GCSE Natural History - an update from Mary Colwell

A cross-posting from my GCSE Natural History blog. 

This is part of my own personal preparations for teaching the specification potentially, but also to be part of the efforts to support teachers who want to get involved, but don't feel confident that they are naturalists or have the necessary knowledge or skills. 

Geography teachers should certainly be involved in this work if possible. I've spent almost a year now filing away relevant reading in a Google Drive, and also have over 250 posts which have been either published or in draft. Each one could end up being a resource / link / activity / element of a resource / teacher guide. 

We are just waiting for subject criteria and draft specifications to confirm what will actually be included.

A long awaited update, which comes from Mary Colwell - the instigator of the whole project.

She describes a delay in the development and signing off of the subject criteria by the Schools Minister Nick Gibb.

"The criteria have now been written by the secret panel (the whole process is secret) and are now submitted and sitting with Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. Mr Gibb has had them for many months but they have not yet been signed off, there are obviously queries to be answered and there is no time scale given when this will happen. What is certain is that this delay will mean first teaching will now be in 2026, not 2025, as there is so much to do to get schools ready.

It is a complicated business launching a new GCSE, and we know from surveys and communication with schools that there is some concern that teachers feel underconfident about teaching it. Many feel they don’t have the skills, they are worried about resources and are unsure about access to experts and even to wildlife itself."

She rightly says that the National Education Nature Park is part of the plan to make schools into nature reserves.
We are certainly planning to use the school site as a nature reserve. We will be having conversations with all the relevant members of staff and seeking some funding for the growth of a hub of some kind.

She goes on to introduce another level of support for teachers who want to teach the new specification.

"Curlew Action sees the need for local, bespoke teacher and pupil training through what we are calling Nature Hubs.

A Nature Hub is a place to go to learn about being a naturalist.

It will offer training in identification skills, fieldwork, field safety, local ecology, and local natural history.

Nature Hubs will, ideally, be all over the country, connecting need with expertise. It is a big and bold idea, and we it needs blended finance to work, but we are working hard to secure it. We are putting time and effort into this as we know nature needs us to act fast."

The ideas above give a little steer as to the sort of work that is going to be part of the development of support materials.