100 000 page views

A nice little milestone for this blog, which I hope has not been produced - and populated with hundreds of ideas to be of potential help to teachers of a new GCSE Specification - for nothing.

The recent Curriculum and Assessment Review did prompt a DfE response that they were looking to move ahead with the GCSE Natural History, although what shape may take remains uncertain. I look forward to seeing what comes next...

#512: Curriculum and Assessment Review - final report

The final report of Becky Francis' Curriculum and Assessment Review was published today.

The DfE's official response to the recommendations in that review can be seen here.

It includes this text.

Equipping children and young people to thrive in a rapidly changing world therefore means enabling them to understand and meet the global challenge that climate change presents. We will take the opportunity to enhance the climate education content which is already present in the national curriculum, in the subjects of geography, science and citizenship. We will also include sustainability within the design and technology (D&T) programme of study and sustainable practices within the citizenship primary curriculum. We agree with the Review that key concepts on climate education should be introduced earlier in the curriculum and will ensure that the relevant programmes of study contain this at primary level. 

We also want to go further on this and ensure that more people can engage with and develop respect for the natural world. 

We will therefore consult on the subject content for the natural history GCSE, as confirmed earlier this year. 

The Review noted that changes to curriculum content are only part of the picture and that teaching also has an important part to play through the use of climate-related examples and resources to teach existing curriculum content. The National Education Nature Park, funded by DfE, has a website which hosts free resources and activities for all education phases across a wide range of subjects. These are aligned to the curriculum and quality assured by experts, giving educators trusted information that allows them to teach about sustainability and climate change with confidence, in subjects where climate education is a core part of the curriculum content and in other subjects.

They also make some recommendations for Geography.

This is important as the subject content they will be consulting on has to be markedly different from that of the geography curriculum to avoid duplication.

We agree with the Review that the subject does not need significant change, and we will update and refine the programme of study and GCSE subject content with modest changes, to support pupils and teachers. As recommended, changes will support a better understanding of the disciplinary requirements in the national curriculum and in the GCSE, ensure the content is updated where needed, including in relation to climate education, and clarify and integrate the fieldwork requirements. We will also improve the GCSE subject content to support better progression, deepen understanding and remove unnecessary repetition across topics.

#500: Still waiting...

When I started this blog back in January 2023 it looked like we might have a draft specification for the GCSE Natural History fairly quickly... we had had the original draft consultation and OCR were taking up the task of developing some resources and other support materials.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

A new specification would need all the related documents, including sample assessment materials (SAMS), materials and training for teachers who might be considering teaching the course, a textbook perhaps and support for schools who might decide to go with a new and unknown course, compared with a subject like Geography which was well known and had all the support materials in place already (presumably). 

With the fieldwork that is going to be involved in the new qualification, this was going to need some additional thinking and this may also be one factor influencing schools given the cost of some fieldwork.

The National Education Nature Park has done a lot of work in this area promoting local and school-based work.

Still waiting then... and hoping that the next OCR Consultative Forum meeting may offer some news...  although unfortunately it's been scheduled for a day I can't make.

#404: Responses to the Call for Evidence

The Government is currently carrying out a review of curriculum and assessment in England. There was a consultation called a 'Call for Evidence' which ended on Friday.

The GCSE Natural History's fate is tied up with this review.

The Royal Society of Biology has shared its thoughts here.

The Geographical Association has similarly shared its submission as a nicely crafted piece, and the Royal Geographical Society will be sharing its thoughts later this week.

#395: Hansard Debate

Thanks to Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett via the GCSE Natural History twitter feed for sending a link to this Hansard debate.

Questions were asked about the GCSE Natural History and what progress was being made towards it. Search under Natural History / Geography to find some interesting statements and quotes:

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

We have inherited a disastrous set of values and attitudes towards the environment, with thinking that goes back a long way and which we have adopted into our intellectual tradition. It includes the great chain of
being, which is the concept that human beings are some kind of pinnacle of life, and the idea that the whole complexity of life on earth—the living system that James Lovelock identified as Gaia, which has evolved over billions of years—is there for us as a species, under our control and for our exploitation.

The 21st century has exposed that for the dangerous fallacy it is, with the climate emergency, the nature crisis and the poisoning of our planet with novel entities; six of the nine planetary boundaries have been exceeded. We know that there are other intellectual traditions and other ways of looking at the world, which are attracting attention from our scientists and researchers. For example, I note that, across many African religions, there is the concept of ukama, which states that animals are part of a community with humans; it emphasises mutual dependence, a sense of unity and, at least sometimes, a moral imperative of respect.

Shared via OGL (Open Government License)