With your help, we can make the new citizenship GCSE even better

There are two consultations on the revised GCSE, due to take effect from 2016: the Department for Education is consulting on area of study content and Ofqual is consulting on assessment. We need your assist in both, so we’ve made it easy for you.

In partnership with Parliamentary Year Book, the Citizenship Foundation and ACT have developed example replies for both consultations in response to the queries about citizenship studies.

With your help, we can strengthen the revised GCSEs.

When you click ‘submit’ at the end of each form, the response will be sent directly to the relevant body (ie DfE or Ofqual) and copied to Parliamentary Year Book.

Of course, if you prefer, you can edit, re-write or replace our response entirely with your own.

Our main concerns

100 per cent exam

The proposed shift from 40 per cent to 100 per cent examination is a fundamental alteration to the nature of citizenship studies GCSE that doesn’t recognise the practical citizenship abilities that are central to the area of study.

There’s no evidence that citizenship action can’t be assessed reliably and validly through direct educator assessment or that examinations are a more reliable, valid and manageable means of assessment.

Lack of active citizenship

Citizenship action is covered insufficiently in the proposed full course GCSE content and omitted entirely from the proposed short course GCSE content. Citizenship action should be a central requirement for all GCSEs in citizenship studies.

Too much content?

The specification of awareness has been significantly increased in the proposed area of study content and this raises significant matters for teaching training.

You can help

Please assist us strengthen the revised GCSEs in citizenship studies.

Respond to the GCSE consultations today, using our handy form, and encourage others to do the same. For further guidance, see the relevant UK information.

Consultation closing dates

• Ofqual: 19 November 2014;
• DfE: 20 November 2014, 5.00pm.

Tags: assessment, consultation, exam, gcse