September 2023 Citizenship Studies subject update
Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Citizenship Studies September 2023 subject update!
Hello colleagues,
Welcome back! I hope that your summer break was restful and that the new term has been smooth so far!
This update includes some useful information and guidance documents to support you in starting the new academic year. Please do get in touch with me if you have any queries.
Best wishes,
Susan Currey
Citizenship Studies Subject Advisor
If you have any questions, then please do contact me:
☎ Call: 0344 463 2535
✉ Email: TeachingCitizenship@pearson.com
💻 Book a Teams meeting with me: https://bit.ly/3rEVLx8
Videos
Following results day, we have a number of tools and services available to help you analyse your results including:
- Examiners reports: Examiners write a detailed analysis of the performance of each paper, including commentary on the performance of each question and exemplar answers.
- ResultsPlus: Our free online results analysis tool, that gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams.
- Access to scripts: Our free Access to Scripts service allows you to view your candidates’ marked exam scripts online or download as a PDF (with candidate permission). It is available from results day until the 15 December 2023.
- Post-results services: If you are unhappy with your students' results, you may apply for a review of marking via our post-results services.
For further information about these, you can view the Getting Ready for Results Day update:
This short post-results support guide is designed to help you find the information you need to understand and analyse your students’ results, and what you can do if you have any queries about grading or marking.
To support your teaching, we have extracted data from ResultsPlus to show mean marks per question, along with an indication of how students working at different grades performed in each question.
This will give you a picture of how the 'average' student at each grade performed within different questions.
You will need your Edexcel Online login to access this.
*Please note that as this document is based on averages, the total values may not
directly align with the published grade boundaries, which are not based on
average performance.
| Date | Activity | Booking Link |
|---|---|---|
4 October (16:00-17:00) |
GCSE Citizenship Studies: Summer 2023 Feedback This free, online training is for teachers wishing to take an in-depth look at feedback relating to our GCSE Citizenship Studies summer 2023 exam series |
Booking page |
| On-demand | GCSE Citizenship Studies: New to Edexcel This free, on-demand training is for teachers who are new to teaching Edexcel GCSE Citizenship Studies wishing to gain an introduction to the qualification, content and assessment. |
On demand link available soon |
It may seem like the summer 2023 exam series has only just finished, but looking ahead to our next Citizenship exam series, we have released our final summer exam timetables.
‘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 5 includes the following 4 articles:
- Theme A: ‘At least 26 English councils ‘at risk of bankruptcy in next two years’’ Written Rob Davies for The Guardian, discusses concerns raised by a number of local authorities, surrounding funding issues.
- Theme B: ‘Labour rules out wealth tax if party wins next election’ Written by Nathan Williams & Iain Watson for BBC News, discusses Labour’s position on the instigation of a ‘wealth tax’, should they win the next general election.
- Theme C: ‘Criminals to be forced to attend sentencing hearings’ Written by Tom Symonds & Aoife Walsh for BBC News, discusses new laws which will provide judges with more power, to order criminals to attend sentencing hearings in England and Wales.
- Theme D: ‘Ministers skip UN meeting on disability rights’ Written by Joshua Nevett for BBC Politics, discusses concerns raised in 2016, by a UN committee, regarding how the impact of welfare reforms have affected people in the UK.
The Young Citizens organisation run a range of mock trials for young people. These involve supplying young people with bespoke written cases so they can try the law against peers in courtouses around the UK.
They also supply a 'Mock Trials Classroom Pack' to introduce the concept for students, including information about courts, roles and procedures, case information, support for a classroom mock trial.
There are three events available
Magistrates' Court Mock Trial: Open for 12-14 years olds from non-fee paying schools
Bar Mock Trial: Open to 15-18 year olds from non-fee paying schools
Independent Schools Mock Trial: A fee-paying schools alternative for the Bar Mock Trial, open to 15-18 year olds.
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Young Citizens' website
Young Citizens is a citizenship education charity working with schools and educators to help educate, inspire and equip the active citizens of tomorrow. You can access more information about them.
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Mock Trials Classroom pack
Free classroom pack which acts as a springboard for criminal legal education throughout classrooms (virtual or otherwise) across the country.
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Magistrates' Court Mock Trial
Open to 12-14 year olds from non-fee paying schools
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Bar Mock Trial
Open to 15-18 years olds from non-fee paying schools.
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Independent Schools Mock Trial
Open to 15-18 years olds from fee-paying schools
ACT upcoming events
The Association for Citizenship Teaching have a range of events available to support GCSE Citizenship teachers. Below I have included links to their events page and a few key events for teaching at GCSE:
- Raising grades at GCSE Citizenship Studies - 29 November (5pm)
- GCSE Mock Assessment Moderation - 7 December (5pm)
- How to plan a GCSE Citizenship Studies lesson - 22 January (5pm)
Subject advisor
Jenna Wyatt
Citizenship
