For situations where students will only be taking one GCSE we would suggest that based on the experience of the teacher and what motivates the students you may wish to consider that:
- GCSE Chemistry has less specialised vocabulary than GCSE Biology and only marginally more content.
- GCSE Biology has the slightly less assessable content than GCSE Chemistry but it has more specialist vocabulary.
- GCSE Physics while it has more learning outcomes than Biology or Chemistry is more objective and rules based so may suit some students.
- In order to fulfil the Department for Educations requirement at Key Stage 4 that schools provide a board and balance science education, students could take Entry Level Science alongside one of the separate science GCSEs.
- Twenty First Century Science Suite (i.e. our Biology B, Chemistry B, ... science suite) is contextually led so directly relates to every day application of science which may be more engaging for students.
- Gateway Science Suite (our science A suite) is concept based so may be more straightforward for non-specialists to teach.
- Both Gateway and Twenty First century Science share the same set of exemplar practical science activities to cover the mandatory minimum eight practical activities. We are producing a stripped down set of activates (more accessible to Foundation students) and this may be of some help to you.
- In the past we always had a "kitchen science" controlled assessment and although the DfE required Apparatus and Techniques makes this less easy to apply we have tried to choose activities that can be done in any classroom for our basic practical set - we can give you more advice on this once you have decided on a course.
If a student is entered for Foundation Tier they can achieve up to a Grade 5 which is equivalent to a top C/lower B Grade in the legacy GCSEs. - Both Gateway and Twenty First century Science share the same set of exemplar practical science activities to cover the mandatory minimum eight practical activities. We have produced a stripped down set of activities (more accessible to Foundation students) and this may be of some help to you.
- We have produced a set of suggested practical activities that meet the DfE required Apparatus and Techniques. We have aimed to choose activities that can be done in any classroom. This practical set contains Teacher & Technician Guidance, instructions for students, and extension booklets with questions to give to your students. The supplementary booklets cover suggested practicals for students studying Separate sciences, to complete in addition to the main booklets.
Hopefully this gives you somewhere to start. Please contact us if you need more information and support.
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