"Science" GCSE

[Tree]

I think the real issue with the combined science is the teaching and the ability of the teachers to be able to field questions beyond the narrow combined science curriculum or to generate interest in specific subject areas.

This certainly hasn't been our experience our dd has been given lots of additional non curriculam work to do in her modules in the form of mini projects and class discussions so far she also has seperate teachers for the different modules who as far as i know are specialist teachers ie the physics teacher teaches the physics module etc.

Most teachers are specialists in a particular subject and not trained to teach general science.

I don't understand what you mean here surely anyone with a science background be it physics or biology should have an understanding of the general concepts of science ie hypothesis, experiment design etc this is common to all branches and it seems to me actually really well taught and increasingly so in the new specification. As a scientist who has worked in many cross subject areas my feeling is that there is a distict advantage in keeping the sciences combined and not separating them so early in young scientific minds.

[KenR]

Hi Tree

I don't understand what you mean here surely anyone with a science background be it physics or biology should have an understanding of the general concepts of science ie hypothesis, experiment design etc this is common to all branches and it seems to me actually really well taught and increasingly so in the new specification. As a scientist who has worked in many cross subject areas my feeling is that there is a distict advantage in keeping the sciences combined and not separating them so early in young scientific minds.

We are probably going to disagree on this - general science concepts yes but not the detailed subsets.

I also am a scientist with a Ph.D in theoretical chemistry, but I know that if I was a science teacher (which thankfully I'm not) and had to teach the Biology or Physics elements of the Combined Science curriculum I would be very uncomfortable.

The reason I know this is that my other half, who is an A Level Biology Teacher, was asked to teach combined science GCSE a few years ago and was extremely uncomfortable about teaching the Physics and Chemistry elements of the curriculum. yes she had the curriculum material and resources available, but good teachers do not like teaching elements outside of their specialism as they feel they don't necessarily have the extended curriculum knowledge.

Regards

[Marylou]

In the light of Ken's answer, could the reason for the preponderance of general science GCSE possibly have less to do with giving children a broad-based scientific education, and more to do with the shortage of qualified specialist teachers?

(Sorry - I've suddenly become hyper-cynical in the last 24 hours...can't think why! )

[Tree]

Hi kenr

I can certainly understand at a level being nervous about teaching other subjects in the curriculum but the gcse topics do not seem that advanced but i suppose it then becomes a training issue, but the principle of any scientist having a working knowledge of the other sciences seem sensible to me i mean theoretical chemistry and physics have huge areas of overlap for example so i would have thought you would find gcse physics modules pretty straightforward, however this is probaly getting a bit off topic, my main point being that my experience of dd's school which seems to be born out by their results at a level is that double science at gcse does not seen to have compromised them much and so i would not disregard a school purely on their failure to offer triple science at gcse.

[magwich2]

As far as I understand from DD1 who has just sent UCAS form off (fingers crossed chez Magwich!) and her friends, if you are applying anywhere decent for science the the school is going to have to waste a number of the 4000 characters allowed in their reference spelling out in words of one syllable why the applicant has not got 3 science GCSEs. Seems unnecessary to me if other schools do it properly.
Mind you DD did get flyer from Chester "university" asking her if she wanted to apply for (amongst others) their Mortuary Science degree and they didi not seem to care!!

[daughter]

Interesting discussion, I agree mainly with Tree and I wonder whether you all understand how the double science works. You are still taught the 3 different sciences in 3 distinct lessons and in the case of my DD's by 3 different teachers. They then sit exam papers in the 3 different sciences ... the marks are then combined to get 2 overall GCSE's. At absolute worst they are studying 2/3 of the curriculum for each separate science. It is my informed opinion that they are taught a lot more than that. The school that my DD's attend (a high achieving girls indie) only offers double award science. Many girls go on to be accepted on science courses including medicine and engineering at Oxbridge, Imperial etc. Their school also has the philosophy that "quality" GCSE's over a balanced range of subjects is the best option. All girls do a maximun of 9 GCSE's - all sat in Year 11 except the 1st Science GCSE (3 papers + practical element) - advanced (or additional - I can't remember the terminology), science being taken in Year 11. Regarding specialism of teachers i think you will find that when teachers train and or join the profession they are all expected and/or able to teach 2 subjects, in the case of science teachers it is my guess there 2nd subject would also be a science. My experience is that an a-level physics teacher may well also teach chemistry to GCSE etc I think this is perfectly reasonable and the only practical way to run a school with at least some flexibility in subjects. the same is the case with languages e.g "French" teacher may also teach Spanish to Yrs 7, 8, 9. I was not convinced at first of the dual science but now I am a convert!

[Tree]

Hi magwich all the best of luck with your dd1's application. Certainly my dd's school seems to get a few kids going to oxbridge most years to study sciences 1 or 2 to IC and a few doing medicine so it doesn't seem to hold them back much i suspect it may be easier to just to not offer triple science then you can say 'we don't offer it' (12 characters) than offer it to some but not all (as some private schools do, presumably to boost their percentages) and then try to justify why you have taken double science when triple was on offer.

The more i think about it the more i feel that in this day and age it is so important if you wish to pursue a career in science or engineering to have a broad scientific background i was looking at the bmw graduate engineering program in munich recently and the one thing they stressed more than anything was that they didn't want graduates who were just physicists or just mechanical engineers or just chemists and were most keen with graduates who had a broader scientific or engineering education. With the way technology is these days new developments often contain aspects of physics chemisty and biology and so maybe it would be in all our interests to keep budding scientists involved in all aspects of science for longer during their education and maybe an integrated combined science 3 gcse program would be better than 3 separate gcse's

Hi daughter nicely argued much better than my ramblings (and spelt properly) i absolutly agree with u

[Looking for help]

The experience both my son and my daughter have had is that dual science is insufficient preparation for the rigours of A Levels in both Chemistry and Biology. Despite A*s at GCSE level, both struggled with Biology and Chemistry A Levels. We don't have experience of Physics. it would be my advice to anyone considering A Level Sciences to think about it long and hard before venturing on if only the dual award has been studied to GCSE. It is a huge step, and also the children themselves think because of their A*s at GCSE that they are great at it, but it is parrot fashion learning by rote, with very little understanding required, in my view.

[Tree]

Thats really interesting looking for help, i was talking with a friend today who teaches physics in a school who only do triple science but who take 10% intake from other local schools where they do double science and she said that she didn't think that there was much difference in coping with the a level she did say that they all found the step up difficult but she didn't think it was particularly worse for the double sciencers, were there other kids in your childrens A level classes who had done triple science and found it easier ?

but it is parrot fashion learning by rote, with very little understanding required, in my view.

triple science is not taught differently it is exactly the same but with just a couple more topics so if the problem is style it will probably apply to both.(with aqa anyway)

[Looking for help]

No the school my children attended (a grammar !) only did dual award, and yes there were some children who found it easier than others. My point is that I think it is not sufficient preparation for all those who think they are good at science from their A*s at GCSE - if there is a choice at all and your child wants to take an A Level in Science, it is probably preferable to have taken the triple award, as more Science will have been covered, surely. I'm sure teachers will have their own view about what is better/worse, but from the purely layman's point of view with some observations in terms of A Level results compared with other subjects, the step up in Science seems to be much harder.