GCSEs are changing

What’s happening to GCSEs?

Following a review of 14–19 education and the Secondary Curriculum Review, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has revised the subject criteria for GCSEs, for first teaching in September 2009. This applies to all awarding bodies.

The new GCSEs have more up-to-date content and encourage the development of personal, learning and thinking skills in your students.

We’ve taken this opportunity to redevelop all our GCSEs, to ensure they meet your requirements. These changes will give you greater control of assessment activities and make the assessment process more manageable for you and your students.

Changes for the better

We have revised and revamped all of our GCSEs to meet the changing needs of a modern world. As one of the country's leading awarding bodies, OCR has already taken this opportunity to improve the quality of our GCSEs for teachers and pupils for first teaching in September 2009. We are inviting you to take this first opportunity to download the draft specifications of all our 93 GCSE qualifications from this website.

What are the improvements? We've made improvements in three key areas: updated and relevant content, a focus on developing students' personal, learning and thinking skills and flexible assessment, so teachers can choose the best learning approach for the job. We have also introduced a new concept of Controlled Assessment to replace GCSE coursework which addresses the concerns teachers expressed to us about coursework authenticity and issues surrounding plagiarism.

How can you find out more? We want to make the introduction of these new GCSEs as easy for teachers to manage as possible and invite you to attend our free GCSE expos over the summer to learn, at first hand, about all the improvements and fresh content that are being introduced to our new 2009 GCSE qualifications. You will have direct access to subject specialists at the expos in order to answer all your questions.

Please note that not all GCSEs are changing in 2009. There are a few exceptions: the new Science GCSEs were introduced in 2006. New English, English Literature, ICT and Maths GCSEs will also be improved and offered for first teaching in 2010. We will be providing regular updates about wider educational reforms later on this year.

Supporting you through the changes: We've also provided sample assessment materials for you to consider so that you can easily make your own decisions on which OCR GCSEs to teach from September 2009.

 

Making sure the change is easy for you

We want to make the changes as easy as possible for you to manage by:

• Keeping you up to date with the latest information – sign up to our email alerts.
• Providing online versions of the full draft specifications now 18 months ahead of first teaching them.
• Providing summaries of the new specifications for you to easily make your own decisions.
• Planning to show you all approved specifications one year ahead of first teaching on this website, so you have plenty of preparation time.
• Offering you FREE nationwide training events from June 2008.
• Creating a range of OCR support materials for you, including schemes of work and sample assessment materials.
• Making OCR’s publisher partner resources – tailored to the new specifications – available from January 2009.
• Endorsing a variety of published resources, giving you a wider choice of quality support materials.

The main changes

1. 1) Controlled assessment will be a feature of most GCSEs
   Following a coursework review by QCA, controlled assessment is being introduced as part of nearly all GCSEs, to replace coursework.

   High, medium or low control levels are set for each of the controlled assessment processes – task setting, task taking and task marking. For each stage, the level of control will ensure reliability and authenticity, and make assessments more manageable for teachers and students.

   Weighting of controlled assessments is defined by QCA subject criteria and, depending on the subject, will be 0%, 25% or 60%. We will review controlled assessment tasks every two years.

   Specifications with 0% controlled assessment

   For some subjects it is more appropriate to assess entirely through external examinations.

   Specifications with 25% controlled assessment

   This group of subjects have just one controlled assessment unit or component, which will be moderated and awarded as a single entity. QCA is recommending these tasks to require about 2,000 words or equivalent.

   Specifications with 60% controlled assessment

   This group of subjects include those that are more practical or creative. They may have one, two or three controlled assessment units or components which will be moderated and awarded separately. For these tasks there will be recommended time limits rather than word limits.

2. 2) From 2010, English, ICT and Maths will include functional skills

   The relationship between the GCSE and functional skills will be evaluated throughout the pilot phase (September 2007 to September 2010). When the revised qualifications for English, ICT and Maths are introduced in September 2010, we expect a Level 2 pass in functional skills to be a requirement for GCSEs in these subjects, at grade C or above.

The main changes

We’ve conducted our own extensive research into how teachers and students would like the new qualifications structured and designed. By listening to you, we have shaped our specifications to the requirements of you and your students. We involve teachers directly in the development process, they help write the course specifications and sample assessment materials. To make sure we get it right, we continually refer to support and advice from QCA. This way, our interpretation of subject and qualification criteria is acceptable and will meet QCA’s accreditation requirements.

Our direct involvement with teachers and students also ensures that we are aware of your concerns, so we can address them. As draft specifications are made available, and as we work on the accompanying support materials, we’ll continue to consult everyone involved.

Approved specifications are available to schools and colleges one year before first teaching. This means you’ll have the approved specifications for the new OCR GCSEs by September 2008.