GCSE

Summer exams for students, and for teachers for that matter, are assessments that are worked towards for the whole of the school year. With such high stakes surrounding GCSE exams, students often feel a heightened amount of pressure in the lead up to them. As well as teaching students the… Read More

If you’re teaching GCSE students this year, you’ll know that exam boards recently released advance information for the exams taking place in summer 2022 to help address the pandemic’s impact on teaching and learning. This advance information provides a list of topics from the specification that will be assessed on… Read More

The allegory of Animal Farm draws students in, like a puzzle to be ‘solved’: who are Mr Jones, Squealer and Moses ‘really’; what is the Windmill? Understanding the historical context for Orwell’s writing provides a satisfying ‘solution’ for students, but it can sometimes overshadow engagement with the text as fiction. The characters aren’t just metaphors, they are ‘real’ within the story; the novel is carefully structured by Orwell, its themes stretching beyond its immediate context and Orwell’s original intentions. Here are three key talking points to help students engage with Animal Farm’s story and themes, and three activities to help them see the text as a construction, open to conflicting interpretations. 3 discussion points with questions: Orwell was a committed socialist. Animal Farm is a criticism of totalitarianism, not socialism, but it’s not always been read this way. Let students engage with controversy over its publication, as well as aspects of the text that leave us questioning. 1. Socialism Orwell presents socialism as an ideal situation, where “everyone worked according to his capacity” (chapter 3), but it doesn’t last in Animal Farm. Ask your students: What causes the animals to rebel? How do they achieve success? What goes wrong? How does Orwell's metaphor make his meaning ambiguous e.g. with the animal 'types'? 'Animal Farm is doomed from the start': Is this a fair reading? Can animals/men maintain equal control in a democracy, or is it inevitable that some will rise and some sink? 2. Power and propaganda Orwell maintained that the key passage in the novel was the creation of ‘special rations’ for the pigs, agreed by all of the pigs. Ask your students: What allows the pigs to take control? Does Orwell suggest power always corrupts? What kind of a leader is Napoleon? Would Snowball have been any different? How is the idea of totalitarianism still relevant today? 3. Freedom of speech Orwell struggled to find a publisher at a time when Stalin was an ally, and saw this as cowardly censorship, saying that “Liberty is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Ask your students: Squealer’s propaganda is clearly harmful, but is Benjamin’s silence also damaging? How does Orwell emphasise the power of words? Should we be able to say or write what we want? Are spoken words different to published ones? Should artists be political?    3 activities: 1. Understanding structure Once students have read the text, get them to summarise key events in each chapter. They can then come up with a short title for each instead of the existing numbers. As well as being a good revision tool, this helps in understanding narrative arc, or patterns in the structure. An additional aide is to sequence the titles in a storyboard, each illustrated with a key symbol e.g. Chapter 1 might become “Working Together”, “Beasts of England”, or simply “Comrades”, with an accompanying image of two animals singing together. 2. Understanding genre and setting Get students to ‘redesign’ the allegorical framework of the novel by planning a retelling or a film remake of Animal Farm, but changing the setting. The story could take place in: the Amazon jungle or African savannah a typical secondary school (this might prove controversial…) using popular toys (as in the film Toy Story) Afterwards, ask the class how choice of setting introduces other meanings e.g. awareness of existing stereotypes, or conflicting interpretations. How does this relate to the setting of Animal Farm? 3. Reading through different eyes Give students cards with roles or perspectives to adopt: this could be done in small groups (where students discuss their different ‘readings’ of the text) or as a whole-class, for instance, through hot-seating. A good starting point is to use a range of characters from the text to explain their version of events: roles might include Jones, Squealer, Snowball, Benjamin, Clover, Boxer, Moses, etc. This can then be expanded to encourage students to move beyond their own readings. Ideas for groupings might be: Different interests: a primary-school student, an older student, a teacher, a parent, an artist/film-maker Social roles: owner/employer, administrator, office worker, farm or factory worker, soldier, journalist Critical perspectives: Marxist, feminist, New Historicist, psychoanalytical. (These perspectives would need scaffolding e.g. with key questions – a way of simplifying them might be to give students cards with a reading ‘focus’ e.g. political, social, historical, emotional.) By Lucy Toop, a freelance writer and secondary English teacher in South London, and author of the introduction to the Collins Classroom Classics edition of Animal Farm. Read More

In recent years, there has been much debate surrounding the best way to support our most disadvantaged students to catch up with their peers. Despite teachers’ best efforts, some pupils still struggle to meet the demands of the new curriculum, and it seems like it is becoming more and more difficult to close the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Where can teachers begin? Teachers, therefore, need low-effort, high-impact strategies to address this. But where to begin? As a teacher, I believe that teaching vocabulary is a good place to start. Words are, after all, the building blocks of understanding and communicating ideas. If we teach a range of high-leverage words thoroughly, we provide children with a springboard for learning across the curriculum. Sadly, time and time again data has shown that children from the poorest backgrounds are least likely to acquire new words in reading or spoken language. The famous and oft-cited Hart and Risley[1] study suggests that children from professional families hear 32 million words more than their disadvantaged peers before the age of 4, and that this – more than anything else – predicts achievement gaps in later life. This highlights just how important having a strong foundational vocabulary is for young people in the classroom and beyond. The word gap in the time of COVID-19 The pandemic has presented schools and young people with a myriad of challenges. Unfortunately, for many pupils, COVID-19 has further entrenched the disadvantages that our poorest and most vulnerable pupils have always faced. After missing out on months of face-to-face teaching, the vocabulary gap has widened further - and with Key Stage 4 fast approaching for many pupils, time is running short. Now that we are back in the classroom, teachers are feeling the impact of school closures on their students’ progress. A recent study found that 92% of teachers have confirmed that school closures and remote learning have contributed towards a widening of the word gap. Our concerns as a profession have prompted many conversations about how best to support young people to catch up in a post-COVID world. Closing the word gap is perhaps one of the most high-leverage approaches we can take to support our most vulnerable with the academic challenges they now face. In the aftermath of a global pandemic, doing everything we can to close this gap has never been more urgent or important. Start at Key Stage 3 At Key Stage 3, you can make a huge difference to your students’ chances of success at GCSE and beyond by embedding regular, systematic vocabulary instruction into their lessons. The renewed focus on rigorous literature in GCSE English Literature and English Language, as well as the increase in complexity of questioning across other subjects, has prompted us to think more strategically about how best to support those with less exposure to a broad vocabulary, and how to help them catch up with their peers. It only takes 15 minutes! Regular 15-minute doses of systematic vocabulary instruction can make big strides to bridging this gap. A practical resource to help you close the word gap A seminal text on vocabulary acquisition and teaching is Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck et al[2]. Beck’s book is a treasure trove of the research on reading and word-acquisition, and provides teachers with a framework for teaching new words effectively. Inspired by the methods laid out in Beck et al’s work, Building Brilliant Vocabulary: 60 lessons to close the vocabulary gap goes some way towards addressing the vocabulary gap. Building Brilliant Vocabulary is a fully-resourced vocabulary programme made up of 60 short, systematic and carefully sequenced 15-minute sessions. Specialist and non-specialists alike have the flexibility to teach each word as a standalone lesson or to integrate the activities carefully into lesson planning. In each lesson, a new word is introduced and taught using a tried and tested approach that: introduces words one at a time in a systematic, coherent fashion provides examples and non-examples to avoid misconceptions gives definitions and examples that provide students with a precise understanding of each word provides students with plenty of opportunities to practise understanding and using these new words in their own writing and speaking. Each lesson is designed to be flexible and intuitive for you to teach, and activities are designed to be accessible and student-friendly. Students see the word in multiple contexts, read about an interesting topic related to the word they are learning, and learn about its origins. They consolidate their learning with a final task that prompts them to practise using the word in their own writing. By introducing students to new words using this rigorous method that is backed by educational research, we can help to address the disadvantages that our children and young people face now more than ever. Inspired? Try some example activities with your class Explore words such as nostalgia, persistence, femininity and compassion. Download a free sample of Building Brilliant Vocabulary here   By Katie Ashford, literacy specialist and Deputy Head at Michaela Community School. Katie is also the author of Building Brilliant Vocabulary: 60 lessons to close the word gap in Key Stage 3   Read More

This is a brief blog on how to run revision sessions for GCSE Science. Forgive me, but I’m going to start by being a bit contrary. Retrieval vs revision It’s best not to leave revision to one-off revision sessions. Instead, what’s preferable is to build a culture of “retrieval” with your classes. Students should actively be recalling and practising prior knowledge in an attempt to remember it for longer periods of time. And we, as teachers, should be facilitating and encouraging this. Fig 1. Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve has become a familiar sight for many[1]. Ebbinghaus got some volunteers to memorise some completely made-up syllables with no links to syllables used in everyday language. Then looked at how many were remembered at different time intervals. The executive summary of this was that the more times the syllables were recapped/retrieved the longer the time that they were memorised for. Now, it’s all well and good me saying that should build a culture of retrieval practice within our classrooms. But how can we actually achieve this? Here’s what I do: Retrieval “do nows” that students complete as soon as they enter a lesson (as in the image)[2]. I split my “do nows” into four sections; last lesson, last term, last year and a stretch and challenge question. I explain *why* we’re doing “do nows” like this to the students and very quickly it becomes a routine. Fig 2 Do now example, SciDoc Interleave or “interweave” your curriculum[3]. Interleave is when you teach two different concepts at the same time; if you teach a lesson that links neatly with some previous content then make that link! Interweaving (as coined by Mark Enser) involves separate strands of knowledge running as a continuous theme through your curriculum. Both encourage regular retrieval. Retrieval homework. This one’s easy. Don’t just set homework on what students are learning now. Set them homework on what they’ve covered previously. Okay, now I’ve had my little rant about how retrieval is superior to revision. Of course, let’s acknowledge that we are going to want to deliver some GCSE Science revision sessions to students. Especially when a formal exam is looming. I’ve thought quite deeply about how I approach this and do so in the following way: Prioritise declarative (factual) knowledge by using self-quizzing sheets/retrieval roulettes Scaffold students into doing exam questions Practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent Give feedback Prioritise declarative (factual) knowledge by using self-quizzing sheets/retrieval roulettes Fig 3 Self-quizzing sheet, SciDoc The most important thing to prioritise in revision is declarative knowledge. Without very solid factual recall, students have no hope of answering highly complex problems. I wrote a blog on this recently[4]. To achieve this first step, I thought deeply about the most important “key learning questions” that are the absolutely non-negotiable knowledge that I want students to have[5]. I then produced sheets as in the image and encouraged students to self-quiz until the answers are committed to memory. Many contributors on “EduTwitter” have gone further and written “retrieval roulettes” to achieve similar aims. Recent sites like carousel-learning.com and kuizical.com have also allowed for remote retrieval roulettes to be implemented. Scaffold students into doing exam questions Fig 4 Scaffolded exam question, SciDoc When I’m confident that the declarative knowledge is becoming solid, then I get students to start practising exam questions. I usually start off doing this in a very scaffolded way, using sheets that consist of both the core notes (to reduce cognitive load in flicking to and from a textbook) and the exam questions themselves. An example is shown in the image. Scaffolding in this way aligns neatly with Rosenshine principles 7 (“obtain a high success rate”) and 8 (“provide scaffolds for difficult takes”) and keeps student motivation high initially. Practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent Now of course this scaffold is temporary and needs to be taken away. I then get the students to undertake a vast amount of deliberate practice. Most domains of knowledge are predictable; our problem solving gets better the more problems we have solved (as we can draw out similarities). During the process of this practice, students also practise their procedural knowledge (knowing how to do something) and conditional knowledge (knowing when to do something). Ideally, these concepts are embedded throughout the course, but revision allows an excellent opportunity to practise them further. Give feedback Finally, any time our students produce some work it’s really important that we offer some form of feedback on that work. I’ve recently moved away from simply going over the answers, influenced by a blog by Adam Boxer[6]. If students did badly, then they are upset and demotivated. If they did well, then they’re smug and don’t know what to do to improve. Instead, I look at the overall themes from the work. Re-teach any concepts that students have done poorly at; and then get them to practise similar questions again. Following this, I’d give the class the opportunity to come back to this topic in retrieval “do nows” and consider tweaking next year’s scheme of work to address misconceptions/difficulties earlier. Tag me on Twitter @edmunds_dr, and let me know how you approach GCSE Science revision sessions with your classes. By Peter Edmunds Many of the resources mentioned in this blog can be freely found on sciencedoctor.school.blog [1] Image of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve from Chun and Heo, 2018 [2] Credit for original template to the Harris Federation [3] https://www.tes.com/news/interleaving-are-we-getting-it-all-wrong [4] https://sciencedoctor.school.blog/2020/09/12/the-role-of-declarative-knowledge-in-problem-solving/ [5] https://achemicalorthodoxy.wordpress.com/2018/03/02/fixing-key-stage-3-core-questions/ [6] https://achemicalorthodoxy.wordpress.com/2019/03/26/what-to-do-after-a-mock-assessment-sampling-inferences-and-more/ Watch Peter's talk at the ASE Conference 2021 to find out more about running revision sessions and his upcoming AQA GCSE Science (9–1) Equations Practice Pack  https://youtu.be/GtiA-2dQ6uU Read More

The last twelve months or so have affected many people in many different ways.  Apart from the appalling death toll and the long-term effects on the health of many others, the control measures put in place have changed the way that schooling has worked for entire cohorts.  The Extended Response Question resource I edited for Collins turned out to be a lockdown publication in more ways than one.  Though conceived prior to the pandemic, much of the writing was done during the first lockdown.  Although designed for use in a conventional classroom setting, it has much relevance for the situation we now find ourselves in. This article outlines why good literacy is a key skill in science, and how you can help develop your students' extended writing to successfully tackle extended response questions in AQA GCSE Sciences. Why is literacy important in science? There is a long and not always easy relationship between science education and the development of literacy skills; extended response questions are probably at the sharp end of this.  Should the preparation of candidates to deal with ‘six markers’ be seen as a further burden on students and teachers and one peripheral to the central business of developing scientific knowledge and understanding? Is it seen as a key skill of a scientist to be able to construct a longer explanation? Is it best to simply be pragmatic and accept that it’s there in the exams and is worth a not insignificant number of marks? One of the hallmarks of the last year has been the high profile given to scientists, some of whom have become regular guests on news programmes and many of whom have acquitted themselves well not only in terms of the grasp of their specialism but also their ability to explain complex ideas.  This is not new of course; I would argue that it is part and parcel of being a scientist to be able to construct a longer response.  Being able to describe a procedure, compare two different approaches, or evaluate an idea is in the job description. Furthermore, many teachers have come to realise that getting students to write longer responses has a value that goes beyond simply demonstrating a competence in dealing with that type of question.  It shows whether they have understood ideas in more detail, can use key terminology in context and draw ideas together from different parts of the course. How can I improve my students’ extended responses? The AQA GCSE (9–1) Extended Response Questions Teacher Response Pack was written to offer teachers a way forward in three main ways:  The first was responding to the immediate situation if there are students in Year 11 who are underperforming and need both practice and guidance. We’ll soon know how these students will be assessed for the purposes of awarding grades this year and items like this may well figure large.  For some students, it’s more opportunities (so we’ve included dozens of such questions) and for others, it’s an unpacking of the command words.  Because AQA now use the same level descriptors each time a certain command word is used, students can be trained to respond accordingly.  An evaluate question needs a judgment, for example, and the candidate who doesn’t include one cannot get full marks. The second purpose is a more strategic view over the GCSE courses and a desire to integrate the use, both of the questions and ideas, about how to explicitly teach the skills of response over the duration of the course. The third is to support the view that it needs to be an even longer-term strategy.  We progressively develop practical skills and cornerstone concepts such as the particulate model of matter over five years; we should do the same with the skills of constructing longer responses. The constituent aspects of focusing on key terminology, quality sentence construction, and the organisation of text will serve students well on a number of fronts.  What some of our students need is repeated exposure to language and ideas.  We need to get them to not only think like a scientist but also to write like a scientist, and that won’t happen in the six weeks prior to an exam. How can I use this resource with my students? Twenty years in teaching and almost as many in curriculum development have taught me how inventive and creative teachers are (and have to be) in terms of devising approaches and developing ways of developing student competencies.  What we’ve done with this resource is to offer a toolkit.  There is a range of materials in there.  For each question, there is a model answer that would get full marks and another that would get some of the marks.  These are designed to present to students to develop their capacity to recognise improvements.  We’ve included commentaries as well, to support teachers to see what examiners will look for. The feedback we’re getting is that this lends itself to use in a range of ways, including learning at home.  In a recent interview in the Financial Times, Professor Sir John Holman (author of the Good Practical Science report) expressed the hope that the recently raised profile of science would increase interest in STEM careers, but that this would only happen if, principally amongst other factors, the teaching supported it.  Teaching needs to be good, and so do the tools that support it.  Check out the sample pages and see what you think. Watch Ed's talk at the ASE Conference 2021 to find out more about the AQA GCSE (9–1) Extended Response Questions Teacher Response Pack    By Ed Walsh Ed Walsh is a freelance consultant, specializing in science education. A teacher for twenty years and a team leader for twelve of those, he now writes and edits curriculum materials, designs and delivers CPD, and works with science departments to improve the quality of their provision. View secondary Science resources from Collins, including books written and edited by Ed. Read More

Teaching sociology is a collective action. It is important to recognise that we are equipping the next generation with critical skills and insights that can possibly lead to social change. We should not turn away from addressing controversial or sensitive issues and events, but teach our students how to examine… Read More

Jo Heathcote is a teacher, coach, former AQA principal examiner for GCSE English/English Language, and author of  multiple Collins English resources, including the new Reimagine Key Stage 3 English. In this article, Jo explores why it’s time to re-think KS3 English and how you can use her nine knowledge-rich… Read More

Time for a rebalancing of the attainment-inclusion axis at the heart of our schooling system? Lessons From Lockdown author Tony Breslin argues that a rebalancing of our education system in favour of inclusion-focused strategies is necessary if we are to enable children and young people to develop the self-confidence, resilience… Read More

As a Sociology teacher living and working through the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been fascinated by the societal impact COVID-19 has had on our society. Pandemics in general have been a topic researched by sociologists: McCoy (2017) investigated the sociology of pandemics and recently Ward (2020) wrote a commentary and research agenda focusing on the social restrictions and social isolation as a result of COVID-19. As a teacher, I was very curious about the influence of the media on our perception of COVID-19, as well as how social inequalities have been further highlighted and exaggerated. Below are some key questions to help examine COVID-19 through a sociological gaze, alongside context, ideas and resources to facilitate this discussion with your A-level Sociology students. The media as an agent of socialisation Key question: How has the media depiction of the pandemic influenced our perception of it as either a danger or a moral panic? Theory and context: All theoretical perspectives, from functionalism through postmodernism, have debated the positive and negative impact of the media. Baudrillard’s postmodernist notion of the “information blizzard” for example, suggests that the incessant influx of information through the media affects our ability to distinguish the truth. So, in the context of COVID-19, how has Baudrillard theory been exemplified? On one hand, there is a clear perception of COVID-19 as a danger which has been put forward by a range of societal institutions such as the NHS or the Department of Health. Think about directives such as social distancing, face mask guidelines and the closure of institutions and businesses based on scientific data. On the other, individuals have challenged the figures provided, alleging that the government is overexaggerating the dangers of the virus and conspiring to restrict the freedoms and rights of citizens. Discussion: reliable information sources, fake news and conspiracy theories So, what statistical evidence can sociologists use to comprehend the extent of the virus? Well, one key piece of evidence widely available is the recorded numbers of deaths and cases by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But the question is, what other information may individuals have access to? And through what medium? Here we enter the murky and confusing world of social media with conspiracy theories being shared on social media platforms. Here are some of the most intriguing conspiracy theories to discuss with your students: Coronavirus and 5G #ExposeBillGates Covid-19 Cures Debunked Go through the links above and the statistical evidence from WHO. You could ask your students to research this before the lesson as homework or bring in their own examples to discuss. Investigate the resources and ask students the following questions: How or why does information lacking in official scientific evidence influence our decision-making process as individuals? How has your knowledge of COVID-19 impacted on your decision making in line with the governmental directives? Have you followed the guidelines or rebelled against them based on information you came across online? Social inequalities intensified by the pandemic Key question: How has the current pandemic intensified social inequalities, particularly in terms of class and education? Theory and context: Social inequality is a broad, wide-ranging and extensively investigated field in sociological research. A-level Sociology focuses on social inequality in the context of class, age, gender, and ethnicity. Here are some pieces of research that you may already have explored with your students: Class: The Sutton Trust and the Elite Theory Age: Age and the gig economy Gender: Gender Pay Gap Ethnicity: Joseph Rowntree Foundation and self-employment in BAMEd groups (pp.13-15). The links above help to shed some insight into the evidence aligned with social inequalities. Social class is often a taboo topic of discussion mainly because many believe that in our current postmodern society, the concept of class is obsolete. Theorists such as Pakulski and Waters have stated that our identities nowadays are influenced by our lifestyle and hobbies. However, the pandemic has highlighted class inequalities, particularly within education. Discussion: remote learning A key example to examine is the way in which access to remote learning differed, both institutionally and regionally, in the wake of the national lockdown and school closures earlier this year. The Sutton Trust carried out research focusing on COVID-19 and social mobility which found that the health crisis had led to clear educational inequalities, for example, the differences in access to resources for online learning and assessment has led to the UK government pledging to provide laptops to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Ask your students: How has your current school/college handled remote learning? Do you feel that you have missed out on learning or were the tools and resources you had available on a par with your experiences of face-to-face teaching? Explain how or why. Discussion: A-level results A second example, showing the impact of Covid-19 in line with class and educational inequalities, was exemplified in the recent A-level result scandal. The selected algorithm used by the government to assign final grades led to disparities in the awarding of grades to students who were disadvantaged based on socio-cultural factors. For example, disparities based on class and economic status were noticed on a regional scale (north versus south), in the type of institutions (independent versus state), but also on the basis of ethnicity. Have a look at the articles below with your students: The Guardian The Mirror Ask students to investigate the resources, either individually, in pairs or as a class. Based on the information presented in both the articles, ask students the following questions: Does the evidence support the notion that educational inequalities are based on class? How may you challenge this evidence?   By Wilhelmenia Etoga Ngono, freelance blogger and Sixth form teacher based in South East England. Read More