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Dear PE colleagues,
I'll be honest with you: I have been staring at the "Publish" button for this post for longer than I care to admit. That's not something I say lightly - I've written posts about failure, about careers, about the things I got badly wrong in twenty years of teaching. I've pressed “Publish” on all of them. But this one feels different. This one has my name on it in a very particular way.
This week, I am sharing my draft GCSE PE specification.
There. I've said it.
How we got here - my draft PE specification
This didn't come from nowhere. Two posts earlier in this series created a conversation I wasn't expecting. The first, "You're Standing on the Shoulders of Giants", was an open letter to everyone currently involved in the curriculum review for GCSE and A-level PE. The second, "GCSE PE Deep Dive - How the 2016 Specifications Have Performed and What Can be Learned", was an honest and, at times, uncomfortable review of the courses we have all been teaching for the last 10 years.
Both posts were among my most read to date. And the response - the emails, the comments, the conversations at conferences - told me something clearly: there is a real hunger in this community for an honest, forward-looking conversation about what GCSE PE should actually look like.
So I kept writing. And this is what came out.
What I have built - and why
I want to be transparent about what this document is and what it isn't. It is not a finished product. It is not a manifesto. It is not me standing on a stage telling exam boards what to do. It is a working draft - a vision of what I believe a high-quality GCSE PE qualification could look like - shared openly so that you can read it, challenge it and add to it.Here is what I was trying to solve.
The burden on teachers is unsustainable. The current NEA models across all the main GCSE PE specifications demand enormous volumes of teacher time: videos, observation records, marking grids, moderation paperwork and coursework documentation. I have watched brilliant colleagues almost break under the weight of it. My course attempts to reduce that burden without reducing the quality or integrity of the assessment.
Grade boundaries are too narrow. Across all current GCSE PE courses, the spread of marks does not reflect the genuine spread of student performance level and understanding. Questions that should discriminate between a grade 4 and a grade 7 student often don't, because the questions aren't rigorous enough to create that spread. I've tried to address this from the ground up, through question philosophy, command-word consistency and mark-scheme design.
NEA in the era of AI is broken - or it will be very soon. I am not going to pretend otherwise. Any written coursework component that students complete at home, over weeks, without supervision, is increasingly compromised. My course includes a written case-study component that is supervised, time-limited and designed to be AI-resilient without being punitive or anxiety-inducing for students.
Command words mean different things in different places. On the current specifications, "explain" in one question does not reliably mean the same thing as "explain" in another. The mark schemes don't always match the command words. Students - and teachers - are left guessing. My course fixes this with a cast-iron command-word glossary that holds across every paper and every component.
GCSE PE has a ceiling problem. At the moment, going beyond the specification does not attract credit. A student who genuinely understands biomechanics at a deeper level than the spec demands cannot demonstrate that understanding in the exam. I fundamentally reject this. My course credits students who go further.
Practical assessment is still stuck in a single-sport performance model. Assessment rubrics that reward only sporting performance exclude huge numbers of students who are physically capable, engaged and knowledgeable but who happen not to be skilled performers in the activities being assessed. My NEA model addresses this directly, with a performance element and a separate, equally weighted improvement element that rewards effort, reflection and coaching engagement.
What you should notice when you read it
I won't walk you through every section here - that's what the document is for. But I do want to flag a few things worth looking out for.The assessment objectives have been rebuilt. AO4 - the improvement of one's own and others' health, participation and performance in the real world - is the single largest AO in the course by weighting. That is a deliberate choice.
The content is more scientifically rigorous than any current GCSE PE course, but it is designed to complement GCSE Biology rather than conflict with it. If you have students doing triple science, they will find meaningful overlap. That's a selling point, not a coincidence.
The NEA 3 written case study is the component I am most proud of and most nervous about in equal measure. Students choose one of three published case studies and write a sustained, supervised response linking two theories from the course to improve the health, participation and/or performance of the person in the case. The three case studies - Priya, Liam and Jess - are deliberately rich enough to support any angle a student chooses to take. There is no prescribed focus. The student decides.
The level descriptors have been designed to mean something. They do not reward keyword spotting. They reward reasoning.
This is a conversation, not a conclusion
I said at the top that I was nervous. Here's the thing: I believe in what I have written. Genuinely. But I know it isn't perfect. I know there are things I have missed, things that need pressure-testing, things that colleagues with different contexts and different experiences will rightly push back on.I implore you to do exactly that.
With this in mind, I would also like to invite you to join me in recording a new Changing Rooms Podcast episode in which we will discuss this draft specification - date and time to be confirmed shortly. I will walk through the key decisions, explain my reasoning, and open the discussion up to challenge, criticism and suggestions. I guarantee that constructive criticism is welcome. In fact, it's the whole point. If you would be interested in joining me on this podcast episode, please complete this form and we will be in touch once the date and time are confirmed.
So grab the download, get comfortable, and have a read. Maybe - just maybe - there's something in here that points towards the future of the course we all care about so much.
This specification is not the answer. It's the beginning of a better question.
Thank you for reading, and for being part of this community. It means more than I usually say.
Have a safe and restful week.
James