DoRevision
Teacher guide

Edexcel GCSE Citizenship Studies revision

These activities are mapped to Edexcel GCSE Citizenship Studies 1CS0. Citizenship carries a problem no other subject on this site has: part of what students need is settled and part of it changes while they are studying it. Ours cover the settled part. Statute, institutions and process: Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration, the European Convention, the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, how a bill becomes law, how a case reaches a court. The most recent event named anywhere in them is the UK leaving the EU in 2020, and no serving politician appears at all. That is a decision rather than an oversight. The current examples your students argue about are the part you bring, because anything we wrote would have dated before they sat the paper.

This page lists what we actually have for Edexcel GCSE Citizenship Studies 1CS0. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The half that does not date

Every other board and subject page on this site can be written once. Citizenship cannot, because a good part of the course is whatever is happening.

So these activities are built on the part that holds still. The dates that appear across the eighteen are 1215, 1945, 1948, 1950, 1998, 2010, 2016 and 2020: Magna Carta, the founding of the UN, the Universal Declaration, the European Convention, the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, the referendum and the UK's departure. Nothing more recent than 2020 is named, and no serving politician is named at all.

That is not because more recent material would be harder to write. It is because a revision activity naming a minister is wrong within the year, and a student revising from something wrong is worse off than a student revising from nothing.

The half we do not carry, and will not

A Citizenship course needs current examples. A campaign running now, a case in the news, an argument the class actually disagrees about. None of that is here.

It is the part of the subject a person in the room does well and a stored activity does badly, so the split is deliberate rather than a gap we intend to close. What it buys you is time: the framework is the slow, repetitive half to teach and revise, and it is the half that can be handed over.

If you plan a year of revision, plan for the framework to come off this site and the examples to come off you. Where that sits in a whole year is covered in the GCSE revision year.

Themes and papers line up

Five themes, with nothing beneath them.

  • Paper 1 is Themes A, B and C, one section each.
  • Paper 2 takes Theme E as Section A, and Theme D across Sections B and C.

For Paper 1 that means revising a theme is revising a section, which is rarer than it sounds and worth using. A single one of these activities maps onto exactly one part of one paper, so a student who is weak in Section B has a heading to work under rather than a course to reread.

Coverage matches it: four activities each for Themes A, B, C and D, and two for Theme E.

Taking Citizenship Action

Theme E is the student's own action, examined in Paper 2 Section A, and it is the one place this page has a limit worth stating plainly.

Two activities cover preparing for it: planning, gathering viewpoints, delivering, evaluating afterwards. What they cannot do is carry out the action, which is the whole point of it. A student who has done nothing has nothing to write about in Section A, and no amount of revision changes that.

Finding the right one

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. Homework is not a heading, because all eighteen suit it and a heading holding everything separates nothing.

Sixteen of the eighteen ask students to set out an argument rather than only pick an answer, which follows a subject where a view has to be justified. The three activities embedded below are playable here without an account.

Using them

None of it needs marking. For a short cycle aimed at a group who have fallen behind on the framework, see revision intervention a department can sustain, and for the activities themselves with the recall goal spelled out, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint.

Everything else we have, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

It carries no current affairs, by design, and that is half of Citizenship.

It cannot do the citizenship action, only the preparation around it.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Citizenship Studies activity for Edexcel

18 activities, all mapped to Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Citizenship Studies (1CS0).

Good for mock preparation (1)

See all 18, by topic

Try it with your class

Edexcel Citizenship Studies 16 minutes

Rights, Duties and the Development of Human Rights

13 steps, 9 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study Intervention
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.

Try one question

Which of these is a duty (a responsibility) rather than a right?

Edexcel Citizenship Studies 20 minutes

Forming a Government and the Westminster Parliament

13 steps, 8 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study Cover lesson
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

After a general election, whom does the monarch invite to form a government?

Edexcel Citizenship Studies 18 minutes

Crime, Society and Punishment

14 steps, 9 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

A prison programme teaches offenders new skills so they can find work when released. Which aim of punishment is this?

Common questions

Does the content go out of date?

It is written so that it does not. The activities carry the settled part of the course: statute, institutions and processes. The most recent event named anywhere in them is the UK leaving the EU in 2020, and no serving politician appears at all. The examples that change every year are the part you bring.

Is that not just avoiding half the subject?

It is avoiding half of it, and it is worth being straight about that. A Citizenship course needs current examples and these activities do not supply them. What they do is take the framework off your hands, so the time you spend is spent on the part only a person in the room can do.

How do the five themes map onto the papers?

Paper 1 is Themes A, B and C, one section each. Paper 2 takes Theme E as Section A and Theme D across Sections B and C. So revising one theme is revising one section, which is not true of most subjects.

Can it help with the citizenship action?

Only with preparing for it. Two activities cover planning an action, gathering viewpoints, and evaluating it afterwards. The action itself is something a student carries out, so nothing on a screen can do it for them.

How even is the coverage?

Four activities each for Themes A, B, C and D, and two for Theme E. Eighteen in total, each between fourteen and twenty minutes.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

Spotted an error on this page? [email protected]

How DoRevision writes its teacher material How DoRevision uses evidence and cites sources

Related for teachers

  • GCSE revision from September to the exams A term by term plan for revision across Year 11: what to run in the autumn, how to use the mocks, and what the last eight weeks should and shouldn't contain. Includes a planning grid you can print.
  • GCSE revision intervention a department can sustain A workable shape for revision intervention: find the gap, work on one narrow thing, check whether it moved, repeat. Built around what a small department can keep up for a term, and clear about what this site can't tell you.
  • Ready-to-run GCSE revision activities A working list of GCSE revision activities, each with the thing it makes students recall, the moment they find out whether they were right, and what they do about it. Some run on a screen and some need nothing but a board.