OCR/ AQA SCIENCES

[Bobmumof3]

AQA examinations - mark schemes are straightforward. Therefore easy to teach towards.

OCR Gateway excellent prep for A-level but exam mark schemes hard to teach towards.

Currently ISAs with AQA are easy to prepare and gain great marks.

OCR gateway coursework is a nightmare! Unless the students are very bright scientists!

I personally find AQA easier because the exams are more straightforward and easier to prepare the students for.

[Bobmumof3]

The elite schools tend to do iGCSE for triple.

[fatbananas]

Thanks Bobmum3.

Why is the coursework for OCR more of a nightmare than for AQA? I wonder if there will be as much coursework when the Gove changes come into effect?

The local GS that is a specialist science school claim 93% of its pupils get Ato C at GCSE, which sounds quite good (don't know how many of those are A or B though....)

[scary mum]

DD did OCR for GCSE, is doing AQA for A level. Another poster I know on here has a DD who did AQA GCSEs & is doing OCR A levels (highly thought of GS). Is there really a huge difference in how the universities see them?

[Bobmumof3]

No not at all. All A levels are so similar tbh, except OCR b - Salters.


OCR gateway coursework involves experiments that give poor results but students must use their own results to analyse etc.

AQA - simple expts give nice results. Plus the questions for the booklets are basically all the same. So once the students have done one ISA, they get much better at them. Whereas the OCR gateway are all so different!

I teach but also tutor and mark for GCSE Chemistry!

[fatbananas]

But it sounds like OCR is harder to get a good mark in because of the erratic experiment results. Is that right?

[Bobmumof3]

Without teacher advice yes I would say it's a lot harder.

But who knows what the new syllabus will be like!

[KB]

Thanks Bobmum3.

Why is the coursework for OCR more of a nightmare than for AQA? I wonder if there will be as much coursework when the Gove changes come into effect?

The local GS that is a specialist science school claim 93% of its pupils get Ato C at GCSE, which sounds quite good (don't know how many of those are A or B though....)

I'm not sure this in itself says very much. Surely a GS should be getting the vast majority of its students a 'pass' mark in pretty well all the subjects they take and certainly the 'core' subjects.
As you say, much more interesting to see how many get the top grades.

[fatbananas]

You're right, KB. I can't find their results in a central table, as you can with some schools. I just found a press release with these 'overall' statements. Can these results be found centrally somewhere?