Any history gcse teachers/parents to help? Nature of warfare exam tips needed to assist underprivileged group of teens.

[Bakingnovice]

Hi. I volunteer with a youth group in a massively deprived area. Many of them have not attended lessons and some are carers of dependant parents/ siblings. We are trying to assist two members of this group with gcse edexcel paper gcse history work. Topic: nature of warfare. I have tried my best but this topic is so wide ranging and I can't find any useful past papers or questions or resources. Can anyone help? Any info provided would be really useful. We are basically trying to ensure these teens end up with reasonable grades. Many of them have not revised or attended class for various reasons.
The exam is on Monday and it feels like a race against time.

Thanks in advance!

Bump. Anyone??

Who are they sitting the exam with, and why have they had no chance to prepare, either with your group or the school / college they're taking the exam with before now?

Sorry if this sounds blaming in any way, but I'm stunned that these students are essentially being crammed now to prepare for an exam in 5 days time.

I did GCSE history, albeit some years ago now, and that covered things like the development of tanks and the machine gun, and their impact in WW1, if that helps.

Hopefully, someone else will be along with a more up to date idea of the syllabus.

You don't sound blaming at all. I feel the same way. Basically these kids live in a very deprived social area. The school they attend has poor results, and is due to be an academy in sept. the history teacher has been off with stress for 4 months.

From what I can see there has been little homework to allow students to go over the work. All lessons have been done during school time with cover support staff. The info is there but these kids have no idea how to apply the knowledge.

My group simply books out the local library for study support sessions. At no charge. All volunteering. We came across these two students on Monday and have been trying to help them. Bear in mind that these students do not have any support at home, are not expected to stay on and study.

Go to the exam board website, download the full spec and download the marking scheme. That should give you a bit of a head start. Check out the studentroom dot com, there are whole threads regarding subject, exam board, level etc, you should get help from there..

As for specifics sorry I can't help but I wish good luck to your students.

Thank you!

The edexcel examiners reports are really helpful as they use real examples of candidates work to show how well they have answered the question. You can get these on the exam board website with the sepcification and past papers.

TES forums online too. Lots of teachers on there that often share knowledge and resources

www.edexcel.com/quals/gcse/gcse09/history/a/Pages/default.aspx may help. sorry but it is not the exam board/syllabus I work with. Try reading marking schemes and also examiners reports. Marking schemes especially as these will give you not only the content they are looking for but the correct technique/style to write the answer. Break it down to the bear minium for them - cover the absolute basics. Also go back over the last 4-5 years worth of exams and 'spot' questions - you will see how the same questions come up every few years, just written a little differently - it can help you predict what may come up. Good luck to all of you. It is not an impossible mountain to climb!

Thank you to all you wonderful ladies!

Try this: www.johndclare.net/
I came across it today when attempting to inspire my 16 year old DS to stop despairing and start acting....