Changes and celebration for GCSE Citizenship Studies

Lisa Winnington, Subject Support Co-ordinator

In this blog I’ll share the latest news about our GCSE Citizenship Studies qualification, including updates from the Association for Citizenship Teaching
annual conference in June.

Association for Citizenship Teaching Conference 2023

The Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) holds an annual conference that brings together teachers and other interested parties to discuss and exchange ideas that support quality citizenship teaching.

Along with a colleague, Sara Mallet, I attended this year’s conference which was held at the Institute of Education (IOE) at University College London (UCL). The theme this year was Climate Empowerment – the role of Citizenship and Personal Development Teachers.

It was great to attend this event and meet and share ideas and experiences with teachers, practitioners and other stakeholders. There were workshops throughout the day – really beneficial sessions to talk to teachers about their experience of teaching the subject and gain beneficial insight from teachers to drive the future of citizenship teaching. Here are a couple of my highlights from the conference:

• The Green Schools Project workshop, led by Barney Green, on how citizenship studies can help schools go carbon zero. There are projects enabling students to learn about carbon emissions and raise their awareness of what schools can do to address the climate crisis. The project links into what the school is currently doing as well as looking at both short and long term action that can be taken to change the way schools respond to the climate and nature crisis. There’s more information about the project on their website. 
  
  
• The conversations with teachers around how they deliver the qualification, and the approach that they take with the active citizen aspect of the specification. This is such valuable networking, not only for us to gain insight into elements of the specification that teachers like, but also to gain suggestions for further support they would like us to offer. 

The Citizenship Teaching Awards

The Citizenship Teaching Awards were held immediately after the ACT conference. These awards recognise and celebrate schools, teachers and organisations who have shown commitment to citizenship education and represent its core values. It was a great evening to celebrate everyone’s achievements.

Amended specification for GCSE Citizenship Studies

We have made changes to the specification to reflect the UK’s departure from the European Union (EU). The changes relation to two sections of the specification: Section 2: Democracy and government and Section 3: The UK and the wider world.

The specification content changes will be first assessed in June 2025 series. For more details on the changes please see the subject update.

Follow us on Twitter

In July we launched our brand new Twitter (X) account for GCSE Citizenship Studies so make sure you follow us @OCR_Citizenship to keep up to date on news, articles and resources.

Stay connected

If you have any questions about supporting students with GCSE Citizenship Studies, please get in touch with Lisa Winnington at ocr.citizenship@ocr.org.uk. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive email information about resources and support.

About the author

Lisa is a Subject Support Co-ordinator and has worked for Cambridge University Press & Assessment in various roles since 2000, most recently in Compliance. Lisa is responsible for a range of subjects including law, citizenship and the Extended Project Qualification.