My Little 2.0 Project

After what seemed like an eternity, the day of the Launch Event arrived. Various members of our team logged on, curiosity piqued to see what all this 2.0 malarkey was about. I sat and fidgeted. My notebook in front of me, with my wish list, underlined and highlighted. Was this really what I was looking for? I tried to ignore that niggling doubt and clicked the link.

It was clear from the onset, that this had been a labour of love for all involved. Even better, the team were FE teachers, creating a new qualification based on their experiences. They understood the frustration of getting students through their GCSE for the second, third, or even fourth time sitting. They had experienced the battle with students, who had become dejected and felt like failures. This qualification had been designed with an understanding of students who were just not quite getting the concept, or the grade boundaries had changed again, leaving them 1 or 2 marks short of that all magical 4. The twinges of doubt were starting to dissolve.

The team moved through the slides, explaining how the qualification meets the GCSE expectations and cross referencing it to all existing boards- This could work. I sat up a little straighter when they started to talk about the papers, this was what I really wanted to know. The first image I saw was from a 19th Century text, and it had a picture!? It was a sketch of a lady lifting what looked like weights. We were informed the text was about calisthenics exercises. This was something new, 19th Century texts, which could be fun to teach. Point three on my wish list received a big tick! Ok don’t get too excited, there’s still comparison of texts, question language and having a friendlier feel to it. The team continued, unaware of the excitement that was bubbling up in their audience.

I soon learnt that there would be no 19th Century and 20th century text comparison. Check! There were clear bullet points, stating what students needed to include in their answers- the ambiguity was removed deliberately! The papers would both be split into 7 questions instead of 5 with a focus on skills.

There was one thing that made me pause: how would comparing the opinion of writers work using fiction and non fiction texts? It was explained that you can compare the opinions of characters from the fiction text, with that of the writer of the non fiction text. I was not completely convinced on this, but it was stressed that there would be free training opportunities, and each question would be broken down. This squashed my doubts, I would be more than capable of teaching that last big question. After all, hadn’t I proven that with some training, I could teach anything, and excel? (Flashback to my Roman days!)

What about stretch and challenge? I could see immediate advantages for the less able, so I wanted to know how more able students could be pushed. It was explained that the qualification was from grade 1-9. The mark scheme had been designed to reward concepts- the greater the understanding, the more marks. I could challenge more able students to develop their higher level thinking skills. Given the clear question guidance, they would not get tripped up, freeing them to focus instead on what is in the text, and the details of their explanation. This could actually work!

For me the icing on the cake was the writing section. Students would be given a planning box and choices for both papers. These choices included a paragraph starter, or a bullet point list for the transactional writing. Was this not exactly what I was looking for!?! Creative writing: there would be a sentence starter and a ‘write about a time’ question. Don’t like the provided picture of the past paper? No problem, you have two. Did I hear right? This exam board is essentially giving my students the choice of four different stories to write about? I was hooked!

Everything on my wish list and more was offered! It couldn’t be true, but here it was, all tied up in a neat little package AND topped off with a shiny, big, red, bow! This was a wonderful new opportunity that I had to share with my students! I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I was ready. I immediately contacted my HOD, begging to be the person to trial it.

(For anyone wanting to make the change to 2.0, the recording of the launch event is available on the Pearson website.)