January 2023 GCSE Citizenship Studies Subject Update
Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Citizenship Studies January 2023 subject update!
Hello colleagues,
Happy New Year and new term! I hope you had a lovely, restful break and that the new term is running smoothly! I wanted to take the opportunity to share some useful resources, guides and reminders. Included this month, we have some promotional materials to support you with GCSE recruitment along with some further guidance on the Citizenship Action. We hope you find them useful!
As always, if you have any questions about anything within this update or about our Citizenship Studies qualification, please do get in touch with me at TeachingCitizenship@pearson.com
Best wishes,
Susan Currey
Citizenship Studies Subject Advisor
Citizenship Action Guidance
We've created further guidance around the Citizenship Action to support you in preparing students for this element of the course. This guide reiterates key considerations, includes advice from our senior examining teams and includes examples of suitable and unsuitable actions from previous series.
Taking Citizenship Action Submission reminder
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:
Become an examiner with us!
We are starting our examiner recruitment and are looking for specialists who are able to mark GCSE Citizenship Studies.
Experience/qualifications needed
- You will have one academic year's worth of teaching experience:
a. within the last 8 years
b. within the relevant qualification and subject
- You will have a degree or equivalent
- You will be a qualified teacher
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.
Young Citizens 'The Big Legal lesson'
Young Citizens is a citizenship education charity that informs, equips and inspires children and young people across the UK to be active citizens. You can find out more about them and the work that they do by visiting their website:
As part of their work, they organise 'The Big Legal Lesson' which supports teachers in promoting citizenship and aims to develop student understanding of law within a democratic society.
This year, it is due to take place between 13-24th March 2023.
You can join their national campaign to discuss law within your classrooms and by pledging to take part you will be provided with resources and tools to support you. You can find out more about this on their website:
Once registered, the resources will be sent to you in February.
Subject advisor
Jenna Wyatt
Citizenship
