14 replies to this topic

[gav]

We are introducing the gcse short course next year. It will be done in Year 10 only with one hour per week. Obviously this will make things very tight. Looking at the past papers - I'm not too worried about the content aspect of the syllabus (there is too much to do even over two years) so my main focus will be on the coursework, the source booklet and the essay question in the exam.

Coursework B shouldn't be a problem. Is there anything that says we cant give every student the same topic (and therefore the same two sources) for this option? I cant see why not.

Coursework A is more of a problem. What do other schools do for this option? I'm thinking again of providing a citizenship opportunity to all students and all of them have to do their coursework on the same topic.

I know that in an ideal world all students would be free to choose whatever they wanted to write their coursework on. But when given less than a terms notice to set up the new course, non-specialist staff, limited teaching time and the obvious workload asscociated with coursework marking and moderation; this seems the best option.

What are your thoughts?

I'd also be very happy to hear any general comments or advice on the short course. (Incidentally, I opted for OCR as it involves two short pieces of coursework rather than AQA or Edexcel's 1500 word piece.

Thanks

[Nick Lowry]

May have got this wrong, but when we were looking at OCR, we were thinking of using the students work experience as part of the project or have I got the boards mixed up?

[Dafydd Humphreys]

We did 'Asylum Seekers' and Community Active Citizenship for the courseworks.

[Karen Miller]

I did the same coursework for B and had to do 2 different ones for A as I only had half the group in year 10 - a long story. For the participation piece my boys did a reenactment of a court case which I got from the mock trial competition. The girls all did placements for their NVQ childcare courses so wrote them up. I was told that if you used work experience it had to be community related which is why my girls could write up their nursery placements. This year my year 10s have all done the court case. I used a writing frame for them to produce the work. this is the first year I have done the course so I was working in the dark a bit. For coursework B I used the same sources for everyone. We did prison overcrowding and got 2 views as to what should be done. Again I gave them information and websites to use and a writing frame. I hope they give you some ideas
Karen

Attached Files

•  ParticipationinanActivitycourt.doc   28K   742 downloads
•  Citizenship_CourseworkB.doc   86.5K   845 downloads
•  Participation_in_an_activity.doc   26.5K   733 downloads
•  Views_on_prisons.doc   22.5K   721 downloads
•  PRISONS_REACH.doc   21K   783 downloads

[gav]

Thanks for that Karen. It is good to see that you have found effective ways of delivering the coursework while maintaining control over the content. The prison stuff looks excellent. When I have finished my resources I'll post them here too. I'm working on some kind of climate change project for Coursework A - we will have an awareness day and students will follow it up by campaigning/influencing the local community to reduce energy consumption. That is the idea but it is easier said than done.

[Nick Lowry]

I'm at school now and have had a closer look at everything. The intention for students to write up their work experience, I take the point about it being 'community' related, but it is very loosely interpreted by us.ie the role that different jobs play in the community and society. We are planning with next years 10 to sit them down for two lessons in the hall and get them to produce a piece based on what they have just done. It was felt that this was the best way to go due to the control needed over such a large group.

Nick

[Karen Miller]

Hi - this is a quote from the examiner's report on last years exam.
'Once again there are less centres relying solely on the use of work experience to fulfil the requirements of this piece of coursework. Work experience should only be used where it can be set within a citizenship context e.g. nursery, school, charity, care home. Candidates who do use work experience should ensure that their coursework is not purely a description of what they did during this week. This sort of approach will gain few marks'
When I spoke to the moderator I checked that it was OK for my girls to write up their childcare placements. I would check if I were you.
Karen

[Christine]

Coursework A

When I went on the OCR course they said not to use Work Experience. I tend to provide an opportunity for the whole year group. In 2006 we did Sport Relief. Year 10 did assemblies, taught lower school in Form Time, took assemblies in local primary schools, raised money in various ways (including "Soak the Teacher" ), did general PR and organised the mile event at school. We were "lucky" enough to have McFly come and film the video to the charity song at our school and a group of our kids worked with the BBC on the storyline and then with McFly.

This year we held a World Cultures Evening - it raised money for 7 global charities. It was like a cross between a charity gig and a Christams Bazaar. It was brilliant - so many positive comments from parents and grandparents.

In November will be having our own Children in Need night on 16th Nov. this will be similar to World Cultures Eve - but the entire focus will be on children.

I have found that these events are having a positive impact in many ways. For example on Red Nose Day this year so many pupils devised little fund raisers and organised big events like "leg waxing" that I didn't have to do anything.

Coursework B

One year I gave the pupils a choice of four topics - something to please everyone - and it worked really well. (Smoking law, cannabis debate, size 0 models and nuclear power). My Year 10s have just completed Coursework B - they did it in an hour and a half in exam conditions in the hall. It was on a proposed prison that the government want to build in our Borough. I told the pupils what it would be on beforehand and put up displays outside my classroom. The quality of their work was excellent because they were so focused in exam conditions.

I know OCR would like us to be more creative and use the News or Websites but time dictates otherwise.

[Nick Lowry]

They are great ideas, really got me thinking....

Plus...how the hell did you get McFly into your school?

[Christine]

We have a contact at Comic Relief There are clips of the filming on You Tube. I thought the day would be a nightmare with hysterical girls screaming, but it wasn't at all. Various groups were picked randomly to be in the video throughout the day. Then after school anyone was allowed to stay behind and be in the video for crowd scenes. The pupils were calm and orderly - it was amazing. James Cracknell and Lynford Chrisite also came down for the filming.


I'm really looking forward to Children in Need night. The best thing is that whilst last year I pretty much organised it on my own - this year other departments have already said they want to be involved. This will really help with the performance side of things, as I was out of my depth a bit when auditioning acts.

One mum said to me after World Cultures Evening, that in all the years she had been coming to the school with her older children, none of them had ever been involved in such a superb event. She went on to say that she only ever came to the school in the evening for Parent's Evening and why hadn't we done something like this before.

One dad told us how he had gone shopping with his son to buy the ingredients for a curry and then they cooked it together. Other parents proudly carried in huge pots of food from all over the world. Many parents helped their kids set up the raffles and games they had prepared. It really was an active citizenship event. We raised £800.

For all the historians on this forum - this type of evening could easily translate to a historical event and would really raise the profile of History in your school.

[Sarah Bamford]

Just doing OCR cit. for the first time this year.. there is some discussion in our faculty about the focus of the coursework B - is it media textual analysis or is it about an issue, using the sources as evidence/for or against.. If it is the latter, how much time do I devote to 'teaching' the issue.. Also - we are really struggling to find the contrasting sources - has anyone either got any they can send me/ post here - or give me some ideas where to look..

many many thanks
Sarah

[Vicki W]

I've taught this a couple of times and the focus of the second piece of coursework is on bias in the media. We usually buy a range of newspapers one or two weeks before we start this piece and give the students a choice. Last year they had the choice of 2 articles on the 'Muhammed teddy bear' story (Sun and Guardian), 'England knocked out of Euro 2008' (Mirror and Guardian) and one other - can't remember, none of them chose it!

2-3 lessons preparation - discussion on bias, highlighting key points in articles and checking understanding then a few lessons to write it up.

There's a detailed markscheme and some examples of pupils' work in the 'Coursework guidance' section on the OCR website.

Hope this helps

Vicki

[neil mcdonald]

I have a wonderful clip on newspapers taken from Yes Prime Minister - Youtube link - I cut out the last word....

Best comedy ever

[Sarah Bamford]

Thank-you Neil. What a lovely starter... if only Yes Minister could be a compulsory part of the Citizenship curriculum!...

[helenmaddison]

May have got this wrong, but when we were looking at OCR, we were thinking of using the students work experience as part of the project or have I got the boards mixed up?

I had my first year as HoD for Citizenship and I have just read the comments about our coursework. I would advise not to do CWA on Work Experience as many of the students experiences are not Citizenship based ie, they work in retail etc. This is something we need to change this year as this was the official line from the moderator.

I too am finding it hard now as we deliver Cit in year 11 one hour a week. So advice on a good enough assignment for CWA would be fantastic!