TL;DR: the bit to borrow from
I have responded to the Natural History GCSE consultation because I strongly support the qualification, but I want it to be brave enough to be what it says it is. A GCSE in Natural History should not become another exam about nature, it should actually feel like natural history.
That means fieldwork, notebooks, journals, sketches, photographs, species records, observation logs, repeated visits, uncertainty, evidence, care, curiosity and attention to place. It means assessing students in ways that reflect how naturalists, ecologists and field scientists actually work.
It also means making the GCSE genuinely accessible ot only for students who are already confident with exams, extended writing or maths-heavy tasks, but for students who are practical, observant, creative, visual, careful, curious and connected to the living world.
My consultation response argues for:
• fieldwork as the heart of the qualification, not an add-on;
• 20 hours as a minimum, not the ambition;
• field journals and authentic records as central evidence of learning;
• inclusive fieldwork designed around disability, SEND, safety and unequal access to nature;
• climate and ecological literacy as embedded safeguarding practice;
• honest teaching about agency, constraint and responsibility at different scales;
• protection from rote recall, content overload and exam-driven narrowing.
If you want the practical “what could I say in my own response?” version, skip straight to Section 8. Feel free to use, adapt, challenge or improve anything there.
The Department for Education is currently consulting on proposed subject content for a new GCSE in Natural History. The consultation closes on 4 September 2026, and focuses on the subject content rather than assessment arrangements, which Ofqual will consult on separately later this year.
I have submitted my response, and I am sharing the substance of it here for two reasons.
First, because I strongly support the creation of a Natural History GCSE. Done well, this could be one of the most important curriculum developments of the next decade. It has the potential to reconnect young people with the natural world through observation, fieldwork, species knowledge, ecological understanding and careful attention to place.
Second, if this GCSE is to become something genuinely distinctive, it must not be allowed to collapse into another content-heavy, classroom-bound, exam-driven qualification. Natural History deserves better than that, but more importantly, young people deserve better than that.
So, this post sets out what I am advocating and why. If you agree with some or all of it, please feel free to borrow, adapt or challenge these points in your own consultation response.
1. I support the Natural History GCSE, but its distinctiveness must be protected
The DfE describes the proposed GCSE as a “knowledge-rich, coherent, satisfying and worthwhile course of study”, designed to help students engage with, learn about and understand the natural world around them.
Natural History GCSE could do something that many young people desperately need: create sustained, structured, meaningful encounters with the living world. There is a chance to not bring in yet another subject that has just a one-off trip, single lessons about biodiversity loss, and the standard memorisation of diagrams of succession or lists of species.
A real Natural History GCSE should help students:
- observe carefully;
- keep field journals;
- identify species;
- revisit places over time;
- notice seasonal and ecological change;
- record uncertainty;
- use biological records;
- interpret evidence;
- understand habitats in context;
- reflect on their relationship with nature.
Real naturalists, ecologists and field scientists do not practise their disciplines through rote recall alone. They observe, record, sketch, photograph, compare, revisit, question, verify and interpret. The GCSE should reflect those authentic practices.
That’s why I am arguing that field journals, notebooks, species records, annotated sketches, photographic evidence, observation logs and reflective fieldwork records should be central to how students learn natural history.
The proposed content already gestures towards this, with references to field notebooks, biological records, photographic and film portfolios, wildlife journaling, data analysis, ethical observation, citizen science, remote sensing and eDNA. But the final qualification, and especially the later assessment model, must protect these elements from being squeezed out by exam technique.
2. Twenty hours of fieldwork should be a minimum, not the ambition
The proposed subject content requires at least 20 hours of fieldwork across the course. It also allows schools to structure that flexibly, including through regular timetabled lessons, school grounds, local habitats, one habitat studied over time, or several habitats across the course.
I support the use of hours as the metric. It is more flexible than a fixed number of trips. It makes space for repeated local observation, seasonal study, school grounds, urban nature and smaller fieldwork routines embedded across the course.
But I am concerned that 20 hours may be too limited if this GCSE is to realise its distinctive potential.
Natural History GCSE should not become a mostly classroom-based qualification with occasional outdoor activity. Its unique value lies in sustained engagement with the natural world which involves repeated encounters, time to notice change, and enough space for students to develop confidence in observation and fieldcraft.
So my argument is twenty hours should be treated as a minimum entitlement.
This has implications for content load too. If the GCSE is overfilled with content, schools will feel pressure to “cover” rather than observe, leading to fieldwork becoming a bolt-on rather than the spine of the course.
If we want a genuinely fieldwork-rich qualification, schools need curriculum time, resources, staff confidence and practical support.
3. This GCSE must be accessible to more than traditionally “academic” students
One of my strongest concerns is that Natural History GCSE could easily become another qualification that rewards the same narrow set of academic behaviours: written recall, exam technique, abstract data handling and confidence with conventional assessment. That would be a wasted opportunity.
This GCSE should appeal to mathematically confident students, yes. But also to students whose strengths lie in:
- observation;
- practical enquiry;
- care;
- art and design;
- fieldcraft;
- visual recording;
- communication;
- local knowledge;
- patience;
- curiosity;
- sustained attention to the living world.
That’s why I raised concerns about the proposed mathematics and statistics appendix. Some applied data skills are clearly necessary: sample size, accuracy, percentages, averages, graphs, trends and interpretation of fieldwork data. But the maths should serve natural history rather than the other way around.
Natural History GCSE has the potential to be inclusive precisely because it can value different kinds of disciplinary attention. If it becomes too technical, abstract or data-heavy, we risk excluding the very young people who might flourish through a more observational, practical and place-based qualification.
4. Fieldwork must be inclusive by design, not just by local goodwill
The Equality Impact Assessment recognises that fieldwork may be challenging for some disabled students and students with SEND, particularly where participation is affected by accessibility needs. The DfE suggests that flexibility, local fieldwork and reasonable adjustments may help mitigate this.
While that’s welcome, I don’t think it goes far enough. Inclusive fieldwork should be designed into the subject content rather than left to chance.
Pupils’ access to safe, biodiverse and meaningful outdoor environments isn’t equal. It varies by disability, SEND, sensory needs, mobility, medical needs, anxiety, fatigue, deprivation, transport, school grounds, rurality, local safety and access to green space. Some pupils will have regular access to gardens, woods, rivers, coasts or nature reserves. Others may rely on school as one of their few meaningful routes into nature.
If Natural History GCSE is serious about nature connectedness, then it must also be serious about unequal access to nature. Fieldwork should be planned with attention to accessibility, safety, local context and differing pupil needs. School grounds, urban habitats and everyday environments should be treated as legitimate sites of natural history, not lesser substitutes for “proper” nature elsewhere.
This is also why I welcomed the inclusion of urban habitats in the proposed content. The appendix includes places such as housing estates, gardens, parks, paved areas and sports grounds. This is important because it signals that nature is not only found in remote, picturesque or privileged places, but is also present in the environments many young people encounter every day.
5. Climate and ecological literacy should be understood as safeguarding
This is the central point of my response. The Natural History GCSE shouldn’t become a climate change qualification, but studying natural history in the 2020s cannot be separated from climate and ecological change. The proposed subject content already includes climate change, human influence, habitat change, biodiversity, extinction, conservation and species responses to changing environmental conditions.
My argument is that this needs to be framed with care.
Young people are already encountering climate and ecological change through lived experience, media exposure, school conversations, community impacts and concerns about the future. They don’t arrive in classrooms emotionally neutral. They bring questions, fears, confusion, partial knowledge, misinformation and too often a sense of misplaced responsibility.
This is where climate literacy becomes safeguarding.
By climate and ecological literacy, I mean the capacity to understand environmental change accurately, proportionately and in relation to evidence. That includes understanding uncertainty, interpreting data, recognising different scales of responsibility, and distinguishing personal agency from institutional and systemic action.
A safeguarding-informed approach doesn’t catastrophise, nor avoid. It doesn’t place the moral weight of planetary crisis on individual children. It helps young people understand the world they are already inheriting without leaving them alone with confusion or guilt.
A well-designed Natural History GCSE could be protective because it can help pupils:
- interpret environmental change through evidence;
- counter misinformation;
- understand habitats and species in context;
- recognise climate and ecological change without fatalism;
- distinguish individual, school, community, institutional and governmental responsibility;
- engage with nature in ways that support wellbeing;
- develop agency without being burdened with blame.
As I’ve argued many times before, that is not activism or advocacy, but what reasonable responsible education looks like in a time of climate and ecological crises.
6. Responsibility must be taught at the right scale
One of the points I made in my consultation response is that human influence should be taught at different scales: individual, community, institutional, commercial, governmental and global, because environmental education often defaults to individual behaviour: recycle more, switch things off, use less plastic, plant something, “do your bit”.
There’s nothing wrong with practical actions. They can be meaningful, especially when they connect young people with local change. But if we overemphasise small individual actions while ignoring larger systems, we risk misleading pupils. Many of the major drivers of environmental change sit within planning, land use, transport, procurement, agriculture, regulation, infrastructure and habitat management.
Young people need honest teaching about both agency and constraint. They need to know what individuals can do, what schools and communities can influence, and where responsibility lies with wider institutions and policy decisions.
If pupils are taught that environmental harm is mainly the result of individual failure, they may internalise guilt for problems they did not create and cannot solve alone. A safeguarding-informed curriculum should not do that.
7. Assessment must not pull the subject back into rote learning
The current DfE consultation is about subject content. Ofqual will consult separately on assessment arrangements later. But assessment will be decisive.
If the final assessment model is dominated by written exams, decontextualised recall or data-heavy tasks, the subject will be narrowed before it has even begun. Schools will teach what is assessed and so of the assessment does not value authentic field practice, field practice will become vulnerable.
So my message for the next stage is this: assess natural history like natural history.
That means valuing:
- field journals;
- notebooks;
- biological records;
- annotated sketches;
- species observations;
- photographic evidence;
- observation logs;
- reflective fieldwork records;
- evidence gathered over time;
- interpretation of local habitats;
- uncertainty and verification.
Some might argue that would make the qualification less rigorous. I would argue it makes it more authentic.
It would also make it more accessible to pupils with different strengths, including those who may not thrive in purely written or exam-heavy contexts but who can demonstrate deep observational, practical, visual or ecological understanding.
8. What I said in the consultation, in summary
If you are responding to the consultation and agree with some of this, you may wish to make one or more of the following points in your own words.
On the subject aims
Natural History GCSE should explicitly support climate and ecological literacy. Students should not only learn that the natural world matters, but should be helped to interpret ecological and climatic change critically, proportionately and with attention to wellbeing.
On habitats and wildlife
The habitat and wildlife content is strong, but should more clearly support understanding of ecological change across different timescales: seasonal, historical, geological and contemporary.
On human influence
Students should understand human influence at different scales, including individual, community, institutional, commercial, governmental and global. This helps avoid placing disproportionate responsibility on individual children for systemic environmental issues.
On fieldwork
Fieldwork should be central, inclusive and properly resourced. It should be planned with attention to accessibility, safety, local context and unequal access to nature.
On the 20-hour requirement
Using hours is sensible because it allows flexibility, but 20 hours should be treated as a minimum foundation, not the limit of ambition.
On mathematics and statistics
Applied data skills are important, but the mathematical content should not make the GCSE inaccessible. Maths should support fieldwork, observation and interpretation, not dominate the qualification.
On species lists
The species list should remain advisory so that schools can respond to local habitats, seasons, accessibility and fieldwork opportunities.
On assessment
Assessment should value authentic natural history practice: field journals, notebooks, observation logs, biological records, sketches, photographs and evidence gathered over time. It should not reduce the subject to rote recall,
On equalities
The qualification could advance equality of opportunity, but only if inclusive fieldwork, unequal access to nature, disability, SEND, local context and safeguarding are taken seriously.
On environmental principles
The GCSE could have positive environmental effects if it supports sustained fieldwork, nature connection, evidence-based ecological understanding and realistic understanding of environmental responsibility across scales.
9. Why I am sharing this
Consultations can feel technical, distant and already decided. But they are one of the few formal routes we have for saying, clearly and on record, what matters. And I have it good authority that a swell of thoughtful responses will make a difference (trust me, I’m usually skeptical – so this gives me hope!)
A Natural History GCSE could be something special. It could help young people slow down, notice, record, care, question and understand. It could help them see nature as something present in school grounds, pavements, parks, verges, hedges, rivers, coastlines, farmland, walls, ponds and everyday places.
It could help them understand climate and ecological change without panic, denial or misplaced guilt.
It could make room for students who are observant, practical, creative, careful and curious.
It could model a different kind of rigour and model of learning.
None of this will happen automatically. It will depend on the final subject content, the assessment model, the resources available to schools, and whether fieldwork is treated as the heart of the qualification rather than an inconvenience to be managed.
So I totally support the development of a Natural History GCSE. I am advocating for it to be brave enough to be what it says it is.
