Physics GCSE: 'insultingly easy, non scientific, and vague'

[DominiConnor]

The Arts graduates strike up another victory against the teaching of science

As a footnote to this article Lucy Sherrif herself holds a highly respectable degree in Physics.

Agree that it is appalling that science in schools has degenerated to this mickey mouse level.

But why the inflammatory cover to your link, DC? It's so poor that I can't understand why you would want to deflect the debate of a genuinely serious issue in such a churlish manner.

Who do you think made the decisions ?
Who do you think decided that no chemists at all would be involved in the setting of the chemistry national curriculum ?

Compare the number of studentss graduating in China and India with science and engineering degrees to that in the UK and Europe in general. Dumbing down the sciences is not going to entice students to study these crucial subjects further and within a couple of generations, we as a nation will be bereft of decent scientists and engineers but no doubt will be awash with Media graduates.

This situation cannot go on if we want to maintain our competitive edge and scientific acumen.

Oh lawdy so there is a conspiracy by people in Govt who studied Arts at uni that we should stamp out science teaching.

Can't you just debate a serious issue properly? It's not just science subjects that this is happening to. It's happening to foreign languages in schools too. "oh dear the evil Arts grads have shot themselves in the foot there haven't they."

Right in one fluffy.
My firm finds smart science grads to go into banks on something like a global basis. The % of Brits is in rapid decline. This isn't a numbers thing, we get British managers asking for more French grads, and and it's a bit sad when a couple of PhDs get rejected as "complete idiots".

Media grads are even worse. Ironically the physical and math programming methods used to price derivatives are also used to do special effects in Harry Potter, so we've been helping recruit for that level of film FX.
The MS grads are wholly worthless. They simply don't seem to have learned anything. Forget the physics of FX, they don't know that paint works by subtracting colours, when expressly asked what red+green+blue gives, they often can't even guess what the answer might be.
They have zero knowledge of European films, except some vague idea that they are in the words of one MS grad "long"

Ironically I know of a high flying media graduate (oxymoron?) that is very high up in a blue chip software company. Works in R&D.

I think the course she is complaining about is a new specification for a single award Science GCSE, which is possibly largely taken at the Foundation Level. This is a very different type of course to the Physics GCSE normally taken as part of the triple award GCSE or even the physics modules at higher level taken as part of the Double Award Science GCSE. Perhaps a science teacher can explain?

She (if we are talking about DC) is a He, btw.

This has already had some discussion on MN.

A few general comments. The board discussed is AQA and this is not the only examination board, so you cannot say that the exact comments hold tru for all the other boards as the differ.

The examples may well have been taken from the Foundation paper, which limits a child to a maximum of a Grade C, and tends to be given to kids who are less scientifically able.

There are concerns about the new curriculum, in all three of the sciences. But there were also concerns about he old GCSE, which were far from perfect.

Changes will shortly be made to the KS3 curriculum, and I have been tipped the wink that it is conseiderably shorter in terms of factual content than the old one. Which, if we are allowed to teach the children scientific method, and higher order critical skills, would be a distinct improvement over cramming 'facts' into them.

Blimey, a she called Lucy!

sorry, I thought you were talking about the OP!

I sat the first year of GCSE, and still remember being dumbfounded at a question in the Physics exam asking whether I thought a saucepan should be made of:

a) Wood, with a metal handle
b) Metal, with a metal handle
c) Metal, with a wood handle

The rest of the paper was at similar Mickey Mouse level. It in NO WAY compared to the O-level papers I'd been practising on - any fool would have got an A (and I did!). We just can't carry on diluting science teaching like this!

Suppose that the arguement is what the nature of science is. I find it sad that physics has more or less been removed from the school curriculum. How can kids discuss issues in 21st century science if they know nothing about them. It reduces science to a debating competition. Science isn't always exciting and I think its a mistake for kids to believe that its always exciting.

Real scientists often spend several months working on problems to answer governant questions. Before my son was born I was involved in some research on depleted uranium. A huge number of scientists of different disciplines did research to establish whether depleted uranium could cause gulf war symdrome. A lot of the calculations were dull and tedious. However it would have been impossible to say whether depleted uranium had caused gulf war symdrome without hard work.

The problem is that we expect every kid to study Physics to GCSE and the majority of kids are far to thick to study Physics to the old O-level standard. To study Physics you need good maths skills are well as being literate.

I think the answer would be to make science optional at GCSE like it was in the past. The disinterested kids could then go off and study something more interesting/ useful to them and the bright kids could be stretched. I loved deriving equations and the calculations of physics. There is very little maths in school physics now compared to twenty years ago.

A level physics has been dumbed down too. I think an A grade O-level student could get quite a few marks on an AS paper.

I did physics A level x years ago, my son did it fairly recently, there are things he had to study (electronics etc) that weren't developed in our time.

The big difference is doing it in bite size chunks so if you did rubbish one of the AS papers or paper 4 sat in the january you can do a resit on the old system the whole paper has to be retaken even the good bits

Similar for chemistry and maths and biology (all the genetics and biochemistry wasn't in the papers I sat twenty odd years ago)

Good. DS might pass. It was far too hard when I did it and A level border line impossible to sleep walk through.

As far as A2 is concerned I don't think it is that easy. DS1 got an A but he attended the school that is fairly often top in the country for A2 is concerned and had daily revision sessions with DH (physics graduate)because he didn't find it that easy. The one easy thing you can do to boost your marks is to keep retaking AS modules until you get full marks. DS1 retook one module twice so he went from a low A to a 100% mark.

In the past when you re sat an A-level it was obvious to any university or employer that you had failed the first time. I find a it joke that a kid can resit modules and there is no record of the resits on the certificate.

I had exams of up to three hours long that tested two years worth of knowledge. In the past students were expected to be able derive equations.

There are more topics like like astromony, medical physics, special relativity and even a bit of partical physics/ quantum mechcanics, but there is less on electromagnetism, optics, accoustics and what would be considered to be classical physics. There are more topics but less depth.

Most people who do A-level physics do not choose to do a Physics degree. A-level physics is useful for loads of careers.

Which is the most useful to an optician Optics or special relativity?

Left out a bit. It should read:
As far as A2 is concerned I don't think it is that easy. DS1 got an A but he attended the school that is fairly often top in the country for A2 Physics and has excellent teachers as well as daily revision sessions with DH (physics graduate)because he didn't find it that easy. The one easy thing you can do to boost your marks is to keep retaking AS modules until you get full marks. DS1 retook one module twice so he went from a low A to a 100% mark.

That three hour physics A level paper was quite something, I can still remember the high I was on at the end of that paper many years back followed by the sheer exhaustion a couple of hours later

The continual resit thing does make it easier to get the top grades without universities knowing (and don't start me on about maths which is made up of four AS papers and only two A2 papers)

I still dream about it. And I think there were two three hour papers.

I want to go into a health related career. I've just been told by an admissions tutor. That my a levels (which are revelent I have good grades and well above what the course is asking for) aren't recongised because I did them 15 years ago.

It stinks! It stinks! I expect they are prepared to let in some little squirt who has done several resits and with poorer grades than me.

Prehaps I should post this thread on the "Am I being unreasonable/"

poor you Frances5 you will just have to resit them all and hope the rumours are true re I E non S and V

Frances5, the thing about optics is that it has a lot fewer things you can do with it than relativity.
Classical optics just doesn't really lead anywhere, but of course the reason for that specific bit of dumbing down of science is that optics requires far less advanced maths.

Message withdrawn

Frances5, I don't know what uni you were applying to but I think that admissions tutor is talking bollocks. I used to do admissions in my department at the uni I work at, and we had no problem with the older A levels. And mature students could apply through a different entry scheme that tested them in different ways if they didn't have the relevant qualifications. These days with the Widening Participation agenda in universities, i think you would be within your rights to question this with them.

I must say to frances5, that this looks remarkably like Age Discrimination. I would point this out with some vigour and ask them if they wanted to be sued, and if so what was the right place to deliver the legal notice.