Combined Science and Triple Science questions

DD's school offered triple to the two top sets, but allowed them to take combined instead. Those taking Combined continued with ICT, whereas triple dropped it, giving them one extra hour each week. It was tough covering all if the material, but the school topped it up with optional extra sessions during the holidays.

It is certainly true that at DSs school, only the top set are allowed to do triple, and it is taught in the same time slot as the other sets are doing double (and last year they actively discouraged people from taking it, and only 9 ended up finishing with triple, rather than dropping to double). There are somewhat more this year, but that may also be the year, it is an exceptionally strong maths year, and that may be also reflected in science capability. Not sure if the schools that we toured would have known that though.

In my DS3’s school only top set took triple science (9-1 AQA) and in the same time slots as the combined science sets. It was a hard slog! He’s now in a sixth form at a different school where they only took combined science so the A level is aimed at those who did combined. It’s been a slight advantage for DS3. But they still get very good results for A level. It might be harder to do A level with combined only in a sixth form where most took triple.

At the school I worked at, anyone could take triple science as an option to make combined up to triple. They had 2 sets, one doing the higher papers and the other doing foundation. I haven’t looked at the exam papers but I think the questions were quite different in some respects between triple and combined.

For the syllabus the extra triple areas are intermingled/embedded much more finely in with the combined topics. (With the old system there was indeed completely extra topics to make up the triple content. C1 for core, C2 for additional and C3 for triple chemistry etc)

I don’t think onto has taught or marked for a couple of years at least.

Bimkom,

We asked similar questions - later open days, though - and were asked which school as well as combined or triple.

On hearing the school + sciences (double) taken by DD, there was no issue. I can imagine that they are used to distinguishing 'able pupil from school which historically does double for all to allow breadth' from 'pupil from school which does triple for more able pupils and double for others', as traditionally where we live there has been a mix.

I think part of that reaction is probably that most schools select the brightest for separate sciences so those students are more likely to be able to cope with a levels in science. Not true for all schools of course.

My DS is in Year 11 doing triple (ie new spec). When we were looking at sixth forms (of which we toured a number), - he was a bit flummoxed as to what to ask the various teachers on their open days (he is only interested in science/maths, but potentially all the sciences), so I suggested "is it a big jump from GCSE to A level in your subject?" which he duly used as his opener. The question that inevitably came back was "are you doing combined or triple?". Almost inevitably when he said triple, there was a noticeable relaxation, and the response "not as much as if you were doing combined", or "not so much for you", or something along those lines. This did seem to suggest that the teachers who are on the cliff face, teaching first year A level after the new GCSEs (as that is who we were talking to), are seeing a noticeable difference. As the new science GCSEs were only examined last May/June for the first time, it is only current Year 12 science teachers who will have any feel on how the two groups compare (and most of these open days were in November).

Cantkeepaway that's a good point, looks like they choose 4 of which one needs to be a language. No compulsory RE thank god!

Imo triple is more demanding than combined. There is a lot more content and only the brightest and most interested should take it. If you want to do science a levels doing trilogy at GCSE won't hold you back.

thenext,

i think what would worry me is what is being dropped to make way for it?

I mean, triple + 4 good options (so e.g. a couple of languages, a humanity, a creative or design / computing subject - or some mixture of that type) is fine. But if doing triple then ties everyone down to doing only a couple of options (I was appalled to see that some schools are doing this, by also making RE compulsory) then that's really poor.

My unscientific impression is that in the new GCSEs, the amount of content in double is MUCH bigger than it was, while the amount in triple has only gone up a bit, so the gaop is much smaller than it was [happy to be corrected]. The school may therefore have decided that it's not 'worth' offering the double as it's much more than 2/3 of the work.

Our school has decided that triple will be the only option going forward from this year. Will work for my science mad DD not so sure will be ideal for my DS when he's older. Anyone else's school dropping the double option?

It used to widely be the case that 'less able' took double and 'more able' took triple in the same timetable slots. It seems less common now, because the content in the new GCSEs is so much greater. Schools are then making different decisions about whether they just offer double - thus preserving breadth of options for all - or take up an option slot, which obviously narrows options. DC's school is very much in favour of wide options - has 5 free option blocks - so sticks with double for all, and is then very successful at A-level.

Both my DCs have done double, then 2 languages, then 1 child did 2 humanities and a creative subject, the other does 1 humanity and 2 creative subjects.

DD’s school gives extra lessons for triple science. 2 extra hours per week which means those taking triple Science take one less option than those taking combined.

WhyIampaying fees, my school for eg, but I know many more. The triple kids have exactly the same time allocation for science as combined. Really is not a rarity

At both my kids’ schools the triple science kids have proportionally more lessons. Do not know a school that tries to cram 3 into 2. It means one less option for other subjects if you triple in their schools. The double option is also not necessarily regarded as an option for the less able. Some of the bright kids just want to keep their options open for A level in MFL etc.

At DC's school some weaker children are not allowed to take triple science, but stronger DC are not forced to take triple.
That was the case at my dds school as well. At her school there are top sets for Triple and a corresponding top set for the Combined.
I would expect sixth form teachers in good sixth forms to be able to differentiate work in Y12 for those who have taken either route at GCSE and not just expect pupils who haven't taken Triple to catch up by themselves.

Surely EVERYONE in the top set would be doing triple science?

Why should that be the case? At DC's school some weaker children are not allowed to take triple science, but stronger DC are not forced to take triple. My DD's science teacher was quite keen for her to take triple science, and she is more than capable, but she would prefer to take combined science and use the option for another subject.

So much out of date advice on this thread. The new GCSE is significantly reformed and both triple and combined are very different beasts to their previous incarnations. Eg there is no unit 3.
The most worrying is onto, I do hope she/he is not on my team of markers this year.
Both combined and triple provide suitable starting points for A level, providing decent grades are obtained.
I would challenge anyone to come into my 2 year 12 classes, (and it is really important to remember that any chat about y13 and older is basically irrelevant due to the changes) and identify who did triple and who did combined.

cabininthesnow
Ds has just been moved into top set for science, he’s year 9. He was told that he has been asessed at levels higher than half of the top set. It also made him a prime candidate to do triple award which he would not be able to do in set 2.

Surely EVERYONE in the top set would be doing triple science? At all 3 schools by DC went to, everyone did triple unless they were specifically given permission to just do double and that would only be allowed if the pupil was either SN or was very high achieving and focussed on other areas (like multiple foreign languages or music/art) that caused time table clashes. If your DSs school has a top set or even middle set where everyone is not capable of doing triple science, that would be a worry.

If all of the pupils have only taken double science then the school will teach accordingly. In a class where most of the students have taken triple science I expect the double science students may have to do a little more reading.

DD took her GCSEs in 2016, so they would have been the old spec. She found the step up to A level very difficult, and had to work very hard, but still managed to get the results she wanted. It was a slog though. She took chemistry and biology.

Discussing this with a science teacher recently, as DD (doing 'new' double in a school that only offers double, and then teaches A-level very successfully from that basis) is thinking of doing at least 1 science A-level at a school where many students do triple (so A-level teaching tends to start from the basis of triple).

Science teacher said that, in their limited experience (the first year of students doing 'new' science GCSEs is now in Y12, so there is only a single year to base judgement on), the 'new' double is a much better basis for A-level study than the 'old' one, and in fact there seemed little difference between 'double' and 'triple' students in the A-level class. They also said that Chemistry - interesting given brizzle's child's experience - is a subject, like Maths, where the step up to A-level has always been quite a big one, whatever the GCSE route taken.

Are those talking about the huge step up to A level talking about the new (examined for the first time last year) syllabus or the old one?

New for my DD.

Are those talking about the huge step up to A level talking about the new (examined for the first time last year) syllabus or the old one?

We should be discussing the new syllabus as that’s the only relevant one from now on.

Many students do only study double science and still do well at A-level, but if they are in a class full of triple scientists, they need to be aware it will involve extra work on their part. This is probably fine if you only intend to study one science, but if you wanted to do all three then it might end up being a lot of extra work and triple would be a better option. In schools where most/all students only do double, many students go on to do well at A-level.

It also depends on the students- if someone gets 8s or 9s in double science, then they're probably more suited to Science A-levels than a student who got 6s across all three sciences.

The triple is the same as the double but just goes deeper.
you can go on to do A level sciences if you pass the double combined.
When they offered the single award, up until last year, this wasn't in depth enough to continue onto A level.