Any A Level Chemistry teachers or are your DC doing A Level Chem?

[Horsemad]

DS is in L6 & they've done something called CIPs which DS says stands for Chemistry in Practice/Practise.

From what I can gather (from a fellow parent) it's a test that their received grades all contribute towards their A Level.
Is this true? DS not very forthcoming (received a D which DH not impressed about) so I'm a bit in the dark about these.
We have parents evening tomorrow so will be asking there too!

Anyone?

DS1 in lower 6th and studying chemistry (AS this year) but haven't heard of this. He does practicals which count towards his grade but seems to have the option of repeating them if they don't go as well as he hoped.. I think you need to get the low down at parents' evening. Did you not get info about all this when he was deciding on 6th form options?

Can't remember that far back QueenQueenie! They made their A level choices before they even sat GCSE, so it was a while ago.

Have just checked with DS & they are practicals & they can do re-sits, so all is not lost with the D grade.

Will definitely be checking at school tomorrow, trying to get info out of DS is like getting blood from a stone.

Also have a Y12 chemistry student, and haven't heard of these. Would be interested to find out though! Maybe it's a board related thing? And btw, I sometimes think it would be much easier to get blood out of a stone, than info from my DS!

Is he doing the OCR Salters Specification for A level Chemistry? Am not sure why, but they call the practical investigations Chemistry in Practice. HTH

Not sure crazymum53 but will check with teacher later. Thanks.

mindgone, thanks for your reply also.

Sounds like Salters Chemistry, awful course imo. The practical aspects are great but the theory tagged onto the context causes lots of problems in terms of progression of understanding. Have a look on the OCR website and the practical work should be outlined in the specification.

Update; yes it is OCR Salters. Feel a bit bettter after speaking to teacher, but DS needs to learn to motivate himself.

It is so frustrating to watch a thoroughly capable student just letting it all slip by.

I want to scream

I have a 17 year old doing A level chemistry. It is a practical piece of coursework and can be repeated to improve the grade, a bit like the ISA at GCSE.
I can't remember how much it contributes to the A level but I think not much. Practicals are DS worst topic and he still got all As at AS in spite of not getting full marks in the CIPs.

The teacher said the CIPs are worth 30% of their AS level; hopefully DS will start to get his act together & the grades will improve.

my dd is doing this salters chemistry a level and it seemed to make sense to me when it was described as a spiral learning programme - they go round and round topics adding to understanding and knowledge as they go through the two years. kritur do you teach it? I hope it is not as bad as you suggest!! dd seems ok with it (second year sixth) and the individual investigation thing seems quite inspiring!

Are the practical tests for Salters Chemistry internally assessed?