Vocal Voices

The new Natural History GCSE from 2025 hopes to bring together elements from geography - geology, industrialisation, population, agriculture, urbanisation - with parts of the sciences - chemistry, marine environment, biology, atmospherics, flora and fauna - in order for pupils to understand the world around them in a connected way.

These topics have all been studied since the introduction of the national curriculum, but they were done in isolation from each other. Maybe this new ideal will make them more relevant to today's young and give them the tools to make the necessary changes or at least debate them.

Hopefully the breadth of the subject will be interesting and lead them to want to know more. Rather than wading through dry material which is overly specific and in too much depth for people who need/want a broader view.

I absolutely agree.

When I was at school all the topics were covered but in separate subjects and with no reference to each other. So, for instance, industrialisation was in geography and the atmosphere and water cycle were in science, yet they are inextricably linked. All are pretty "dry" on their own but combined they raise many questions of added interest.

I can think of lots of other examples where combinations of topics in various subjects open up new thinking. It is certainly a subject I would pick for a GCSE.

Like applied maths with real world engineering and, perhaps, things like orbital mechanics. Where you can really see the math in action and understand how it applies to the real world. Allowing those going to Uni to have a broader view of what they may want to achieve.

It is all very well saying "integral calculus will allow you to calculate the volume under a curve". It is an entirely different thing to show people how to use integral calculus to calculate the volume of liquid in a cylindrical tank with curved ends, so that you can graduate a dipstick or create a fill gauge; quite hard as the relative movement of the float will be more at the bottom, less in the middle and more at the top again for the same volume of liquid. These real world applications actually interest some people who would be turned off by very dry numbers on a page and a few sectional diagrams.