In my day job we’ve always used Edexcels maths GCSE (we did have a dabble in the early days with the OCR Graduated Assessment modular thingy) but as “JustMaths” I’m quite open to helping any of the boards in supporting teachers in whatever way I can, which is why I’m sharing some information sent to me.
This week Darren Macey who is a subject specialist (maths) with OCR contacted me to tell me that OCR’s new GCSE specification had been accredited by Ofqual and he also sent me some links to information and sample assessment materials which can be found here <here> (and will be updated over the next few days).
They are also trying to engage with the wider teaching community including:
- Friday twitter puzzles through @OCR_maths #OCRMathspuzzle
- Production of a monthly podcast. Episode 1 is available on YouTube here<episode 1> and they are planning to record a GCSE specific episode very soon and hopefully the next one will be available on iTunes.
In addition to this they are developing resources to support teaching and CPD events that will run in the lead up to September 2015.
In his mail he goes onto say that there “will be challenges to teachers around delivery of the new specifications and we would like to be able to help answer any questions” so if you do have any burning issues I am sure he would be more than happy to help … Darren.Macey@ocr.org.uk
This whole new GCSE “thing” has got me thinking about how crucial the support that we get from exam boards will be over the next 32ish months until June 2017, and I’m thinking that it would be useful to do a “compare and contrast” of the support that is provided from the 3 major boards … not about the specs, but more about what we can expect from them in terms of contact, resources, conferences, training etc .. sound good?
I’m going to let the dust settle for a couple of months and wait for all of them to “show their hands” (read that as: Tell me!) in terms of their plans leading up to the delivery of the exam and then put something together. Quite excited about that and think it will be interesting to do … I’m hoping that they will all tick the box of any resources being produced having been put together by “real teachers” doing the same job as me day in, day out! (note to self: do “pretend teachers” exist??)
