March 2024 Citizenship Studies subject update
Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Citizenship Studies March 2024 subject update!
I hope this half term has been positive for you and your students. As the end of term approaches, I wanted to share some updates, reminders and support for teachers. I'm also pleased to share information about an upcoming 'Assessment and Marking' training event for GCSE Citizenship Studies.
Whenever this term draws to a close for your centre, I hope you have a fantastic break!
As always, if you have any queries about anything in this subject update or about our qualification, then please do get in touch with me.
Best wishes,
Susan Currey
Citizenship Studies Subject Advisor
Contact details:
☎ Call: 0344 463 2535
✉ Email: TeachingCitizenship@pearson.com
💻 Book a Teams meeting with me: https://bit.ly/3rEVLx8
Assessment and Marking online training event
To support teachers understand how examiners award marks and apply the mark scheme in GCSE CItizenship Studies, we are offering a new 'Assessment and Marking' online training event.
This online event is designed for teachers who wish to familiarise and/or improve their understanding of assessment practices for GCSE Citizenship Studies.
This will enable you to mark mock assessments in school more confidently, as well as to understand the marking of candidate responses from live assessments.
During this event delegates will:
- be introduced to the exam paper structure, the various question types and command words used in these question
- understand when and where marks are and are not to be awarded for different question types
- understand the levels-based mark schemes used and the relationship between different levels as described in the level descriptors
- explore examples of different student responses to questions and how they would be assessed exemplifying key skills within level descriptors.
| Date | Time | Booking Link |
|---|---|---|
23rd April 2024 |
16:30 - 18:00 | Event now passed |
‘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 7 includes the following 4 articles:
Theme A: ‘North East mayor election expected to cost £3m’ - Written by Daniel Holland for BBC News, discusses the staging of a historic election to choose the first North East mayor.
Theme B: ‘Carmen Smith: New 28-year-old peer who wants to scrap the House of Lords’ - Written by Becky Morton for BBC News, discusses how, at 28 years old, Plaid Cymru activist Carmen Smith has become the youngest member of the House of Lords.
Theme C: ‘Mayor criticised for crime increase on public transport’ - Written by Noah Vickers for EC1 Echo, discusses statistics which show a rise in crime, on London’s transport network, since 2016.
Theme D: ‘Sheffield declares war on -consumerism…’ Written by Lettice Bromovsky for Mail Online, discusses how a council has banned adverts of what it sees as harmful campaigns in a drive to meet its green targets.
examWizard training resources
'examWizard' is a free exam preparation tool containing a bank of past Edexcel exam questions, mark schemes and examiners' reports for a range of GCSE, GCE, Functional Skills subjects & BTEC sectors.
It allows you to select and build your own mock exams with access to past exam questions across series.
-
Find out more about examWizard
To find out more about the benefits of exam wizard and how to use this useful tool.
On Monday 18th March, we ran an online event to support teachers with using this tool.
Slides from the event can be accessed at the link below:
Citizenship action submission
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:
Citizenship Action Guidance
For further support around Citizenship Action, we have the following guide available to centres:
UK Parliament: Learn with the Lords online event
The UK Parliament education and engagement department are offering a 45-minute online Q&A session where young people, aged 7-18, put their questions to a member of the House of Lords.
The session will bring UK Parliament to life for your students, and help them develop their understanding of the vital role of the House of Lords.
They run two sessions per half term, the second of which is aimed at Secondary school students. Teachers can book a session in April-July 2024 and this is available to book now.
How do the sessions work?
You will connect with the Lord and Baroness via a Microsoft Teams video call, which can be accessed via a browser.
School groups will need:
- A laptop or desktop connected to a large screen with speakers, such as an interactive whiteboard or large projector screen
- A working webcam and speakers, so pupils and your Baroness/Lord can see and hear
- To complete a test Microsoft Teams call the week before their session, organised by our team
-
UK Parliament: Learn with the Lords Online information
You can find out more information about this on the UK Parliament webpage
-
Event booking
You can book this directly
ACT Citizenship Teaching Awards 2024
The Association for Citizenship Teaching awards recognise and celebrate schools, teachers and organisations who have shown commitment to Citizenship education, and represent its core values.
It’s a great opportunity to acknowledge the fabulous work of individuals and organisations that go the extra mile to support students and provide effective Citizenship education.
This year’s Teaching Awards will be taking place directly after our annual Teaching Citizenship Conference on 26 June 2024 at Coin Street Conference Centre, 108 Stamford St, London SE1 9NH
APPLICATION ENTRY DEADLINE: Midnight, Sunday 28 April 2024
-
ACT Citizenship Teaching Awards webpage
To find out more about nominations, categories and guidance, read more on the ACT website
I hope you found this update useful.
Please get in touch with me if you have any questions!
Subject advisor
Jenna Wyatt
Citizenship
