On this page
- Psychology GCSE Summary
- Psychology GCSE Textbooks
- How we structured Psychology GCSE
- Other learning resources
- Other resources
Psychology GCSE Summary
Exam Board
OCR J203
Start Date
August 2023
Exam Date
June 2024
Child (age at exam date)
Agatha (13)
Result
Due August 2024
Study Method
Used course provider – Survive Succeed Achieve
There are a few options when it comes to choosing an exam board for psychology but we went with OCR as this was the syllabus that Charlotte from Survive Succeed Achieve was using and it included the topics Aggie wanted to do. After thoroughly enjoying her KS3 courses, Aggie wanted to continue with Charlotte for GCSE so, OCR it was!
Psychology GCSE Textbooks
There is only one textbook for OCR psychology GCSE so that’s nice and easy!
We found this a very useable textbook. There is a lot of content packed in but pages are clearly laid out and colourful to break the text up.
There are great short definitions on pages where key words are highlighted in the text and there are handy “check your understanding” boxes which include knowledge-based questions.
How we structured Psychology GCSE
Aggie started working through the seven online units in August 2023. Charlotte sells each unit separately so we paid as went which was a great way to spread the cost.
Aggie worked independently on each unit and then at the end there was an assessment to complete which we sent off to Charlotte for her to mark. The feedback on these assessments was incredibly comprehensive; Charlotte really does want to help as much as she can.
By Christmas Aggie had completed units 1 to 4. She’d also tried several 13-marker questions which are the essay-style questions on each paper. We were then away for five weeks from mid-January to the end of February but she still managed to complete units 5 to 7 before the end of March 2024.
Aggie also attended a revision course run by Charlotte which started mid-January. This ran every week and worked through all of the units in turn. For each unit, one week was spent revisiting the content and main points and the second week was spent looking at actual exam papers and looking at exam technique. Aggie found these really helpful.
At the end of the revision course, Charlotte then did a walkthrough of two full exam papers. Aggie tried them herself first and then marked them as Charlotte went through them.
We worked exclusively on past papers for the last month. We marked the straight forward questions ourselves but sent the 13-markers over to Charlotte to mark. Charlotte’s feedback once again was incredible. Even when Aggie was getting high marks, Charlotte would provide up to a full page of comments on what she could have done to get full marks. It became a real group effort with Charlotte also supporting me when I had queries on some points.
Other learning resources
Hodder revision notes
This book contains concise revision notes which match the textbook. I’m not usually a fan of using someone else’s revision notes as the benefit of notes comes from creating them yourself. Aggie did read through them several times but it was probably me who used them the most; I read them so I could support Aggie on certain topics. I therefore recommend them more as a parent guide!
Hodder workbook
This book sometimes caused more stress than benefits for us! The questions were good and it was a handy way to check knowledge, but the answers (found online) often included things not in the textbook. The way the marks were awarded was odd as well. This book seemed to really knock Aggie’s confidence more than help her and it didn’t particularly help with exam technique either. We abandoned it after a few topics.
I read somewhere that this book was written when the syllabus was first launched and before there were real exam papers available. That probably explains why the content doesn’t really match up with exam papers as they are now. Now there are so many past papers to use, I would recommend concentrating on those rather than use this book.
YouTube videos
We watched every single video he’d created on the OCR syllabus. They were brilliant revision tools. He also does exam paper walkthroughs. He’s an OCR examiner himself so he knows what he’s talking about!
We watched Miss Maw’s topic overviews which were fantastic. In 40 minutes, she goes through the entire topic with a really helpful spider diagram which we also printed off and used.
Other resources
I created several resources to help Aggie during her revision – I’ll upload these soon once I’m done planning for 2024/25.
