which are threatened with being lost.
It has a useful section on ancient woodlands which outlines very clearly what that term means, and the distinction between that and the wildwood.
Each section is relevant to particular types of ecosystems, and the book explores the nature of the threats they face, and the efforts being made to protect them. By the time I read through it, there were lots of post it notes for potentially useful sections.
A very good book as an introduction to the idea of wilderness, and the relationship between humans and nature.
He touches on the plastic threat when he visits the beach in the chapter entitled 'A world within water'.
He describes the discovery of the plastic nurdles which make up a part of any handful of beach sand in most of the world.
"For all its unquestionable usefulness for the human race, a convenience that's turned out to be irressistible to us, plastic places an unearthly burden on the rest of the living world."
When considering a specification on Natural History, an organisation which has the word "shooting" in its name may not seem like the obvious match. A friend worked for BASC many years ago, and explained how this might not seem such a problematic connection.
BASC’s response to this consultation focused on fair representation of shooting and its associated land management practices. We encourage students to think holistically but also challenge their own moral compass: “Is killing one species to save another okay?”.
We know this to be sound and scientifically proven. We have seen examples of this in nature like the curlew coming back from the brink of extinction. But would a teenager who has never visited the countryside understand this concept?
It will be interesting to see whether the final document offers opportunity for a nuanced look at alternative methods of countryside management.
Plantlife is one of the organisations which will be on the list we will create, identifying websites of groups which may well prove useful for teachers preparing to teach the new specification.
The organisation has the following Mission:
Our mission is to secure a world rich in wild plants and fungi.
Wild plants and fungi underpin the health of our environment. They can help us to resolve the climate, ecological and societal challenges which we face.
Protecting them will lead to a world full of colour, beauty and life while allowing the plants and the animals which depend on them to thrive.
The Advice and Learning section of the website is worth visiting too.
This includes a learning section to help identify plants and fungi with an illustrated database of plants and fungi which are searchable on a number of criteria.
There is also a Meadows Hub giving advice on how to manage this sort of ecosystem. I have blogged about this separately.
The headline is stark. Since the 1930s, over 97% of wildflower meadows have been lost. Where once thirty species of plants would bloom under your outstretched arms, in most of our fields there are now just six.
But, in the last few years, we have come to appreciate what we’ve lost. The tide is turning and the appetite for creating and restoring meadows - from the smallest garden to the largest fields - is greater than ever.
From storing carbon, to supporting biodiversity, to just enjoying their astonishing beauty, many of us want become meadow makers.
Whether you want to learn more about creating and planting meadows, help on how to keep meadows looking fabulous, or want some advice on starting a local meadows group by adopting a few basic principles, you are in the right place to find out how you can create flower-rich meadows on any scale - from a few square metres in your garden to fields of many hectares.
The Wildlife and Countyside Link is a website which draws together a growing number of wildlife organisations. There are 80 organisations at the time of posting... which as you can see is an increase on when I took the original screenshot below...
There is likely to be a focus on wildlife in the new specification, and the work that they do.
Many of these organisations have also previously expressed support for the GCSE Natural History.
A report is also mentioned on the home page currently as part of a campaign.
New analysis suggests that without major change the Government will miss its landmark pledge to protect 30% of the land and sea for nature.
Three years after the pledge was made (28 September 2020), the charities say Government has made:
1. No progress in protecting more of the land and sea for nature 2. No progress in improving the condition of existing protected sites 3. No progress in policy changes needed to support future improvements
Almost three-quarters of Brits (73%) do not have confidence that the government will meet its commitment to meet 30x30 or its target to stop the decline of wildlife (73%).
The page currently has a header describing the new Nature2030 Campaign.
For some years, I listened to BBC Radio Norfolk on my commute to and from work and used to catch Chris Skinner's farm sections from High Ash Farm.
He has been broadcasting from the farm for over 40 years apparently. He has sound recording gear with him, and captures the sounds of the wildlife on his farm in Norfolk.
A news report from the BBC explores the UK's few temperate rainforests. I have mentioned Guy Shrubsole's book before - a copy is in my Natural History library and will be featured on the blog as well and in the reading lists we are making.
The story looks at Lydford Gorge in Devon, a place I've visited a few times over the years.
A reminder of the need to protect what we have. There are some particularly rare lichens in the woods, including one in Somerset which is the only known location where it is found.
The article says:
Lichens are a particularly unusual class of organisms found in temperate rainforests.
The plant-like living things are made up of fungi growing in association with other life forms, such as algae. There are more than 2,000 species in Britain and Ireland alone, many of which are found in temperate rainforests,
The horsehair lichen Bryoria smithii is known at only two rainforest sites in Britain and Arthonia thoriana, a rare comma lichen, is not known anywhere else in the world other than at Horner Wood in Somerset.
Temperate rainforests are made up of oak, birch, ash, pine and hazel woodland, but the ash trees are suffering from ash dieback.
