Teaching GCSE Citizenship Studies for the first time

About this event

Teaching GCSE Citizenship Studies for the first time? Don’t panic, join us for this workshop focusing on the fundamentals of excellent GCSE Citizenship Studies Teaching.

Kelly Allchin, an experienced Citizenship teacher and Assistant Principal for Personal Development in a large inner city school, will lead this session with Zoe Baker,  ACT’s Head of Education and Professional Development. Both Kelly and Zoe have extensive experience of teaching GCSE Citizenship students and will be able to answer your questions and offer practical advice that can be used in the classroom the next day. 

This workshop is not matched to any specific examination body, so no matter which specification your school follows you will find this workshop useful. In this 90 min session, you will look at question papers, explore the importance of both Citizenship knowledge and Citizenship concepts in your teaching, and learn what good pedagogy looks like in a GCSE Citizenship classroom.

Who is it for?

This workshop is designed for any teacher who is new to teaching GCSE Citizenship studies. Whether you are still in your early years of teaching or training, or if you have recently begun teaching Citizenship as an additional subject, you will find this workshop useful.

Why attend?

By the end of this workshop you will: 

• Have a greater understanding of the expectations of the GCSE 
• Understand the importance of knowledge and concepts in your teaching 
• Leave with examples of pedagogy you can use in your lessons from the next day

Additional information

This workshop will support the CCF and ECF through discussion and analysis with expert colleagues in the following areas:

• Reducing learning distractions (e.g. keeping the complexity of a task to a minimum, so attention is focused on content).
• Breaking complex material into smaller steps (e.g. using partially completed examples to focus pupils).
• Identifying possible misconceptions and planning how to prevent these forming.
• Linking what pupils already know to what is being taught (e.g. explaining how new content builds on what is already known).
• Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide enough support for pupils to experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work.
• Balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills.
• Providing opportunities for all pupils to learn and master essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject.
• 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).

CPD strand – GCSE Network

Building on our current strong network of GCSE teachers, we have developed a bespoke strand for members who teach GCSE Citizenship Studies. The focus of sessions will include improving outcomes for the Citizenship Investigation (active citizenship), examination technique, and opportunities for teachers to support each other with moderation of assessments.