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.
Another article from 'The Conversation' which will be a useful resource to mine for suitable inspiration for some of the proposed curriculum content for the GCSE Natural History.
It explores how things that have died pass on their nutrient to new life...
Thanks to Matt from the British Ecological Society for the message he added to my GCSE Natural History blog.
The British Ecological Society are supporters of the Natural History GCSE and want to be ready to support with the teaching of this qualification. I'm a former teacher myself and now work on their education policy/project work. We are running our free teacher training again this year. The programme includes a trip to Knepp rewilding project. Anyone who teaches ecology and biodiversity as part of their curriculum should apply. I think it will be helpful if you're preparing to teach this GCSE if we can get it over the line!
Application deadline: Wed 30 April 2025, 12:00 BST (midday) Online session: Wed 09 July 2025, 16:00-17:00 BST In-person days: Fri 18 – Sat 19 July 2025 Location: Juniper Hall, Old London Road, Mickleham, RH5 6DA
Applications are now open for the 2025 Teacher Training Summer School!
FREE of charge.
If you are a secondary teacher or FE lecturer who teaches ecology as a part of your curriculum, join us in Surrey for an ecology-packed CPD programme that will help you overcome recognised barriers to teaching ecology. This application is open to all – you do not need to be a BES member to apply.
While attending the Teacher Training Summer School you will:
Engage with industry professionals running workshops on a range of ecological skills
Network with other educators from a variety of schools and colleges
Learn strategies to overcome barriers you may experience teaching ecology
Explore how ecology can be taught using a wide range of learning theories: inclusive learning, interdisciplinary learning, strengthening maths and English skills
Receive a free bundle of equipment to be used to teach ecology
Learn more about field work skills through attending a day trip to the Knepp Rewilding Project
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.
One might imagine so, but some of the early naturalists including Gilbert White and Charles Darwin understood the vital importance of them for soil health and other factors, including the incorporation of organic material into the soil, aeration and other benefits.
Check out details of the former NHM project called Earthworm Watch. This was a Citizen Science project.
Data collection is now closed, but the results can be viewed.
Hopefully one result of studying the GCSE Natural History will be cohorts of students who appreciate the small things a little more. This is not always about the bigger aspects of Natural History but the smaller elements that contribute to the whole.
My Geographical Association Presidential theme was Everyday Geographies, and this is another example of where small everyday actions can make a large cumulative difference. I'm thinking of developing some support around the idea of "everyday natural history".
“The team found that earthworms are responsible for nearly 7% of global grain harvests, such as rice, wheat, and corn. …In sub-Saharan Africa, where many soils are depleted in nutrients and fertilizer is scarce, earthworms boost grain production by 10%.” https://t.co/hWwt2VHGqi
What did the crew of the Icelandic trawler Ísleifur II see for the first time?
Sixty years ago today, the sea south of Iceland boiled and a new island was born. The trawler was on the spot when a phreatomagmatic eruption began...
I have been working on some new resources on the island of Surtsey for the new GCSE Natural History - which may or may not be delayed by recent Cabinet reshuffles.
There is a focus on topics such as Plant Succession.
Surtsey is just over a month older than me.
It turns out that I didn't really need to do this after all as Discover the World have released a new resource on the island which is really rather good. I'll finish mine anyway as it has a different focus.
On this day 60 years ago, an eruption started in the ocean southwest of the Westman Islands. The eruption lasted almost four years and eventually formed the island of Surtsey. 📷Arctic Images. pic.twitter.com/lDYepkb5rA
The island is a perfect example of a blank slate on which plant succession can then begin as birds and other processes bring seeds to what is otherwise virgin territory. The island has been off limits to the public for the last sixty years, with monitoring of the species that are arriving. There is quite a bit of information online - and in my resource - on the steady arrival of new species.
Surtsey is a new island formed by volcanic eruptions in 1963-67. It has been legally protected from its birth and provides the world with a pristine natural laboratory.
Free from human interference, Surtsey has produced long-term information on the colonisation process of new land by plant and animal life.
Criterion
Ongoing biological and ecological processes: Surtsey was born as a new volcanic island in 1963-67 and since that time has played a major role in studies of succession and colonisation. It has been the site of one of the few long term studies worldwide on primary succession, providing a unique scientific record of the process of colonisation of land by plants, animals and marine organisms.
Not only is it geographically isolated, but it has been legally protected from its birth, providing the world with a pristine natural laboratory, free from human interference. Above all, because of its continuing protection, Surtsey will continue to provide invaluable data on biological colonisation long into the future.
Integrity The property includes the whole island and an adequate surrounding marine area, and thus all the areas that are essential for the long term conservation of the ecological processes on Surtsey. There is also a relatively small but functional marine buffer zone that is not part of the inscribed property. It is noted that part of the evolution of Surtsey is the process of coastal erosion which has already halved the area of the island and over time is predicted to remove another two thirds leaving only the most resistant core.
Since they began studying the island in 1964, scientists have observed the arrival of seeds carried by ocean currents, the appearance of moulds, bacteria and fungi, followed in 1965 by the first vascular plant, of which there were 10 species by the end of the first decade. By 2004, they numbered 60 together with 75 bryophytes, 71 lichens and 24 fungi. Eighty-nine species of birds have been recorded on Surtsey, 57 of which breed elsewhere in Iceland. The 141 ha island is also home to 335 species of invertebrates.
