GCSE Science Courses in Years 9, 10 and 11
We start our GCSE Science courses in Year 9 with 3 peri­ods a week and the mater­ial taught is common to all. However, when students enter Year 10 there is a choice between two courses: Science + Addi­tional Science (counts as 2 GCSEs), or Biology, Phys­ics and Chem­istry taken as 3 separ­ate GCSE subjects. All courses are part of OCR’s 21^st Century Science specification.

The science specific­a­tions through­out the coun­try are being revised and will affect those enter­ing Year 10 in Septem­ber 2011. We will stay with  OCR’s 21^st Century Science specific­a­tions. Click here to view the draft specific­a­tions.

Click here to see inform­a­tion about study­ing Biology, Phys­ics and Chem­istry as separ­ate GSCE subjects.

Science and Addi­tional Science

The aims and object­ives of Core GCSE Science are:To help students to recog­nise the impact of science and tech­no­logy on every­day life
To enable students to take informed personal decisions about issues that involve science
To develop the neces­sary skills to access scientific inform­a­tion in media reports and eval­u­ate inform­a­tion from a vari­ety of sources

The aims and object­ives of GCSE Addi­tional Science are:To meet the needs of students seek­ing a deeper under­stand­ing of scientific concepts
To enable students to relate basic scientific concepts to applic­a­tions
To use scientific explan­a­tions and models to enable students to gain an insight into how scient­ists work to gain a greater under­stand­ing of the world

All students will study both of these courses
Pupils study Science for 6 peri­ods every week, two lessons each with special­ist teach­ers in the fields of Biology, Chem­istry and Physics.

Both GCSE courses consist of a number of teach­ing modules. Topics such as ‘You and your genes’, ‘Air qual­ity’ and ‘Radi­ation and life’ are repres­en­ted in the Science GCSE. ‘Growth and devel­op­ment’, ‘Chem­ical patterns’ and ‘Elec­tric circuits’ are three examples of topics in the Addi­tional Science GCSE.

The GCSE courses will be assessed through a vari­ety of meth­ods:Unit tests – 3 extern­ally marked exam­in­a­tions per GCSE that incor­por­ate object­ive ques­tions on each module (each contrib­ut­ing 16.7% of the over­all GCSE mark)
Ideas in Context – an extern­ally marked exam­in­a­tion that is based on mater­ial made avail­able for students to study in school before­hand (contrib­ut­ing a further 16.7% of the over­all GCSE mark)
Intern­ally marked skills assess­ment activ­it­ies – for core Science GCSE this consists of a data analysis task and a case study (contrib­ut­ing 13% and 20% of the over­all GCSE mark respect­ively) and for Addi­tional Science GCSE it consists of a prac­tical invest­ig­a­tion (contrib­ut­ing 33% of the over­all GCSE mark)

Specific­a­tion: OCR 21^st Century Science J630 Science A and J631  Additonal Science A
Click on these links to down­load the current specific­a­tion for Science A and Addi­tional Science A.

Separ­ate Sciences - Biology, Phys­ics and Chemistry

Choos­ing this option will enable you to:
Study extra topics in each science subject
Spend more time on prac­tical work and skills devel­op­ment (import­ant for A level)
Spend more time gain­ing ideas about the way in which scient­ists work
Gain a broader under­stand­ing of the applic­a­tions of Science in the Twenty First Century
Gain three Science GCSEs
Gain differ­ent grades in each Science

Separ­ate Science pupils will spend nine peri­ods each week study­ing science – three lessons each of Biology, Chem­istry and Physics.

In addi­tion to the topics stud­ied by every­one taking Science GCSE and Addi­tional Science GCSE, students will gain a broader insight into further inter­est­ing areas that engage profes­sional scientists.

The addi­tional topics are examined in the same way as those for Addi­tional Science GCSE.

Students who have a deep interest in Science and those who wish to pursue science subjects beyond GCSE will bene­fit from the addi­tional breadth, deeper under­stand­ing and extra skills devel­op­ment that Separ­ate Science GCSEs afford.

Because the three GCSEs are inde­pend­ent it is possible to be entered for a combin­a­tion of Higher and Found­a­tion tiers, so if you are stronger in Biology than Phys­ics, your final grade in one need not be affected by your final grade in the other.

Specific­a­tions: OCR Separ­ate Sciences J633 Biology A/J634 Chem­istry A/J635 Phys­ics A
Click on these links to down­load the current specific­a­tion for Biology A,  Chem­istry A and Phys­ics A.