GCSE combined science help

[Roadtonowe]

DS (year11) got a 3 in his combined science mocks and I'm trying to help him get up to a grade 4. Are there any specific quick win tips/tricks for this subject?

I have asked the school and they just said about making mind maps but the content is so vast at this point I'm not sure that's targeted enough. I've also asked for copies of his papers and I'm still waiting on them (have chased).

Also, are there any great science you tube tutors/channels that targets lower grade achievers. We used Mr English for his lang/lit papers and he's been super helpful in stepping through the papers and explaining technique etc.

If they are year 11 then it’s too late for mind maps. I’d just keep doing exam papers, use his revision guide to help at first and then gradually take it away. Primrose Kitten or Free Science guy have YouTube channels with loads of content. Malmesbury school science have videos on YouTube of all the required practicals.

CGP revision books are good

BBC bite size was good as a free resource, if the government funded oak academy is still available that’s good and if you can pay there’s various study guides, I recommend cgp, you can find second hand (do check the exam board) then sell them on afterwards if you don’t have more dc.

Seneca learning online

CGP guides, Bitesize and as many past papers as they can lay their hands on.

Yes I thought that too. Thanks for the recommendations, I will check them out with DS. Appreciate your response, thanks

We have these, and the flash cards. It's just such ALOT of content 😖
I'll get DS to have a sit with the guides again though thanks for the reminder about these

Ooh yes bitesize, that's a good shout thanks

My DS used this when his mocks went wrong. He went from 3,3 to 5,5. (Maybe not just because of this book but it did help)

Target Grade 5 AQA GCSE (9-1) Combined Science Intervention

Not heard of Oak academy, just had a Google and it looks great, thanks for the tip

Another great recommendation thanks

Science teacher here- definitely as many past paper exams as possible. The school should be able to provide a bank of exam questions for them to revise from.

Tassomai.

I think it’s paid.

Thank you, I have a few but will ask school for some too.

As a teacher would you say there was a particular place/topic/strategy to start / focus on at first to gain some 'easy' marks?

So for eg in english, the planning ahead for Q5 has been recommended so I wondered if there was something similar for science. Thanks

Will check it out, thanks

Ds is using this and says uts brilliant.

Hi, I am a science teacher and tutor. I would second what others have recommended - free science lessons you tube guy is great, as are the malmesbury videos for the practicals. Make sure he knows which ones he needs though as the extra triple ones are there too.

Do as many past papers as possible. They are all online, as well as the mark schemes. Perhaps concentrate on some of the generic skills type questions if you feel time is short. Things like interpreting and completing graphs, identifying variables, using information given in questions/tables/graphs to answer questions.

If he has not made his own at this point you could buy a set if revision cards. Cgp do them. Might be better for quick bits of revision than thr books.

This is all really helpful thanks so much.

Given the grades he's working around, I'd suggest spending time going through the "starter" knowledge based questions in CGP practice questions books, just to revise the basics and hopefully learn a few new things. I'd not be looking at practice exam questions at the moment as if the core/basic knowledge isn't there, then it's pointless doing lots of exam style questions that he won't have the knowledge to answer and will be soul destroying and counter productive. Working at grade 3/4, he won't find the harder exam questions accessible anyway and they take a lot more time to work through in limited revision time. If he sticks to the short/simple questions, checks his answers, and hopefully learns a few new things, it's probably a better use of his limited time and he may find it more rewarding as he'll get through a lot more content. Maybe just get him to do the first few questions of every topic to get "some" knowledge of everything, rather than try to get too indepth on a limited number of topics that will be harder and may not even come up in the exam. Once he's had a few weeks of the basics, in the week or two before the exams, that's the time to look at a few "real" exam style questions and rather than try to answer all parts, look at how the marks are awarded to try to teach him how to cobble a few simple marks together for most questions and ignore the harder parts. If he could just get the first few (simple) marks on every question and the go further on say half the questions to maybe half marks for half the questions and quarter marks for the other questions, he'd probably be able to get grade 4 or even 5 on a good paper. Exam technique and scrabbling a few marks on a hard question is a bit of a skill that comes with practice, but you can't even practice until you've a good solid base of the core/basics.

Do you know which exam board he is doing? Pearson (Edexcel) sell a "target grade 5" workbook that might be useful. https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/schools/secondary/parents-learners/target-gcse-workbooks.html
They are often available second hand.

I also like cognito.

If it's AQA then the CGP workbook for grades 1-3 might be worth a look, we use it in our Science department. Like PP has said, it might give him confidence. It covers everything, with each topic over one or two pages, and there generally isn't too much info on a page. And if you knew all that, with the addition of some skills based questions you wouldn't even need to know much more content. Having said that, many find the skills hard because they are put off by the maths - there are quite easy marks to be had though, definitely worth practising. How is his maths? You don't need anything complex for Foundation, but obviously some children just freeze at the sight of numbers or tables or graphs.

That's all super helpful thanks so much.

Are the science questions tiered like the maths papers? So questions get progressively harder as you work through the paper?

He's doing the science foundation paper but for maths (higher) he's been advised to concentrate on the 1st half of the paper and get all his marks there (the easier questions) and then continue and answer what he can on the 2nd half for bonus points.

I will look for that book thanks. He is doing AQA. Grades 1-3 are low though....is it aimed at getting those grades up to 4/5?

His maths is ok (passed his mock)

The last couple of questions are what the exam board call crossover content. They are questions aimed at grade five students, the same questions will be at the start of the higher papers.

The school won’t be able to give you his mock papers back. They have to store them in case the exams are cancelled again or he misses them etc. Also, if they used the 2024 papers, they are embargoed so they can’t give you photocopies.

Make sure he can do the maths questions in physics. If he is good at maths, he shouldn’t be losing any marks on those. They get the full data sheet. He should be confident using it following units, substitute, rearrange, solve.

And like everyone else has said, past papers. All of them.

Is he actually working and behaving in his science lessons? Doing his science homework?