IGCSE | Global Perspectives – Leighton Park

IGCSE Global Perspectives

Exam Board: Cambridge
Syllabus Code: 0457

The Global Perspectives IGCSE Course at Leighton Park follows the Cambridge International Education (CIE) specification.

• Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives is a ground-breaking and stimulating course that stretches across traditional subject boundaries and develops transferable skills. It is both cross-curricular and skills-based and taps into the way students of today enjoy learning, including teamwork, presentations, projects and working with other learners around the world. The emphasis is on developing the ability to think critically about a range of global issues where there is always more than one point of view. Students use research, reasoning and questioning to gain this understanding and form their own judgements.
• Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives provides opportunities for enquiry into, and reflection on, key global issues from different perspectives: personal, local/national and global.
• Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives encourages awareness of global problems and offers a range of opportunities to explore solutions through cooperation and collaboration.
• The course is not about getting everybody to think identically; rather it is a matter of opening minds to the complexity of the world and of human thought and encouraging empathy for the diversity of human experience and feeling.
• Investigating the link between globalisation and Somali pirates, constructing websites, supporting charitable causes and writing to the United Nations about climate change, are just some of the activities learners are pursuing through the Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives course. 

Assessment

Cambridge IGCSE Global Perspectives is built around core skills; knowledge of content is not assessed. However, each topic encompasses issues of global importance.

Students will complete three components, with topics drawn across the three components from the following list:

• Arts in society
• Change in culture and communities
• Climate change, energy and resources
• Conflict and peace
• Development, trade and aid
• Digital world
• Education for all
• Employment
• Environment, pollution and conservation
• Globalisation
• Health and wellbeing
• Law and criminality
• Media and communication
• Migration and urbanisation
• Political power and action
• Poverty and inequality
• Social identity and inclusion
• Sport and recreation
• Technology, industry and innovation
• Transport, travel and tourism
• Values and beliefs
• Water, food and agriculture

Component 1: Written Examination – 35% weighting

• Candidates will answer four compulsory sections. Questions are based on sources and will require a variety of short and long answers. The sources will present a global issue from different perspectives, drawn from any of the topics above. It is a skills-based exam, so prior knowledge of the issue being investigated is not required.
• This component is externally assessed.

Component 2: Individual Report – 30% weighting

• 1,500 – 2,000 words chosen by the candidate on one topic area from the list above:
• This component is internally set and externally marked.

Component 3: Team Project – 35% weighting

• Candidates devise and develop a collaborative project into an aspect of one topic from the list on the previous page.
• This project must allow for the exploration of different cultural perspectives. The Team Project comprises two elements:
• Team Element 300 – 400 words
• Personal Element 750 – 1,000 words
• This component is internally assessed and externally moderated.

In Year 10 students will be allocated three lessons a fortnight and will complete Component 1 in the Autumn and Spring terms. Component 3 will be started in the Summer term.

In Year 11 students will be allocated five lessons a fortnight and will  finish Component 3  by October Half Term. Component 2  will be completed by the middle of the  Spring term, so that Component 1 can be revised in preparation for the written exam in May. 

If you have any queries about this course, please contact Head of Department: Richard Duckett.

Watch some of our GCSE subject video.