Edexcel GCSE Spec A - Catholic Christianity (Summer 2019)

Paper 1A caused upset and concern to many RE teachers. They felt that the questions were unfair. As someone who has lived and breathed the spec for the last 3 years, I felt it was important to go through it very carefully to see if there were any issues. I found two things that I wasn't quite sure about, and so contacted the board, who provided a response. I think it is very useful for teachers of this paper, and indeed perhaps all Edexcel RS papers, to read. 

An error?

"Explain two ways the design of the Catholic Church reflects belief."

There is a significant difference between the Catholic Church and a Catholic church. The specification says:

4.1 - The common and divergent forms of architecture, design and decoration of Catholic churches [small 'c']: how they reflect belief, are used in, and contribute to, worship, including reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1179–1181.

This question, especially for more able students could be confusing as they could be trying to consider the 'design' of institution of the Catholic Church (arguably something that has evolved rather than been designed).

The exam board response is this:

We take great care to ensure that our examination papers are error free and accessible to a wide range of learners across the ability range. I can confirm that your concerns have been reviewed and discussed by our senior examining committee who have provided feedback and reassurance. 

In regard to the concern escalated about Q4(c), the question reads "Explain two ways the design of the Catholic Church reflects belief.".  

The senior examining committee responsible for producing the 1RA0 1A question paper have confirmed that ‘Church’ in this question can be referred to in either way you have described. The mark scheme rewards responses approached explaining the ‘design’ of the building and will also reward student responses approached answering ‘design' of the institution of the Catholic Church.

To provide further reassurance as part of our internal processes and procedures, mark schemes are scrutinised against actual student responses and updated prior to marking to ensure that the full range of actual acceptable student responses have been covered. The mark scheme for this paper will be published online on results day 22nd August 2019.

I am pleased that both responses will be accepted, and the process that goes on as part of the marking, but this is clearly a mistake in my mind. I am unaware or anywhere on the exam specification where it could possible ask about the design of the institution of the Church. The closest would be perhaps the magisterium spec point, but the question does not fit - and as I previously mentioned, has the Church been 'designed'?

A clarification?

3 of the 4 Part D questions have just two bullet points - 'refer to Catholic teachings' and 'reach a justified conclusion'. This is what was expected, and due to them being AO2 question a necessity to look at divergent approaches is implied - and has been taught to students. If a third bullet point was included, it would be expected to be to look at different Christian points of view.

Question 2d ("Local churches should be responsible for evangelism.") contained an additional bullet point: 'refer to different Catholic points of view'. This was a surprise, given the above assumptions about divergence, and previous papers.

Does this suggest something fundamentally different about this question? Is it suggesting there is an 'official' divergence in teachings of the Church? (Something that has been problematic since the start of spec writing! Is there real divergence within the Catholic Church?)

I asked for clarity about why some questions included this bullet point, and others do not, when obviously it is implied that ALL questions need different Catholic points of view?

With regards to your concerns relating to Q02d, “Evaluate” type questions, please note that these questions will always include at least two bullet point instructions to aid responses. Depending on the question asked, bullet points are changed accordingly and the mark scheme will only allow credit for responses which are in line with specification content. The specification contains topic areas where there are points that are “divergent” views specifically mentioned for some topic areas. Questions asked on these topic areas where there are “divergent” views include an additional bullet point providing students with support to help them structure their response so that they can access the full range of marks available. The specification indicates, “divergent ways in which this is put into practice by the Church and individual Catholics, locally, national, and globally” (2.8). As such the divergence is whether it’s done on a local or global scale; Church or individual. The bullet point reminds students to ensure that their response includes this specific information. 

 Please note that the additional sample assessment material published online along with the 1RA0 1A paper set in 2018 list three bullet points similar to this series paper.

However on inspection of the SAMs, 1d, 3d and 4d - they do all indeed contain 3 bullet points. The fundamental difference being, they are all:

• refer to Catholic teachings
• refer to different Christian points of view
• reach a justified conclusion.

This is the same as the specimen papers, and last years papers. Paper 1A has had 3 bullet points before, but NEVER a second bullet point saying "refer to different Catholic points of view", always just Christian. This is the first time it has appeared, and it remains confusing in my mind as to why it was included on this question, but never before.

Conclusions

Students will be fine. As we know, the brightest and most hardworking students will get the grades they deserve.

We know that the new GCSEs are tough, especially for our less able, or EAL. However, overall, I do think the new exams are better. Examination is always going to be difficult, and we feel a huge emotional attachment to the performance of our students. No one ever really LOVES the questions that come up! There will always be more tricky ones, and these are necessary to sort out the 9s. Yet last year the pass mark for a 1 was suitable so that the majority of hardworking students could achieve a GCSE - for some a 1 is a real achievement.

It is interesting that the Part As, which some spoke of being "qualifying" questions, are clearly not. In some cases the Part B and C questions were more straightforward. I don't have an issue with this as such, as long as my least able students to manage to get the grade they deserve. Interesting when working on my books, it was Part A questions that I found hardest to write - the others were far more simple.

Another issues that has come up in post-exam teacher discussions, is the extent to which teachers, and indeed students, followed the specification. Any textbook is one approach, not the only approach! The wording of many questions matched the spec very closely. It is for this reason, we included the wording of the spec in our student book. Read every word of  it! Get your students to as well...

There has been much talk of swapping exam boards. I have spoken to around 20 teachers in the last week or so - and there has been suggestions of movement in all directions - from and TO Edexcel. I think my best advice would be to wait until you get your results - the exact wording of the exam questions is quickly forgotten if you get the grade that you deserve or need to! It is also worth considering the financial cost (replacement textbooks) and teacher time (re-planning, re-learning exam style) - is it worth it?

Finally, I am going to use this as a plug... our new workbooks are ready! Book 1 is already available, and Book 2 will arrive in September. I believe these could be real game changers, and despite being openly biased, I think for Catholic students, the Edexcel option could be the best due to the resources OUP have commissioned - especially for those students that find the GCSE tough. Check out this review of Book 1:

Teach Secondary

If you like what you read, order via your OUP rep (best for bulk) or see info here on my site:

Work Books

I hope this has been helpful, informative and reassuring.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

6th Form Study Skills: Learning & Note Taking

"A man maie well bring a horse to the water, But he can not make him drinke without he will." wrote John Heywood in A Dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of all the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue. It was true in the 12th Century, and it remains so today. We cannot always get our students to do what we know is best for them, despite telling them over and over.

However, we must continue try, and do it from multiple approaches. I am looking forward to leading some CPD for staff on key principles of 'learning science', I introduce students to the Learning Scientists , I build the principles into lessons through my planning, I write MCQs for our department website and so on. 

I also offered to lead some 6th form assemblies, as I have seen in my own classes that there is a great needed to help students with the demands on the new A Levels. As I made clear to students:

• You do not start with ‘easy’ material and work towards progressively harder material by the end of Year 13
• You begin with challenging material, and work with more and more challenging material.
• You will need to store a vast amount of knowledge in your Long Term Memory.
• Your Working Memory is relatively small (5 to 7 things), while your Long Term Memory is vast.
• You need to organise the information into schema in order to access or recall it.
• You need to adopt a systematic approach to learning, rather leaving it chance.

I then took them on a brief overview of what we know about learning, and how our brains work. I left them with some practical suggestions, including adopting the Cornell Note Taking system. I wished someone had suggested it to me at university or 6th form. It fits with all the other knowledge we have now about effective learning. Why would you not use it? 

Their half term task was to go away and read this... but I will email it to them again next week as a reminder. And I have emailed to all staff to refer to in their lessons. I am going to spend 10 minutes of my first lesson back with 6th form writing CUE at the top of every margin, and drawing a line 5cm above the bottom of their page for summaries. 

There are bits I simplified, this was a 10 minute assembly, not an hour long lecture. However the affirmation I got from a colleague is when he pointed out to the students that it took him 28 years of classroom teaching to work out these principles of effective learning, and now they are pretty much contained in a 6 slide, 10 minute assembly. 

I'm not sure our students realise how lucky they are with what we now know about learning and try to share with them. 

Big thanks to Kim aka The Hectic Teacher and Steve D'Arcy for their help with this presentation

How Do You Pick An Exam Spec?

"I just want a change so I am moving from Edexcel to AQA."

"WJEC is just easier. I'm changing to that."

"I like the look of OCR."

"It just won't suit my students."

"I'm just staying with Edexcel."

"AQA have always been good to my students."

Like may subjects, the RE world is busy discussing the soon to be approved GCSE Religious Studies options. Since I have been writing a textbook for Edexcel, it would seem foolish to teach anything else; even if it is not perfect, at least I know it very well. However, having looked at the specs from the earliest stages, I think I would struggle to pick which exam board for students to study. I just don't know what my criteria would be.

I've never been a Head of Department. In my first job, we did AQA and my current school we do Edexcel; in both cases, I just got on with it. Both had their advantages, but equally their weaknesses. Is there a 'perfect' exam and spec? I doubt it.

Some things that I think are true:

• All exams will now cover the same content (as set out in DfE documentation)
• All exams will be equally hard (as ensured by OFQUAL)
• All exams will have an equal amount of content (as ensured by OFQUAL)
• All exams will include extended writing

So what things do teachers consider when making a decision:

• Resourcing - Who is writing textbooks? Who is producing online resources? What will they cost?
• Popularity - Linked to the above, the more people teaching it, the more resources will be shared on TES, UKEdChat etc.
• 'Approach' - How have the spec writers organised the material? Is it like the DfE Annexe or has it been rearranged thematically, perhaps around the popular philosophy and ethics themes?
• Assessment - Some teachers prefer a predictable exam structure, some have already show preference for certain types of questions in the published SAMs.
• Marking - How accurate has marking been? Have their been multiple 'marking scandals
• History - I've always done it...

After asking on the Facebook groups Save RE and The RE Teacher's Forum, a few responses got me thinking. Many cited assessment... but then said they simply wanted to be confident in how their students would be assessed. At this stage, when specs and SAMs are not confirmed, how can this be a deciding factor? It can't, yet some people have already made their decision based upon this. I do think assessment is vital, but in certainly feels like a bit of a stab in the dark at the moment. Some have said they like particular mark allocations though, and this is to be confirmed whether they will change or not.

Many of the exam boards seem to be taking a more formulaic approach, which is better for less able students as they can be thoroughly prepared for types of questions. I think in some respects teachers would love an unpredictable paper to really test their students out, but in reality, when we all need to be conscious of grades, we must ensure students do as well as possible.

Content does vary slightly, in so far as some boards are only doing some of the ethics and philosophy themes. This may influence some teachers as they perceive certain topics to be more or less appealing. The popular GCSE themes of euthanasia and abortion now only feature as a small part, which many are disappointed about (I'm not too disappointed, but that's another blog...).

Some are still citing perceived easiness of one board over another, but given the time OFQUAL have spent and the large consultation, it would be disappointing if there was the case. RE teachers have been kept waiting as OFQUAL want to get it right. I really hope they have. I do think it was one of Gove's great ideas that never came to fruition... one exam board for each subject.

Exam boards have been working hard to get the attention, and business, of teachers. Perhaps it will be the boards that offer the most support: schemes of work, free resources, free INSET? Will it be a rush at the start, or will there be imbedded, long term support to help teachers? Sadly only time will tell.

Others have genuinely cited "gut instinct", others 'teachability' or suitability. Others have said they are with an exam board for another subject, and want to stay the same. Some have said they want the fewer changes the better. A few have claimed that they are looking for what is most relevant and engaging... I think this is perhaps the teachers responsibility?

I've picked my GCSE course, but still not sure on A-Level yet... For both A-Level and GCSE, I know I will planning and preparing as I go. I'm not going to get too stressed right now.

Image courtesy of Formico

Are GCSEs Important?

Image courtesy of JISC

"Don't worry about your GCSE results! I never use mine!"

"I can't even remember what I got for my GCSEs!"

"No-one has ever looked at my GCSE certificates!"

These are some of the things I have read today, on GCSE results day, via social networking sites.

I can see how they are easy statements to make as the older you get, the further away the GCSE results day is, the memory fades. The stress, the worry, the nervous anticipation, the hard work in the build up...

Here are a few reasons GCSEs do still matter...

GCSEs often determine sixth form destination

Many schools have a minimum requirement, as do many colleges. Apprenticeship courses and other training programs will also have certain demands. These requirements do drastically vary; some are happy with 4/5 C grades, with Bs in subjects you want to study at A-Level. GCSEs are a good indicator of performance at A-Level and is the only externally verified qualification you have to your name at the start of sixth form study. Your results also directly affect your predicted grades which may be used by sixth forms and colleges to decide on applications. The better your grades, quite simply, the more options you have.

GCSEs determine subject studied at sixth form

The majority of sixth forms only allow students to take A-Levels in subjects where they have achieved A or B grades. Requirements for other courses such as BTECs will vary, depending on the subject. Most sixth forms will require you to redo English and/or Maths if you have not got a C grade at GCSE as a condition of entry. Subjects studied at sixth form will naturally open or close doors for university study or job prospects...

GCSEs may determine which universities you can apply to

Some universities require high A-Level grades. There is an assumed connection and based on your GCSE results, some universities will not consider applications of students who got Bs and Cs at GCSE. Popular universities and competitive courses will naturally be more effected by this.

GCSEs may determine university courses

Most universities want at least Cs in GCSE English, Maths and sometimes Science. Some universities have specific requirements for other subjects, with certain grades... sometimes a B or even an A minimum or preferred. Obviously the subject choice at A-Level often determines university courses and if GCSE grades were limited, this would effect all further study.

GCSEs may determine your career

Some career related courses such as engineering and medicine expect GCSE grades in Sciences and Maths at grade A... some even now specify A*! Social work, teaching and nursing expect at least a C in English, Maths and Science - even if you have A-Levels and/or a degree. Even jobs that do not require higher education have minimum requirements and with the general increased level of expertise and education across the UK, more and more jobs have a competitive field.

BUT GCSEs ARE EASY NOW ANWAY!?

"The job of exams is not to be hard, it is not to be easy...[ ] The job of exams is to test learning and produce adequate differentiation across the full range of candidates. This, amongst other things, is why we need what that charming individual called "Exams for Thick People". The job of an exam is not to let clever people show off, it is to actually assess people, and that means differentiating between D and E grade candidates just as much as it means differentiating between A and B grade candidates. Complaining that exams are getting easier is just a socially acceptable way of complaining that we're no longer restricting education to a privileged elite." Daniel Hemmens

We have never established exactly what GCSEs are for, and O-Levels before them. There is two possibilities:

• Are GCSEs (and A-levels) intended to differentiate pupils to help sixth-form colleges and universities with selection? This would indicate the A*s in any given year are the brightest of the cohort. The ability of an A* in 2014 would not necessarily be the same as an A* in 2004.
• Are GCSEs (and A-Levels) intended to mark a certain standard – an A grade pupil has a certain set of skills, a C grade student a smaller set? This would indicate in any given year that there would be similarity in same-graded students.

Each model would look very different and debate is difficult. Whatever the purpose, to have a universal benchmark in education is difficult. Exams could never stay static and could we ever have two people 20 years apart with a similar exam / qualification?

It cannot be argued that many students are passing more GCSEs and at higher grades. However is it over simplistic to say they are simply getting easier? 

Things to consider:

• It was always tougher in the "good ol' days"!
• Do you actually, with any accuracy remember how hard your GCSEs or O-Levels were? 
• O-Levels were taken by top 25% and many failed while, GCSEs are for the majority of students
• It is increasingly difficult in much employment to not have GCSE grade C in English and Maths
• There is pressure of relatively high unemployment; education/qualifications can help job prospects
• Far more students attend university
• Education has a far greater emphasis in today's society; naturally pressure comes with that
• Teachers (for better or worse) are able to focus teaching for the exam; League Tables/OFSTED forces this!
• Students have greater access than ever before to online resources and websites which can reduce the effect of poor teaching/schools

Remember

There are students who have worked countless hours over the last two years to really achieve their first (of hopefully many!) qualifications. A student who has a clutch of A*-B grades will not necessarily end up with a great job, big house, fast car... but they have done something to set them on their way. Likewise, life is not over for the student who has a set of low grades... there are many ways to make your way in the world. I always tell my students they are worth far more than a set of GCSE grades; they are beautiful and wonderful in so many other ways. However to reduce or belittle anyone's achievements today seems a little mean and unnecessary. 

Congratulations to all students receiving GCSE grades today

However on the flip side... I bloody love this song:

"We busted out of class had to get away from those fools

We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school"