Edexcel History GCSE 2018

My son is doing OCR so slightly different topics but they are currently doing the last topic and finished in January.

We have found useful, the revision guide for his course but his teacher is fantastic and so my son's own notes are great.

Also YouTube videos, I can highly recommend Gerard O'Toole who is clearly a history teacher, he not only puts across the topic well but also gives you questions that you may get asked.

For us on OCR we have just watched Elizabethans but he covers Western Front, Medicine and the Cold War. Link to him here

My son has made flashcards but also typed up extensive notes. He is very organised so they are in topic order. The main focus for him is the second order concepts so he doesn't just know what happened but why it happened, what came next etc.

Good luck.

@Sakura - thank you an incredibly helpful tip-off! Heartfelt thank you - will head to FB now.
Yes, papers are 1. medicine from 1250 with focus on WW1, 2. Elizabethan England, Cold War 4. US / Civil Rights.

Do you know which options they're studying? There are some good revision guides available, both from Pearson and Hodder. If you ask to join the Edexcel GCSE History Teachers group on Facebook you'll get lots of helpful advice.

Hi all, I'm finding my position in a very similar position. I've been banging my head against trying to get answers out of a less than helpful school....

Eldest sibling now turns to History GCSE, all notes in an unstructured, incoherent mess, teachers unhelpful and still quite a way to go before finishing paper 3... with final assessment just really around the corner. As the history grad in the family, it fell to me to pick this up, so....:

Do you have any recommendations of how to structure revision for GCSE if you are lagging behind? How have parents other tutoring learnt to help answering the new 1-9 GCSE format questions - what turns a 5 into a 9? Have read through specifications and markschemes, but if anyone with example answers and grades from own DDs could you please send them over?

This is for the Pearson Edexcel board - anyone on the same board - any help would be super appreciated!

karriecreamer any update please?

Also teaching the edexcel, I just have paper3 to teach and I am stressing about timing...recommend the official Pearson books/revision guides and maybe a tutor, but please speak to slt at school, they NEED to know this. Good luck.

I’m teaching edexcel. We have done Anglo-Saxons/Normans and Medicine, and are about 2/3 through Weimar. Will finish mid November, leaving us the second half of term 2, and term 3 to do Cold War. That feels very tight as we’re used to finishing all content by Christmas. I can’t imagine how they’re going to get everything done in time.

I can’t believe how dismissive the HoD has been! We would be hauled in front of SLT if we were like that, and I’m in a good school that backs it’s staff. You definitely need to get in touch with SLT, do you know who is responsible for History? I would actually be tempted to just go straight to the Head, tbh. And I never say that!!

I am on the Facebook group. 👋 I know there are teachers on there who are a bit behind but nowhere near as far behind as this. This teacher seems to have got it badly wrong and it's worrying that she doesn't even seem to realise that she will not finish the course. It's a shocking failure of basic numeracy and planning.

I'm with Dumbledore. She's got something like 'American West' and 'Weimer and the Nazis' to do yet, depending on the topics chosen.

Her second half of Paper 2 should take 12 weeks (ie Christmas to Easter). Paper 3 is the big one and it was made very clear to us on an Edexcel training day that staff MUST leave 18 weeks to teach it.

In addition, these timings are frankly wildly delusional (from the exam board) as to what is needed. All teachers are tearing their hair out (Dumbledore - are you on Edexcel FB group? - waves frantically) over the HUGE amount of content we are supposed to cover and the fact that we are really, really struggling to get skills in too.

I have taught (at the speed of light; far too fast for kids) British Depth Study Sept-Dec Y10, Period Study, Jan - Easter Y10, Thematic Study Easter - July. Just finishing Depth Study bit of Crime and Punishment. And will be starting Paper 3 after half term - until Easter. That will be me finished and then frankly having to go back over skills etc for revision.

Your DDs HoD has failed miserably in my opinion.

Well I completely got my facts wrong and my DD is doing IGCSE so the syllabus has not changed and she is just sitting two papers .... on the 4th and the 8th ....Its just a pity that this peer group is going into these exams under different pressures - some like my DD will have an much easier task ... hopefully the grade boundaries will be lower karriecreamer - it seems so unfair.

The teacher is delusional. She's never going to finish the course in time and tbh it's now too late for her to rectify the problem properly. Her class are going to be doing a lot of self teaching under stressful conditions. I think a lot of schools have struggled with timing on this syllabus but your DD's school is an extreme example. They will have covered just 50% of the course by the time my class will have done 80% and I am only just going to finish on time. Her teacher will have two and a half times more content to get through than I will and will have the most difficult exam technique (paper 3) to teach.
I'd kick up a big fuss as this is completely insane.

Thank you - how thick am I...was looking at 2017 timetable !

you are looking at edexcel history GCSE 2018?
If so, then you could ask your DC which options they are taking, but you don't need to know that to know the times and dates:

Paper 1 is in the morning of 4/6/18 and last 1hr 15
Paper 2 is in the morning of 8/6/18 and last 1hr 45
Paper 3 is in the afternoon of 12/6/18 and last 1hr 20

Not everyone does Weimar Republic for example. There are other options, but whatever options your DC's school decided upon, the 3 papers your DC will sit are listed above.

(At least that's my guess)

Hope you manage to get a result from the SLT....I was looking at exam timetables and it does look like History is 5th/14th and 20th June so at least its not in May....sorry to butt in on your thread but can anyone explain the timetable for History - I don't understand all the different units ?

I hope you are going to forward her email in its entirety as an attachment to your's to the SLT, and yours will be respectful, considered, polite but dripping with deep concern...!
Leave the SLT with no option but to address what is going on in their school.

Computer Science is a new exam but my DD found that she still was able to use past papers from previous exams to assist her (she just went through papers answering what she could and just reading and absorbing some of the other information - which did help) I think the same will apply on History because some of the topics are the same so its still work practising questions....although working through the revision guide is probably easier.

The exams are new so there are no past papers. There will be practise questions in the textbooks though. I agree that you should contact the SLT line manager. The Head of Year or form tutor won't be able to tackle this, they'll refer it on to the teacher herself which will probably not get you anywhere.

Don’t bother asking for a meeting with the head of year or form tutor. You need the member of SLT who line leads humanities. Phone the school and ask the secretary who that is and for their email address and set out your concerns to that person.

Are the past papers similar enough to the 2018 exams to be worth doing?
I thought that the exams had all changed completely. I'd be glad to be told I'm wrong

I spoke to my DD today about History - I was totally wrong in saying she was doing AQA...she is also doing Edexcel....they are working on Weimar at the moment. She also said that her lunchtime clinics were really beneficial because they are going through questions that are similar but require a totally different answer - where some children misinterpret the questions. If I was in your situation i would get your DD to look at some past papers and read the answers to the questions and practice them for the topics she has not yet covered ....My DD did some Computer Science questions for area's they had not covered in May before her MOCKS and she was able to answer some questions she was not expected too..although I am not sure whether this would work with history.

What have you decided to do, OP?
You've had a few options and no one saying that it's probably ok and your DD is where she should be
You could choose:
a tutor and / or a big Amazon order for all the text books and revision guides etc.
A chance for the teacher to meet with you to allay your concerns?
An appeal to the school to look at what's going on in the history dept?
Nothing until parents night?
Nothing at all.

Hmm, I teach Edexcel GCSE History and we covered Crime and Punishment and American West last year, will be finished with Elizabethan England by November, leaving just Weimar to teach before starting revision. Do you know how many lessons a week your DD has? We have 3 lessons a week. Will you have a parents' evening any time soon that you could discuss this at if there's an issue with communication with this member of staff? Alternatively there might be a head of humanities or similar? It does seem like your daughter's teacher is going to struggle to complete the course with enough time for focused revision.

I'm teaching Middle East. It will take us from Christmas until after Easter on its own. We do USA not Weimar but we started that in late May/early June last year and won't finish until Christmas.