The Political Studies Association continues to be heavily involved in trying to shape the A-level Government and Politics curriculum being developed by the exam boards.

The Department for Education at the end of April charged the awarding bodies to review and update the subject criteria to meet stakeholder needs prior to the development of specifications. The subject criteria sets out the essential knowledge, understanding and skills common to all specifications in a given subject and at a given level. This provides the framework within which an awarding body creates more detailed specifications.

Alongside all three major awarding organisations and a small number of other stakeholders, the PSAs Chair of Education and Skills, Dr Rose Gann, has been working to produce a first draft of the new criteria for the subject. Currently this is still under negotiation between the stakeholder group, Ofqual and the DfE but is planned to be finalised by mid-July. As soon as it is permitted, the criteria will be released for wider consultation, at which point input and comment from PSA members will be invaluable.

To help with this process, work has recently been undertaken by our web developers to create an online discussion forum for teacher members and academics alike to participate in a discussion about the shape the new A-level curriculum should take and the reforms the PSA should promote to the exam boards.

Additionally, we hope that the forum functionality will be a useful tool for teachers to share ideas and generating discussion amongst our ever growing teachers network.

You can access and add to the current forum discussions online here. 

Please note that individuals must be logged into the PSA website to respond to forum posts. Not a member? Then join on-line now: psa.oomi-wp-staging.com/join-psa

Or simply click on the “PSA Communities” drop down tab, click “Schools”, and then click the “Forum” button at the bottom of the right-hand side toolbar.