Practical work for GCSE Biology

[MaryBCH]

Since Covid my Grand-daughter's school has ceased practical work in class, because students are not allowed to move around in the classroom.
Is this the general rule, or is the school being too restrictive?
Exam questions in GCSE expect some practical experience, don't they?

My daughters secondary is still doing practicals so it must just be an individual school rule. My son is doing A level Biology and is still doing practicals at college.

At GCSE, they can know what they need to by watching a video or maybe the teacher will do the practical at the front of the class. As long as she understands the experiment, she’ll be fine.

DC's school has kept science practicals throughout, so it's a school choice not to.

As PP says, watching the teacher do it is deemed sufficient (according to the exam board) for GCSE. Not so great for actually producing scientists, of course.

When watching the teacher do it, try note taking. Or you can always email after to ask for a oral or verbal explanation of the scientific processes etc as well.

There’s lots of YouTube videos showing the required practicals and BBC Bitesize is also a good resource for explanations of them.

Ds watched the teacher do some during lockdown online learning. They are probably on YouTube

My daughters school ceased science, DT, Food tech etc practicals during COVID. She is in Year 11 now but has missed 2 years of practicals (her school do 3 year GCSEs). They have restarted them this year though.
The students don’t actually have to do any practicals in their exams.

Agree with others, rubbish for the kids but no exam requirement for them to actually do practicals.
Questions about them on the papers, common sense would suggest that they were the topIcs taken off for next summer so presumably no chance of that.
Primrose kitten or my free science lessons both great video channels to watch and help with this.
Practical questions in the exam often involve planning a minor alteration to the required practicals or improving information in the question.

Hi @MaryBCH,

Take a look at www.coresciences.co.uk. This is a platform where pupils can perform GCSE Science experiments virtually and learn about the theory behind the experiments. All of the required practicals for Biology, Chemistry and Physics are on there.

Students can also play games and take tests based on what they have learned.

I hope this is useful!