Achieving better results at GCSE Citizenship Studies

About this event

All teachers strive to ensure their students achieve the best results possible in their GCSE Citizenship examinations. This CPD session will provide teachers an opportunity to work with our experienced ACT Teaching Ambassadors, who will be on hand to offer their experience and guidance for each of the examination board specifications (OCR, Edexcel and AQA).

In this 90 min workshop there will be a chance to explore the examiners report and discuss the implications for each examination board. The session will provide specific guidance on: 

• How to embed examination technique into your regular classroom practice 
• How to use retrieval quizzes to support GCSE style questions 
• Supporting students writing longer mark questions 

There will also be a discussion around effective learning and revision techniques, such as retrieval practice, and going beyond just factual recall to really challenge students’ understanding. Additionally, we will examine how as teachers we can best plan to ensure our curriculums allow for the best progression for our GCSE students. 

This is an excellent opportunity to network with our ambassador team and other teachers who teach the same examination board as you. 

Please note this workshop will not focus on the Citizenship investigation element of  GCSE Citizenship Studies as this will be covered in full by a separate CPD later in the year.

Who is it for?

All teachers of GCSE Citizenship

Why attend?

By the end of this workshop you will: 

• Have a greater understanding of the examiners report from you examination board
• Develop your understanding of exam technique
• Work with a community of teachers who share your experiences
• Leave with ideas you can implement the next day

Additional information

This workshop will support the ITTECF Standard 2 by: 

• Increasing likelihood of material being retained, by:
  • Balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills
  • Planning regular review and practice of key ideas and concepts over time (e.g. through carefully planned use of structured talk activities).
  • Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide just enough support so that pupils experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work.
  • Increasing challenge with practice and retrieval as knowledge becomes more secure (e.g. by removing scaffolding, lengthening spacing or introducing interacting elements).

It will support standard 3 by working with experienced colleagues to help: 

• Anticipate common misconceptions within particular subjects is also an important aspect of curricular knowledge; working closely with colleagues to develop an understanding of likely misconceptions is valuable
• Explicitly teach pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed within particular subject areas is beneficial
• Pupils to think critically – they must have a secure understanding of  knowledge within the subject area they are being asked to think critically about.
• Help pupils apply knowledge and skills to other contexts, by:
  • Ensuring pupils have relevant domain-specific knowledge, especially when being asked to think critically within a subject.
  • Interleaving concrete and abstract examples, slowly withdrawing concrete examples and drawing attention to the underlying structure of problems.

It will support Standard 4 by working with experienced colleges to: 

• Stimulate pupil thinking and check for understanding, by:
  • Planning activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.
  • Including a range of types of questions in class discussions to extend and challenge pupils (e.g. by modelling new vocabulary or asking pupils to justify answers).
  • Elaborating on and querying pupil contributions to support pupils’ oral language skills, and knowledge development.