OCR Pilot GCSE Geography

This was originally posted on my LivingGeography blog.

One offshoot of the GeoVisions project which I have previously blogged about seems to have been the development of a new qualification, which I had the great pleasure of being involved in teaching for three years as I moved towards the end of my first period in the classroom. This was developed in association with OCR, and involved a range of groups. This was related to the idea of GEOGRAPHY 21: a Geography for the 21st Century.

The qualification was the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. It was the best specification I had the pleasure of teaching, and ran it for the last few years of my teaching before I left to join the GA in 2008 as Secondary Curriculum Development Leader.

This was called the OCR Pilot GCSE project.

The GeoVisions sub-group included:

Diane Swift, Chris Durbin, Leslie Warner, Fred Martin, Linda Thompson, Jeremy Krause, John Hopkin, Ian Mack and Lisa Mitchell.

Eleanor Rawling was also involved in the development of the materials, as was Phil Wood from the University of Leicester and also Justin Woolliscroft.

See https://www.geography.org.uk/download/prgcsepilotgcse.doc - a link to the document download from the GA website which has a great deal more information. If you have never heard of this specification before you might be surprised at how it was organised.

The first and second tranches of the Pilot schools were added in 2003 and 2005, and the 3rd tranche was added for teaching in September 2006 - this included my own school: King Edward the Seventh High School in King' Lynn. The GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION had information on the PILOT GCSE run by OCR. 

In total, around 70 schools were involved in the Pilot for this GCSE Specification. Resources and ideas, many of which have been kindly provided by Paula Cooper from King Edward VI 5 Ways school in Birmingham, were also in this area. 

The course had the code 1949.

Using the Web Archive, visit this archived page here. Most links still work through to more information about the specification.

The OCR Pilot GCSE exam was worth 33% of total grade: with 67% coursework

The course was based around 5 key themes: called FUGIS.

  

Fugis from GeoBlogs

Here is the Specification - take a look:

OCR GCSE Pilot Specification 2005 from GeoBlogs

References

Page on my Geography Pages website from 2008 - via Web Archive

GA Support for the Pilot GCSE - via Web Archive

My KES Pilot GCSE Geography blog

Were you involved in teaching the Pilot GCSE? 

Get in touch. I'd like to take a look back at this over the next few years. Is it time to revisit the specification and consider its approach to assessment, given that with CAGs and TAGs, teachers are now being expected to assess students with less exam input.