OCR A raises ‘a series of issues and promotes awareness and understanding of these issues as they involve people and places’. The content and scale of study are prescribed and locational contexts stipulated which restricts scope for innovation. There are four Units but only 2 and 3 really offer any scope for introducing the concepts and themes from the Pilot GCSE, but Unit 4 has potential for considering ‘An extreme environment’.
My Place
The bulk of the ‘Settlement’ section (content b, c, d, and e) is rooted in the UK. If teachers couple this with fieldwork in the local community they could access many of the enquiry questions in the first three sections of ‘My place’. This could lead into a consideration of the local place and how it fits into the UK. Such an approach provides an opportunity to begin to introduce the concepts of uneven development, interdependence and futures. Look at the exemplar based on Royston in the Teachers’ Resource Guide (pages 17-23) for further ideas.
People as Consumers
Unit 3 ‘People and their Needs’ allows some access into the ideas behind the ‘People as consumers’ theme. The areas of the content based on ‘Energy’ could be linked to the enquiry questions in the first section of the Pilot GCSE theme, and the exemplar of a case study of a distribution industry could illustrate a ‘landscape of consumption’ as well as developing global interconnections. Equally, ‘Tourism and its effects’ using the holiday industry could be approached through enquiry questions to demonstrate both interdependence and sustainability.
An Extreme Environment
In Unit 4 the ‘tropical rainforests, a fragile environment’ sub-section could utilise the approach from the ‘extreme environment’ theme. Maraca provides the example of a local scale. This small area of Amazonia would fit with many of the enquiry questions especially in the last three sections of the Pilot GCSE theme. Using, for example, the question ‘How have people responded to the challenges and made use of the area studied?’ would emphasise the sustainability, interdependence and future of this area of Brazil.
OCR A does not use ‘an enquiry question’ approach but you might think about using some of those in the themes as starter questions in your approach to teaching some of the sections in the Units.
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Pilot GCSE: Links to OCR A 1986
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