Following the first few years of teaching and assessment, we have spent time reviewing feedback on the effectiveness of our qualification for teachers and students. As a result, we have made some changes to the specification for first teaching in 2019.

We have updated our specification to help teachers teach the content within the time they have more easily. The specification also helps teachers to understand how the content and the assessments work together more clearly.

What has changed?

1. We have rearranged the order of our topics and content to align more naturally with the way a number of teachers choose to deliver the content in the classroom.
2. We have removed repetition of content.
3. Command words have been streamlined. We have five straightforward, clear and exact command words in the specification that make it explicit what is expected of students.
4. There is a little less for you to teach as we have removed some content.

We haven’t made any changes to the structure of our assessments, or the types of questions your students will be asked.

How we are supporting you?

We know that you will have developed lesson plans and we don’t want to add to your workload, so we have published a new scheme of work that should help if you need to make any changes to your delivery.

We’ve also been working very closely with our publishing partner Hodder Education, who are producing a revised textbook that closely aligns with our updated specification. We’ve worked together to refresh some of our case studies and worked examples to help your students become familiar with the knowledge and skills needed in this qualification.

We are hosting two webinars that will add further clarification to these specification updates. The first will be held on 30 April, and will focus on any questions this update may have raised. The second will follow this summer’s exam series on 2 July, and will also answer any questions and focus on delivery of the new specification. For more information and to book a place, see the CPD Hub Page.

For more details of what has changed and how we're supporting you, take a look at our handy FAQ document.

If you would like further information please contact the Economics Subject Team on 01223 553998 or email economics@ocr.org.uk

Qualification

• Economics - H060, H460 (from 2019)