Welcome to the draft GCSE specifications
This short guidance is designed to help you start thinking about the
GCSEs that will be examined for the first time in June 2018. If you have
a two year Key Stage 4, you will start teaching the new GCSE in
September 2016. If you have a three year Key Stage 4, your Year 9s in
September 2015 will be the first GCSE cohort you have that sits the
new specification.
The exam boards’ specifications are all currently in draft form. They are
subject to approval by Ofqual. The final specifications are expected in
schools in September 2015.
This guidance is divided into the following
sections:
• Some things you need to consider when considering which
specification to choose.
• Some things that will impact upon your decision about which
specification to choose.
• A comparison of the different parts of the draft specifications that are
on offer.
Some things to consider…
• Do you want to stick with what you know, or consider something new?
That is, do you want to continue to teach the topic areas you are familiar
with, or do you want a complete change.*
• This decision will depend on the time you have for planning, the skills of staff who
will be teaching, the resources you have available.
• You need to have conversations among your team of History GCSE teachers and with
your SLT.
• What will your students learn in history in their whole school career?
That is, what do they learn in History in the other key stages?
• You need to put together a programme of study that is coherent, relevant and
engaging for students across all the key stages.
• Do you want your students to sit 2 or 3 exam papers?
• In their draft specifications AQA are proposing 2 papers and the others 3 papers.
* Please note: GCSE specifications are changing dramatically. Everyone will be teaching something new.
Some more things to consider…
• What sort of historic environment topic do you want and how much
choice do you want on the topic?
• The historic environment aspect of the specification has been interpreted
differently by the exam boards. There is: a separate exam paper (OCR SHP),
the topic tied to the thematic study (Pearson), tied to the British depth study
(AQA), tied to the thematic and British depth study (OCR EMW). Only OCR
SHP is offering the centre a completely free choice of site.
• What plan does your department need to put in place now to make
sure everyone is ready and able to teach the new specifications?
• In what order are you going to teach the specification you choose?
Things that will impact upon your decisions:
• Support of your SLT.
• Interests and aptitudes of the students you teach.
• Resources available.
• Length of KS4 in your school.
• Corporate decisions between academy chains, networks etc.
• Previous experience of exam board support.
• What the exam board are offering in terms of support for the new
GCSE.
• Availability of published materials.
What follows looks quite complex!
However, what it tries to do is to compare the different elements of the
various specifications:
• Thematic studies
• Period studies
• British depth studies
• Wider world depth studies
• Historic environment
Please remember that these are still draft and subject to Ofqual approval.
Ofqual’s judgements are expected in time for the final specifications to be
available to schools in September 2015.
* Subject to accreditation by Ofqual
Comparison of thematic studies that can be chosen:
AQA
OCR A (EMW)
OCR B (SHP)
• Britain: health
• War and British • The People’s
and the people
Society c.790 to
Health
c.2010
• Britain: power
• Crime and
and the people • Power: monarchy
Punishment
and
democracy
• Britain and the
• Migrants to
world: migration, 1066-2007
Britain
empires and the • Migration
people
Part of paper 1
Through Time
Half of paper 2 – 25% of
whole GCSE
All of paper 2
Pearson
• Medicine in
Britain, c1000–
present
• Crime and
punishment in
Britain, c1000–
present
• Warfare and
British Society,
c1250–present
Paper 1 – linked to a specific
historic environment so 30% of
whole GCSE
* Subject to accreditation by Ofqual
Comparison of period studies that can be chosen:
AQA
OCR A (EMW)
• USA 1840-1895:
• International
expansion and
Relations 1918consolidation
2011
• Germany 18901945: democracy Part of paper 1
and dictatorship
• Russia 1894-1945:
Tsardom and
communism
• America 19201973: opportunity
and inequality
60% of paper 1
OCR B (SHP)
• Viking Age
• Mughal Empire
• Making of
America
Part of paper 3
•
•
•
•
•
Pearson
Spain and the ‘New
World’, c1490–
c1555
British America,
1713–83: empire
and revolution
The American West,
c1835–c1895
Superpower
Relations and the
Cold War, 1941–91
Conflict in the
Middle East, c1945–
95
Paper 2 – half of paper - 20% of
GCSE
* Subject to accreditation by Ofqual
Comparison of British depth studies that can be chosen:
AQA
• Norman England
• Medieval England
– the reign of
Edward I
• Elizabethan
England
• Restoration
England
OCR A (EMW)
OCR B (SHP)
Pearson
• Anglo-Saxon and
• Empire and
• The Norman
Norman England,
Migration
Conquest 1065c1060–88
c.1688-1730
1087
• The reigns of King
• The Making of
• The Elizabethans Richard I and King
England
John, 1189–1216
1580-1603
• Personal Rule to
• Henry VIII and his
•
Britain
in
Peace
Restoration
ministers, 1509–
and War 19001629-1660
40
1918
Must match thematic
50% of paper 2 and
study - part of paper 3
includes the historic
environment – sites not yet
named.
Part of paper 1
• Early Elizabethan
England, 1558–88
Paper 2 – half of paper 20% of GCSE
* Subject to accreditation by Ofqual
Comparison of wider-world depth studies that can be chosen:
•
•
•
•
•
AQA
Conflict and tension:
1894-1918
Conflict and tension:
1918-1939
Conflict and tension
between east and
west: 1945-72
Conflict and tension
in Asia: 1950-75
Conflict and tension:
1990-2009
40% of paper 1
OCR A (EMW)
OCR B (SHP)
• The First Crusade
• China 1950-1981
c.1070-1100
• Germany 1925-1955
• The Aztec Empire
• Poland 1956-1990
and the Spanish
• Russia 1928-1964
Conquest 15001521
• South Africa 19601994
• Living under Nazi
• The USA 1919-1945 Rule 1933-1945
of paper 3 – choice
• The USA 1945-1974 Part
must be from different era
Part of paper 1
than British depth study
Pearson
• Russia and the
Soviet Union,
1924–41
• Weimar and Nazi
Germany, 1918–39
• Mao’s China,
1945–76
• The USA, 1954–75:
conflict at home
and abroad
Paper 3 – 30% of GCSE
* Subject to accreditation by Ofqual
Comparison of the historic environment element:
AQA
OCR A (EMW)
• Incorporated into the
• A separate section of
British depth studies as a paper 3 worth 10%, but
linked to the themes and
part of Paper 2.
OCR B (SHP)
Pearson
• Paper 2 is entirely
Part of the British
devoted to the historic
environment and is 20% thematic study:
British depth studies.
• Medicine = The British
of the GCSE.
• Different sites
sector of the Western
• For Migration = Urban
announced each year
• Centres choose their
Environments: Patterns of
Front, 1914–18:
and you choose the site
own
topic
–
subject
to
Migration
surgery and treatment
to go with your chosen
the criteria given as
• For both Power and War &
• Crime and punishment
depth study.
guidance.
British Society = Castles:
= Whitechapel,
Form and Function
c.1870–c1900: crime
c.1000–1700
and policing
• Two sites will be studied,
• Warfare = London and
one chosen by the board
the Second World War,
and the other by the
1939–45
centre.
• The board’s sites will
change each year.