Following a public consultation, the Department for Education has confirmed changes to French, German and Spanish GCSEs, supported by a research review by Ofsted, to help students build confidence and excel in learning languages.

In the updated GCSEs, students will be assessed on the most common vocabulary used in conversations and writing, as well as grammar and pronunciation, increasing clarity for teachers and improving the practical benefits for students.

Research shows that a focus on these ‘building blocks’ enables students to more clearly see progress in their ability to understand and use the language, and in turn grow in confidence and motivation.

The changes aim to fulfil the government’s ambition for 90% of Year 10 pupils to study EBacc subjects for GCSE by September 2025. So far, over 95% of students have been entered for GCSE English, maths and science and over 80% in humanities subjects, and the government wants to increase the number of students studying language GCSEs too.

The consultation was based on recommendations from an expert panel chaired by Ian Bauckham and received 1,644 responses, with the majority from language teachers agreeing with the proposals. The plans for the new French, German and Spanish GCSEs reflect sector feedback, giving exam boards an additional year to develop them.

Schools Minister Robin Walker said: “Studying languages opens up a world of new, exciting opportunities for people and is hugely important for a modern global economy.

“That’s why we want more young people to take up modern language GCSEs, and these evidence-based changes aim to do just that – making these qualifications more well-rounded and accessible, and helping more young people to enjoy learning languages.”

The revised GCSEs will start to be taught in September 2024, with first exams being held in 2026. The changes to the language GCSEs include:

• Students will be assessed on the basis of 1,200 ‘word families’ at foundation tier GCSE and 1,700 ‘word families’ in higher tier GCSE
• An example of a word family could be ‘manage’, ‘managed’ and ‘manages’. Exam boards will select topics and themes to inform the selection of key vocabulary, as opposed being prescribed in the subject content
• At least 85 per cent of the ‘word families’ will be selected from the 2,000 most frequently occurring words in a language to make sure students have a good knowledge of the most common words

Ofqual has also confirmed the assessment approach today, following a public consultation, which sets out the revised assessment objectives and confirms that the current use of tiered assessments and non-exam assessment (NEA) will continue. Ofqual will now conduct a public technical consultation on the details of assessment requirements and then exam boards will develop GCSE specifications, ready to be taught from September 2024.

Teachers can download self-contained lessons featuring video and resources, which link to the primary science curriculum and uses the Ocean as a tool for exploring the curriculum. The lessons are totally accessible and easy for teachers to use and have been piloted through the Connect Academy Trust.

In addition, the Ocean Conservation Trust is launching virtual tours, where visitors can virtually pass between the three distinct zones of the aquarium; the first covering local coasts and rockpool shallows and marine life that’s found slightly off shore; the second exhibits the inhabitants of the Atlantic Ocean, where some of the aquarium’s biggest animals live – such as the sharks and turtles; and the third region covering the tropical reefs – with familiar favourites Nemo and Dory – as well as follow up science activities, there are follow up art and literacy activities; all of which will be evaluated to see what learning has taken place. The tours will be given by marine biologists and scientists, working with trained teachers and youth workers who also have marine science qualifications.

The Ocean Conservation Trust is offering these virtual tours so that pupils all over the UK have the chance to learn about the Ocean. Living in the UK, no one is ever further than 70 miles from sea, but these virtual guides and lessons mean distance is not an issue. Next year sees the start of the UN Decade of the Ocean and the virtual tours and lesson plans are aimed to get the UK off to flying start. Alongside the tour, activities and lesson plans are offered as a package bundle giving users up to 2- or 3-days’ worth of activities and homework.

The virtual tours will be bespoke – and the National Marine Aquarium is the only aquarium in the world offering this – where one class or potentially two will be taken on an hour and a half virtual tour, which is the same length as an in-person tour. The class will be taken around the aquarium, work interactively and the children will have the opportunity to ask questions as if they were really in the aquarium.

The resources will also be updated every term, so what is in place for the autumn term will be updated for the spring term, with the charity reinvesting the money into the project. Ahead of the launch a teacher survey was conducted to see what was wanted from the learning packages and the tours and plans will be continually updated with any feedback. The only equipment needed at the schools’ end is a projector – and speakers ideally – basically what teachers would usually use to show a film to the class.

The Ocean Conservation Trust is not only concerned with general conservation – the charity wants to help educate and is aware that teachers are looking for things to support them in the classroom; how to make the curriculum interesting – particularly over the coming months when travel and school trips will be limited.

https://oceanconservationtrust.org/support-us/schools/

The experiments covered in the videos encourage youngsters to investigate a series of real-life activities across biology, chemistry and physics and are relevant to the curriculum across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They tackle topics such as working out how to clean dirty water; investigating whether plants need soil to grow; learning how exercise affects heart rate and why different types of chocolate have different melting points; figuring out how to change the pitch and volume of a sound with instruments made in the classroom and identifying what factors affect the size of shadows.

Each set of videos focuses on one experiment and features two teacher facing videos and two student videos for use in the classroom. The teacher facing videos feature Professor Brian Cox alongside a teacher who shares their experience of setting up and carrying out the experiments and their advice for overcoming some of the common difficulties that can occur. The videos for students illustrate the real life context for the experiments that they are working on, for example a visit to the Thorntons factory in Derby links to the experiment investigating the melting point of chocolate and a look inside an urban hydroponics farm that grows lettuces reveals that plants don’t always need to grow in soil. Real life scientists in their labs carrying out more advanced examples of the students’ experiments also feature.

In 2013 a report published by SCORE, Resourcing practical science in primary schools, found that a worrying number of primary students were not experiencing a complete science education due to a lack of resources for practical work. The study found that the average primary school had only 46% of the necessary equipment needed and that the amount of money spent on practical science varied greatly from school to school.

Professor Brian Cox, Professor for Public Engagement, says, “I have been delighted to be involved in filming these video resources, travelling around the country and meeting teachers and pupils who are inspired by science and involved in exciting, practical science in the classroom. If we want to produce the scientists and engineers of tomorrow, we need to inspire young people by putting creative experimentation at the heart of the science curriculum. We hope that these videos will be a useful resource that will help teachers who might not have a science background to feel confident to deliver practical science in the classroom.”

Adds teacher and science coordinator Sophie Donovan from Britannia Village Primary School in London, and one of the teachers featured in the video resources, “These resources will offer a clear explanation and demonstration of an outstanding science lesson. We hope that this will encourage Newly Qualified Teachers and less confident teachers, to take more risks and enjoy teaching science week in, week out. The filming process was extremely interesting and exciting for me, and the children thoroughly enjoyed partaking in this fantastic event.”

The conference, which will be held at East Midlands Conference Centre on March 25^th and 26^th, comes a month after the Select Committee on Digital Skills called on the future Government to establish a single and cohesive Digital Agenda to secure the UK’s position as a digital leader.

The foundation of the report is based on the real concern that that the UK ‘will be left behind in this new digital era’, something that will be addressed at this year’s Naace Strategic Conference.

Roger Broadie, Naace Board of Management member and tutor on the Naace KS3 Computing, will be joined by inspirational speakers and educational technology sector experts to discuss and share ideas on how to significantly raise achievement through technology enhanced connected-world learning. The objective of the conference is to establish a strategy to tackle the widened ICT, digital literacy and computer science requirements.

“We will be discussing the importance of the computing curriculum and how it is as essential as literacy and numeracy”, said Broadie. He continued, “The shortage of young people capable of filling jobs in the technology sector is not sustainable and needs to be addresed urgently.

“Computing teachers have, on average, one hour of contact time per week per class. Many teachers are justifiably concerned that teachers of other subjects do not embed computing into their teaching. As high levels of computing knowledge and skills are now essential that digital literacy is a skill included across the curriculum. Many children are not getting the computing education they need.

“It is now time for language, media and art teachers to take full responsibility for teaching the creative and graphical sides of computing, for maths teachers to teach about spreadsheets and algorithms, and for all subjects to include relevant aspects of computing and data handling.”

Sessions scheduled throughout the Naace Strategic Conference will explore the different challenges schools face in embedding this extremely important skill set into the curriculum.

The Naace Strategic Conference returns to the East Midlands Conference Centre on 25th – 26th March 2015.

Developed in collaboration with a range of partners including the BFI, the Bradford Media Literacy Project, NI Creative Learning Centres and a wide variety of subject associations and CPD practitioners, the programme consists of two key strands: Literacy CPD designed to improve literacy through the use of film as text, and Filmmaking CPD designed to enhance curricular learning through the use of filmmaking.  Training is available free for groups of 15 participants or more, with sessions ranging in length from 30 minutes to a full day and tailored to meet the needs of individual schools.

Into Film’s Literacy CPD demonstrates the benefits of using film as text to develop learners’ critical thinking, analytical and contextualisaton skills – skills equally applicable to and transferable between film and literary texts.   Educators are introduced to the key concepts of colour, character, camera, story, setting and sound – the 3Cs and 3Ss – and how learners can use these to analyse and decode film and other texts.  Activities – designed to suit different age-groups –   include games and activities to develop identification and analysis of different camera shots, learning how to construct a story and use character analysis in scriptwriting, analysing use of sound, expressing thoughts and opinions on a piece of film and exploring mise-en-scene.

The Filmmaking Programme emphasises film as a teaching tool to encourage deep and active learning across a range of subjects and facilitates young people taking control of their own learning processes.   With a firm focus on filmmaking without specialist equipment, sessions range from Record and Playback, ShoeBox Set Design and Introduction to Animation, to 5,4,3,2,1 – a framework for simple filmmaking using tablets, flip cameras or smartphones.

Teachers already working with film have welcomed its positive impact.  In a recent survey  96% said their students were more engaged with the curriculum, 86% said their students were more imaginative and creative, 76% said their students had improved speaking and listening skills, 74% said their students had improved critical thinking and enquiry skills and 72% said their students had improved literacy skills.

According to Colm Hackett of Hazelwood Integrated College, “Using film to teach improve literacy promotes a more democratic and inclusive method of teaching. We, as teachers, have to meet the challenge of engaging all children. As they are already a visually literate generation this is the best way I have found to do so.”

For full details of the Into Film CPD Programme visit: http://www.intofilm.org/schools-training-and-development

To book a free training session for 15 or more staff email CPD@intofilm.org or ask to speak to the CPD team on 020 7288 4520.

These frameworks are available to schools free of charge, and allow teachers to track pupil progress against the new National Curriculum for Years 1 to 6.

The frameworks were designed in association with Cornwall Learning (previously Cornwall Local Education Authority) to replace the system of levels and give schools a new  ‘ladder of progression’ for the core subjects.

Progression statements are given for each year group, covering all the expectations of the Programmes of Study for English, mathematics and science. Statements are clearly organised so that teachers can see how pupils are expected to progress through Key Stages 1 and 2. Each progression statement is accompanied by ‘what to look for’ guidance notes for children working towards, meeting and exceeding expectations. These notes enable teachers to evaluate individual pupil’s progress against the statement and to identify the next steps in learning. The frameworks are fully editable so that schools can adapt them to meet their own specific needs.

Andrea Carr, managing director of Rising Stars, said “In the absence of national curriculum levels, schools are looking for alternative ways to track pupil progress during the primary years to ensure that as many children as possible reach or exceed what is expected by the end of each Key Stage. We drew on Cornwall Learning’s expertise to ensure the Framework is designed to meet the requirements of both schools and Ofsted.”

The Progression Frameworks are now available FREE to download at http://www.risingstars-uk.com/progfram/