IGCSE Global Perspectives

Global Perspectives is an exciting Cambridge IGCSE course that provides students with opportunities to examine and reflect upon key global issues from different perspectives. The course helps students gain a sense of their own active place in the world and cope with changes that will impact on their life chances and life choices.

By studying Global Perspectives, students will gain an increasing awareness of real-world problems.

Course Content

With emphasis on the development and application of skills rather than the acquisition of knowledge, the Global Perspectives course is designed to provide a flexible set of learning opportunities for each student. As such, students can choose their own paths of enquiry. Students will learn to collaborate and communicate with others from another culture, community or country in order to search for mutually acceptable and beneficial solutions. Students will assess information critically and explore lines of reasoning. Students will also learn to direct their own learning and develop an independence of thought.

Inspiring Topics for the 3 components of study...

Component 1 - Written Exam

• Demographic change

• Education for all

• Employment

• Fuel & energy

• Globalisation

• Law & criminality

• Migration

• Transport systems

Component 2 - Individual Report

• Belief systems

• Biodiversity & ecosystem loss

• Changing communities

• Digital world

• Family

• Humans & other species

• Sustainable living

• Trade and aid

Component 3 - Team Project

• Conflict & peace

• Disease & health

• Human rights

• Language & communication

• Poverty & inequality

• Sport & recreation

• Tradition, culture & identity

• Water, food & agriculture

Assessment

Global Perspectives is assessed through one exam and two pieces of coursework. The coursework that students complete are known as the individual report and the team project.

Component 1 - The written exam is worth 35% and is a skills-based paper assessing research, analysis and evaluation. Students are presented with a collection of sources in the exam and are required to answer four compulsory questions. This exam is taken at the end of Year 11.
Component 2 - The individual report is worth 30% of the IGCSE grade. For the individual report, students must design a research question in one of the specified topic areas. They must investigate their chosen area of interest and write a 1500-2000 word report on their findings.
Component 3 - The team project is worth 35% and students must work together in groups to plan and carry out a project involving an aspect of, or an issue relating to, one of the specified topics.