ABOUT THIS COURSE

This course refreshed for Spring 204 aims to provide teachers who are new to, or in their first few of years of, teaching Pearson A-level Politics with everything they need to teach the course well. The course focuses on the core areas of UK Politics, UK Government, and Comparative Politics and will equip delegates with a thorough understanding of the Pearson specification and its assessment objectives. It brings together a wealth of experience from the classroom and exam marking, to provide attendees with tips vital to starting out as a teacher of Politics, and will help develop the classroom ideas, planning and marking skills necessary to become a confident and successful A-Level Politics teacher.

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BENEFITS OF ATTENDING

• Gain a thorough understanding of the requirements of Pearson A-Level Politics
• Take away strategies on how to plan and manage the content of a two-year course
• Learn what level of depth is appropriate
• Develop a confident understanding of the assessment objectives and mark schemes
• Analyse a range of sample answers to understand the standard and how students can achieve it
• Take away ideas on exam and essay technique in Pearson A-level Politics
• Gain teaching ideas and approaches for A-Level Politics across all three papers
• Ensure students keep up with contemporary political developments, and learn how to apply them to their existing understanding

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PROGRAMME

Overview of the Pearson A-Level Politics course including challenges and what to expect from pupils

10.00 – 11.00am

• Ensuring students and teachers hit the ground running in September – introducing the scheme of work and baseline assessment
• Recognising which areas will be most challenging for you and how to address these issues l Identifying your support network and making the most of it – particularly in a small department or single teacher department
• Ensuring topic areas which create the foundation for success – incorporating them into every lesson.

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Break and informal discussion

11.00 – 11.15am

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Tackling the Challenging Content of Pearson A-Level Politics

11.15 – 12.00pm

• Planning and teaching the more demanding topics – identifying what these are and how to factor them into your teaching
• Making complicated concepts easy
• Teaching ideas, related questions and supporting resources to help improve student understanding
• Teaching for the different types of questions, with examples, so that you can help students access all the available marks
• Designing formative assessment and feedback through focussed starters and plenaries into your teaching

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Teaching Component 1: UK Politics

12.00 – 12.45pm

• Assessment objectives – what do students need to know?
• How to score high marks in Section A: Political Participation
• Essay planning for Question 3 – Core Political Ideas
• What is the examiner looking for? Exploring exemplar answers

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Lunch

12.45 – 1.45pm

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Component 2: UK Government and Political Ideas

1.45 – 2.30pm

• Approaches and tips to the UK Government questions on the core ideas
• Successfully navigating the Section B extract question
• How and where to use your own knowledge in Non-Core Political Ideas
• Top essay tips for the optional Political Ideas essay question
• Dos, don’ts and timing l What can go wrong on the day?

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Afternoon tea and informal discussion

2.30 – 2.45pm

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Key Ideas for Teaching Comparative Politics: Component 3

2.45 – 3.30pm

• A03 – why does it matter so much?
• How to evaluate in Section B source questions
• Using sentence starters effectively and reaching valid judgements
• Exploring effective paragraphs, analysing what makes them work