Environmentalist and campaigner Mary Colwell began working to address a gap in education content in relation to nature and our environment nearly 10 years ago. In 2019 she began exploring how to make this vision a reality and gathered the support of MPs, environmental organisations and over 10,000 signatures on a UK Parliament Petition for the development of the secondary school curriculum.

With the support of Tim Oates CBE, Director of Assessment Research and Development, Mary has worked closely with OCR and Cambridge Assessment, the Natural History Museum, The Wildlife Trusts and others to explore the purpose, design and delivery of a GCSE in Natural History. In 2020 a proposal was submitted to the Department for Education (DfE) for the development of this new qualification.

At this Cambridge Assessment Network seminar, Mary addresses her reasons for embarking on this campaign, including the lack of understanding of nature and its impact, the challenges we face in the future and the important role education can play in overcoming them.

She is joined by Tim Oates to discuss the process of developing a proposal around this new qualification and the steps involved in helping to shape early thinking about what a Natural History GCSE might look like.

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