Teacher support for the GCSE course

Support from Edexcel

The Coursework Guide is available from the Edexcel web site. This is absolutely essential if you are teaching the course for the first time. It gives guidance on the selection of questions for investigation, on monitoring and on marking.

Make sure you have a copy of the Mark Schemes and Examiners. Reports on last year's exams. There are numerous hints to be had, including advice on how to prepare students for the demands of specific papers.

Edexcel offer INSET days which are usually run by examiners. Go to Events for details, or to the Edexcel web site. Group sizes are usually not large and there are opportunities to ask questions and get detailed information.

For up to date advice on setting portfolio work, refer to The Coursework Guide, 2003. (46 KB) Then read 'Building a piece of portfolio work' (36 KB), which uses football as a context for preparing a portfolio piece early on in the course. It can easily be adapted to use in other contexts. Portfolio issues provides advice on coursework assessment, with examiner comments on four specimen portfolio pieces.

Use our revision resources to help students prepare for exams. Building Assessment (37 KB) can be used to show students at both Foundation and Higher level how to analyse and evaluate. It leads them through the requirements of the practice questions.

Understanding command (51 KB) words explains to students how to write exactly what the question asks for.

Use the mock exam paper (40 KB) and mark scheme (47 KB) for practice, for a mock, or to help decide whether to enter students for Foundation or Higher papers.
The Year 10 Mock Exam (47 KB) and Mark Scheme (50 KB) covers the first year of the course.