News

From September, A level Economics students will be required to learn about the global financial crisis for the first time.

They will learn about:

• factors that contributed to the crisis (including moral hazard, speculation and market bubbles)
• the role of banking regulation 
• monetary and fiscal policy instruments, including quantitative easing
• policy responses to the crisis, comparing and contrasting these with policy responses to the Great Depression of 1929.

Students of Pearson'€™s Edexcel syllabus will also study the use of 'national wellbeing' and '€˜national happiness' as measures of economic growth for the first time. They will compare and contrast these measures of economic performance with more traditional methods, exploring the limitations of both in comparing living standards between countries and over time.

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On 7 April 2015, we published our new, draft specification for Edexcel History GCSE, to be taught in schools from September 2016.

Pearson will be offering a single, unified specification, designed to offer maximum topic choice and flexibility for teachers across three exam papers.

The new course will include topics that teachers will know and recognise to choose from, such as ‘Russia and the Soviet Union (1917-41)’, ‘Weimar and Nazi Germany (1918-39) and ‘The American West, c1835-c1895’, as well as new topics, including:

• Spain and the ‘New World’ (1490-1555)
• British America: Empire and Revolution (1713-83)
• Conflict in the Middle East (1945-95)
• The reigns of King Richard I and King John (1189-1216).

The new requirement for a study of the ‘historic environment’ has been embedded within the thematic studies paper, so teachers can choose from:

• Victorian London’s East End, under ‘Whitechapel: crime and policing (1870-1900)’ in the Crime and Punishment through time thematic study
• Conditions in which the British wounded were cared for on the Western Front, under ‘The British sector of the Western Front: surgery and treatment (1914-18)’ in the Medicine through time thematic study
• Life in London during the Blitz, under ‘London and the Second World War (1939-45)’ in the Warfare through time thematic study.

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Students with sight loss or dyslexia will benefit from text and reading books being made available in accessible formats through a free online service.

Pearson has teamed up with Load2Learn, a web-based service delivered by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Dyslexia Action, to offer access to its titles for UK schools and colleges in alternative formats.

Pearson is making thousands of its books available, across Early Years, all Key Stages, GCSE, A-level and BTEC. As well as PDFs, Load2Learn offers a means to access the most popular titles in Word, EPUB, audio and Braille. Teachers can now access texts within hours rather than days, saving time and allowing staff more opportunity to support students in their learning.

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Rod Bristow, president of Pearson’s UK and core markets, has responded to the Ofqual report on qualification purchasing behaviours in schools and colleges.

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A new report from CentreForum says that ‘pupil progress’ should be the principal league table measure for primary schools in England.

The report, sponsored by Pearson, argues that the government should revise its plan to overhaul primary school league tables.

The Chair of the Education Select Committee described the report as “excellent” and said he hopes the Department for Education will “give it the consideration it deserves”.

Government proposals

Under coalition proposals announced in 2014, primary schools in England will be held to account by two new league table measures to replace the longstanding attainment measure.

The present measure requires 65% of pupils in every primary school to achieve level 4 in their SATs exams at age 11. But under the new tougher regime, the expected attainment level per school will be raised to 85%.

Those primary schools that fail to meet this more aspirational standard will instead be held to account by an alternate measure tracking pupils’ progress over time.

The new progress measure will require a baseline assessment of pupils in their first half term of reception. This will be used to measure the progress pupils have made by age 11 compared to others who were assessed to be at a similar level of attainment at the start of primary school.

Make ‘pupil progress’ the principal league table measure for primary schools

While welcoming the government’s push to raise standards for all pupils, CentreForum says that the new regime should be concerned chiefly with measuring pupil progress – as the government resolved to do at secondary school level in response to CentreForum’s earlier analysis.

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