Geographical Association

As of September 2009, GCSEs have changed as part of the ongoing revision of the secondary school curriculum, following changes that previously took place at Key Stage 3 and A-level. Each Awarding Body has now revised their GCSE specifications in line with the new subject criteria specified by the QCA. This page is designed to help you teach the new specifications. Do keep checking back as we will be adding more ideas, resources and links to this page over the coming years.

For a useful, broad overview of what teachers can expect from the new GCSE, including the controlled assessments, view this Think Piece written by Phil Wood, Lecturer in Geography Education at the School of Education, University of Leicester. Although primarily aimed at teacher educators and PGCE students, it should be of interest to practising teachers as well.

In addition to this, you may like to download the GCSE subject criteria for geography from the QCA website or read this factsheet which explains the rationale behind the new GCSE changes.

You might like to view the concise overview of the specifications prepared by Secondary Phase Committee member Emma Johns. Or, for more detail, each of the specifications can be downloaded from the website of the respective Awarding Body.

Download: The New GCSE Specifications - An Overview (PDF, 32k)

Websites of Awarding Bodies:

AQA
CCEA
Edexcel
OCR
WJEC

A few teachers are setting up Ning networks to support the new GCSE specifications:

Mark Ollis has set up a new NING for AQA A

Emma Johns has created a new NING FOR AQA B

Kevin Cooper and Simon Renshaw created the new NING FOR OCR A

Liz Smith created the new NING FOR OCR B

Adam Lawson created a NING for EDEXCEL A

Alan Parkinson created a NING for EDEXCEL B

Becky created a NING for WJEC

For those doing I-GCSE, Rob Morris has established a NING for the EDEXCEL I-GCSE

David Rayner has created a NING for all GCSEs which contains a range of resources.

(Updated 02.09.09)