Education and Guiding in 2010

2009/2010 will see Girlguiding UK move forward on a journey of adventures. Education and the experiences young people in the UK will have in education are also travelling on a similar journey of change. The changes to Education in the UK should be of interest to all active Guide and Senior Section Guiders as it may lead to new challenges but also opportunities.

In 2009, a new more flexible Key Stage 3 Strategy (for young people who are in Years 7-9 in Secondary School) was introduced. You may find that some of your girls are now studying for their GCSEs whilst in Year 9.

2009 -2011 will see considerable changes to GCSE qualifications in England and for a change; these changes may benefit voluntary organisations like Girlguiding UK. Firstly, the examination focus is no longer on one final exam at the end of the 2-year course. Most 14-16 years olds will now sit GCSE modular exams at Christmas and June in Year 10 (aged 14 or 15) and then again at Christmas and June in Year 11 (aged 15 or 16).

These changes relieve the pressure on young people and allow the workload to be spread across the whole 2 year course. There have also been considerable changes to GCSE Coursework. Girls will no longer be expected to complete coursework at home or out-of-school hours. GCSE coursework is now called ‘Controlled Assessment’. This has to be completed in school and young people aren’t allowed to work on this at home. This will relieve some of the workload also for 14-16 year olds.

2008 saw the beginning of a new post-16 (sixth from/college) curriculum. Many of the changes are similar to those at GCSE. Girls who are in sixth form or college may study a mixture of A’levels or BTECs. A’level courses are now split into 4 modules and young people can take exams in January or June of Year 12 and Year 13. Like the new GCSEs, there are limited pieces of coursework and in most subjects, there is no coursework at all. However, if girls are studying a BTEC course, this is mostly coursework with maybe only one or two exams.

Hopefully these changes will mean that out-of-school commitments, such as Girlguiding UK, will no longer be plagued with the problems of ‘I have too much coursework’ or young people getting overly stressed by final exams. Flexible Guiding will have to consider the more regular exams girls are going to have at GCSE and A’level however, the new format means that most young people will have exams at the same time.

If you would like any more information about changes to education, or just to find out a little bit more please don’t hesitate to contact me.