Thinking about how to prepare your students for the new GCSE assessment requirements in Science?

Those of us who attended Andrew Hunt’s workshop at the ASE Conference in January were wondering exactly that, and hoping for some practical suggestions. The workshop certainly delivered this.

Entitled ‘Teaching And Learning about Science in the new GCSEs ’, the workshop explored how ideas such as the methods of science, the nature of science explanations and the interplay between science and society will feature in the new GCSE specifications.

The workshop also addressed recent changes in style of assessment questions, which were introduced from September 2011. Students will be expected to tackle questions with less scaffolding – fewer shorter questions, and an increase in questions requiring students to compose and order their own extended answer for 4-6 marks. We looked at sample papers from various Awarding Bodies, which featured more quantitative questions, but not “maths for math’s sake”. Students are required to genuinely apply, analyse and evaluate, whether discussing data, ethical issues or scientific method.

As Andrew pointed out, one challenge will be to provide plenty of opportunities for students to practice this in a variety of contexts throughout their course of study. He showed us a selection of resources, which were well received and prompted some lively discussion during the workshop.

If you are getting to grips with the new specifications and free-response questions, I’ve produced two lists of eLibrary resources. You will need to log in or register to view these lists.

I hope you find the resource lists a useful starting point, and would welcome suggestions for future lists.

Karen


Karen Hornby is Science Specialist at the National STEM Centre. Prior to joining us in January 2012, Karen was Head of Science at Newland School for Girls, Hull. Karen is currently developing the Teachers TV collections for the eLibrary.
As the first Director of the Nuffield Curriculum Centre until 2007, Andrew Hunt was responsible for the oversight of major curriculum development projects in science, technology and mathematics, including the Twenty First Century Science GCSE Suite. Since 2009 he has made a substantial contribution to the National STEM Centre eLibrary collections, as Science Specialist for the archive collections.