May 2024 Religious Studies subject update
Thu May 16 10:25:00 UTC 2024
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Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Religious Studies May 2024 subject update!
The year seems to be flying by and the exam series in now upon us with some of our exams now complete. On behalf of the Religious Studies team, we wish all Religious Studies students every success!
As always, please do get in touch with us if you have any queries or I can help with anything.
Best wishes,
Susan Currey
Religious Studies Subject Advisor
JCQ reminders around malpractice
Did you know that the most common form of candidate malpractice every exam series is the possession of a mobile phone?
According to data published by Ofqual, possession of a mobile phone accounted for 44.5% of all cases of student malpractice - 2,180 cases - in the summer 2023 series. This was an increase on the 1,825 cases seen in the summer 2022 series.
The JCQ awarding bodies have set out the agreed sanctions for the different types of candidate malpractice, including for possession of a mobile phone. These can be found in Appendix 6 of the JCQ Suspected Malpractice Policies and Procedures. You can see that the sanctions for possession of a mobile phone are severe, because we need to maintain the security and integrity of our exams:
- mobile phone in the candidate’s possession but no evidence of being used by the candidate – loss of marks
- mobile phone in the candidate’s possession and evidence of being used by the candidate – disqualification
We really want to see a reduction in this form of malpractice, which has such a significant impact on so many candidates. Please ensure that you’ve taken the following steps to help your learners avoid committing malpractice:
- clear communication to learners and their parents about items prohibited in exams, including mobile phones
- clear publication and display of the JCQ exam room posters
- sharing the JCQ Preparing to sit your exams infographic with learners and their parents
- having a member of your centre’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) deliver a pre-exam series assembly, to clearly explain the expectations of learners and the exam rules
- ensuring you have in place, and learners know about, a process for the safe collection and storage of their mobile phones during exams
I wanted to re-share a copy of the exam timetables so that you had easy access to them during the exam period. You can access these for each qualification below:
Help your students feel as prepared as possible for the upcoming exam season.
In addition to all the support you provide, both Ofqual, JCQ and Pearson have a range of information to help inform and guide your students during this busy time. Please take a look at the information we’ve summarised below and pass it on to your students.
Support from Ofqual
The Ofqual Student Guide 2024 provides students with information about this year’s arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level qualifications, and explains what support is in place when taking exams and assessments.
Read the Ofqual Student Guide 2024 below:
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Ofqual Student Guide 2024
This guide provides you with information about this year’s arrangements for qualifications regulated by Ofqual. It also explains what support is in place when taking exams and assessments.
Support from JCQ
The JCQ has a range of information and support for students – from coursework and onscreen exams to written exams, along with a checklist for exam day.
Take a look at all the support JCQ have to offer for students - see link below
Support from Pearson
As the revision season is now fully under way and students begin to turn their focus towards the summer exam series, we’d like to share our Getting ready for exams guide that includes some top tips and advice including:
- preparing for exams
- what happens on exam day
- where to find further support
- what happens once exams are over.
Take a look at the guide below and please pass it on to your students
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Pearson Edexcel Qualifications assessment support page
You can stay up to date with all our support for 2024 on our Qualifications assessment support page
As we gear up for the final preparations for GCSE exams this summer, I thought it would be useful to re-share with you some useful resources available to support you.
Specification A
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Specification A support videos
This YouTube playlist includes a range of bitesize videos which support exam technique on Specification A
As we gear up for the final preparations for GCSE exams this summer, I thought it would be useful to re-share with you some useful resources available to support you.
Specification B
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Specification B support videos
This YouTube playlist includes a range of bitesize videos which support exam technique on Specification B
To support teacher subject knowledge, we are offering two free online training events focusing on the 'beliefs' or 'beliefs and teachings' sections of Specification A and Specification B. Â
Each aims to offer clarification on specification content, provide opportunities to discuss the planning of engaging lessons, using a variety of resources and activities, and the opportunity for 'Q&A' with a subject specialist.
Event 1: Insight into the teaching of Muslim beliefs
Event 2: Insight into the teaching of Christian beliefs
Â
| Event | Date | Time | Booking Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insight into the teaching of Muslim beliefs | 13th June 2024 |
16:30 - 18:00 | Event passed |
| Insight into the teaching of Christian beliefs | 27th June 2024 | 16:30 - 18:00 | Booking Link |
For those new to GCSE Edexcel or considering switching to us, we will also be running a 'New to Edexcel' event which introduces our different specifications to you.
| Event | Date | Time | Booking Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| New to Edexcel: GCSE RS | 2nd July 2024 |
16:30 - 18:00 | Booking Link |
We are now offering a mock marking and moderation service for GCSE Religious Studies.
The Pearson Edexcel Mocks Service can help your students gain vital insight into the examination process, while saving you valuable time. These services will be using the amended level descriptors to give you the opportunity to see how questions perform under the new criteria.
These services are currently available to order now for the following most popular papers:
Specification A: Paper 1A, Paper 2F, Paper 3A
Specification B: Paper 1B, Paper 2C
*You can request other papers on an ad-hoc basis
What is the Mocks Service?
The Mocks Service for GCSE Religious Studies helps you to achieve consistency in marking across groups of schools, departments and cohorts. Students sit exam papers. The papers are marked by Edexcel senior examiners applying the new level descriptors and the results are uploaded to ResultsPlus for detailed question level analysis.
It is designed to be flexible for your needs:
- Submit entries for the whole qualification or only entries for one paper
- Submit your whole cohort, cohorts across the Trust, a sample, or as few as 5 papers
What is the Moderation Service?
Our moderation service helps support teacher understanding of the Pearson Edexcel mark scheme and provide confidence that marking is consistent across schools, departments and cohorts. Our moderators supply commentaries and reports to help identify areas that need improvement and that could benefit from additional CPD.
We recommend you submit a sample of around 15% of your own marked papers which will be reviewed by our team of Pearson Edexcel moderators. Within 21 days of us receiving your papers, we will provide personalised script commentaries and a detailed moderation report outlining trends and gaps in marking and feedback on student responses.
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Mock Marking service
This link takes you to the mock marking webpage
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How does the Mock service work?
This PDF gives an step-by-step explanation of the mock marking service process
Video: Brief overview of the AS and A Level Religious Studies qualification
This video provides an overview of our AS and A Level Specifications for Religious Studies, exploring the paper structure, the content and the assessment structure.
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AS and A Level RS support videos
This YouTube playlist includes a range of bitesize videos which support exam technique.
You can read more about our new ELC by reading our recent update, or you can sign up to receive updates about this qualification specifically at the following link:
Sign up to receive updates about this qualification
The draft specification and sample assessment materials are available on the ELC
qualification page:
The sample assessment materials are now available on our website for you to access. These have been developed to support this qualification and will be used as the benchmark to develop the live assessments that students will take.
For those who were unable to join us in April for our Introduction to the ELC event, you can now access a recording and the resources for this event to access at a time convenient for you.
Every month, we release an edition of 'Topic of the Month' with the aim of supporting cultural capital and stimulating discussion within the classroom.
Each edition ties a current news event to our qualification content and enables students to see the bigger picture of what they are learning and how it relates to the world around them. Each edition includes a link to an article alongside some key discussion questions to encourage thought around the subject.
I hope you found this update useful.
Please get in touch with me if you have any questions!
Subject advisor
Jenna Wyatt
Religious Studies
Phone :
+44 (0) 344 463 2535
( Teaching Services team | Mon - Fri, 9am - 5pm GMT)
