Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Citizenship Studies April 2025 subject update!
Hello colleagues,
I hope that you have a lovely, restful break when the holidays come. In the run up to exam season, I wanted to take the opportunity to remind you about some teaching and learning resources, including a new edition of ‘Citizenship in the News’.
As always, please do get in touch with me if you have any queries or I can help with anything.
Best wishes,
Jenna Wyatt
Resharing our list of top examiner tips to support students at GCSE Citizenship Studies prepare for their GCSE exams. It includes key reminders to help students use what they know to answer each question as best they can.
We hope you find them useful!
If you missed our online training on ‘Assessment and Marking’ the recording is now available.
This is a recording of a live event that took place on 13th February 2025.
The online event was intended to support teachers who wish to familiarise and/or improve their understanding of assessment practices for Pearson Edexcel's GCSE Citizenship Studies. The training will enable you to mark mock assessments in school more confidently, as well as to understand the marking of candidate responses from live assessments.
Citizenship Studies: Assessment and Marking Training - YouTube
Citizenship Action is a planned course of informed action to address a citizenship issue or question of concern and aimed at delivering a benefit or change for a particular community or wider society. This is a required part of the GCSE Citizenship Studies course and students are examined on their action as part of Paper 2.
Each year, centres must certify that candidates have completed their Citizenship Action and submit a form to confirm this.
This must be submitted by 15th May.
The links to the Citizenship Action form and the authentification submission are below:
For further support around Citizenship Action, we have the following guide available to centres:
GCSE Citizenship Studies: Guide to Citizenship Action
This guide offers details on the aims and support with the undertaking of 'Citizenship Action'.
‘Citizenship Studies in the News’ aims to stimulate discussion for GCSE Citizenship Studies by considering contemporary issues and their relevance to our lives.
We have compiled a range of current news articles* and linked these to the key questions, explored in themes A-D of the specification. You may wish to investigate and integrate into your teaching practice to help contextualise key issues and bring the subject to life!
Edition 13 includes the following articles:
Content warning: the two Theme C articles refer to issues of a sensitive nature. Article 1 mentions rape. Article 2 mentions sexual violence and describes killings and torture.
We are looking for subject specialists who are able to mark GCSE Citizenship Studies.
This is an invaluable opportunity to develop your knowledge and understanding of the subject area and assessment process, building your confidence as a teacher and assessor.
Ofqual have provided information for students about arrangements for regulated qualifications.
This explains what your students need to know before, during and after exams and assessments.
The Joint Council for Qualifications has published their key dates document for the June 2025 exam cycle. Two dates have been set aside as contingency in the event of national or significant local disruption to exams in the UK:
Download the JCQ Key dates in the examination cycle guide below:
JCQ Key dates in the examination cycle guide
On 7 May 2025 from 10am you can book for a free school visit to UK Parliament in Autumn Term. Enjoy a unique learning experience on a free school
visit to UK Parliament.
More information on how to book a school visit will be available on the UK Parliament website soon:
The session will look at the pedagogy of teaching for racial equity in your classroom and across the curriculum. This workshop is ideal for: Citizenship teachers, school leaders responsible for personal development (PD) and eachers committed to fostering anti-racist classrooms.
1 May 2025 4:30pm
More information on the event and to book a place is available on the ACT website:
Racial equity: dealing with racism in the classroom | Association for Citizenship Teaching
