How many hours a week is normal for GCSE science

[dustywindlass]

My child is in year 11 and taking separate science. For various reasons, some completely out of the school's control, from January onwards they're getting 1h10 mins of contact time per week for Chemistry. This is two 35 minutes lessons (not back to back).
September to December they were getting 1h30 (again two non- consecutive lessons). I think in year 10 they were having 1h50.

It is a top set, and the 1h50 minutes was expected as it was meant to be an accelerated pace.

How much should I be worried that they are now down to 1h10? Is it realistic to move this fast and still cover all content, or should I expect entire topics to have to be self taught?

Any Chemistry teachers around to comment on whether this is doable? My child is working at a 9, not planning to take Alevel and I am really reluctant to tutor, but my initial impression is that there just isn't enough contact time allocated to cover the full syllabus.

Reassurance it'll all be fine very much welcome!

At our school they get 10 hours per fortnight for double science and 15 hours for triple. The triple is split evenly between the sciences (so 5 hours a fortnight per science). But a lot will depend on how much content is already covered. Here they start the GCSE content in year 9 as there seems to be alot to cram in for science.

They started in year 9, but classes were mixed i.e. they were working at the Combined science pace on year 9.

That doesn’t sound like much, my DD is in yr 10 doing triple science top set and they get 3x 50 min lessons per week for each science.

DD gets 6hrs a week. This is the same for both Double and Separate science, so the top sets are doing 3 GCSEs in the time of two GCSEs.

I would get the specification for the GCSE and tick off the topics covered and see what is left. Most of our GCSE subjects over the years have covered the content by the end of Feb, leaving y11 term 4 for revision and exam technique.

But I don't think 2 x 35mins a week is much, and must make practicals very difficult. 35 minute long lessons are a bit pointless for any subject.

DD had 2.5 hrs per week of each science at GCSE (her school only taught separate). I don’t think that 1h 10 mins would suffice to be honest - I very clearly remember teachers rushing to get things covered when it came close to the exam period. This was at a high level grammar so it’s not as if they would’ve been running through the content slowly either. If you’re concerned I would probably look at hiring a chemistry tutor. It’s a difficult subject to self teach

Agree with others than this doesn't sound like much. DC is doing separate sciences and has 9 lessons a week, I think lessons are 50 minutes so 2h30 for each science a week.

2 x 1 hour a week for each science, same allocation for dual science and triple (so the top sets have faster pace to cover more content for triple)
What has the time been reallocated to? Presumably they have the same subjects as in Y10 so where has the extra lesson gone?

That’s less than ours - separate sciences have two 55 minute lessons of each science per week, overall, so 1hr 50 weekly.

However, the science lessons aren’t set by ability, apart from the divide between separate and combined science GCSEs. So it’s possible that if your child’s science classes are also set by ability, they might be able to move quite a lot faster.

The top maths set at my kids school for GCSEs moves at a much faster pace than the other sets, and fits in teaching for both gcse maths and gcse further maths into the same time as the other sets are doing gcse maths only. So they effectively spend much less time on the material than other sets. So if your child’s science classes are a particularly high ability group, it might be ok. But I agree I would be a bit concerned at the drop off of lesson time and would want to find out more to understand impact. Do they always do this? Are they responding to a crisis? How far through the curriculum are they?

Adding also - the 1hr 50 that ours have is not an “accelerated pace top set thing” - it’s what all the separate sciences classes have. So I wouldn’t necessarily think that what yours had in y10 was fast paced.
Schools sometimes try to get through most of the material well before GCSEs start and do a lot of revision in the term leading up to exams - we had a fair bit of that apart from one or two teachers.

Again, I’d say don’t make assumptions based on the lesson timings - ask (first your child, then the teacher/ head of subject) what proportion is left to cover. You definitely shouldn’t have to expect any “entire topics to be self taught”.

For DD they got 10hrs/fortnight total for combined and 14/fortnight total for separate.

Ours get 2 x 55 min lessons in each science, same for both triple and combined.
It’s a push on that for triple so 2x 35 mins is crazy little.

Thanks everyone.

@Talipesmum in your school can anyone do separate science or do they have to qualify? In our school you need to be working at a 7 at least by the end of year 9 to be allowed to do separate science. Then that's the pace for all separate science sets. It's accelerated compared to combined science (who have the same time per subject but obviously 1/3 less content). All the separate science sets have this issue for one of the sciences. My child is top set, but the other sets are facing the same issue but in Physics or Biology not Chemistry.

My child has mocks next week and is v stressed so any questions about content (or in fact pretty much anything to do with GCSEs!) won't go down well! I'll give it a bit as there's no teaching time this coming week due to mocks anyway.

My entire being hares the idea of turning for a subject they're predicted a 9 in! That just seems madness. I will if I have to though.

At our school (comprehensive non selective high school) they have to qualify, but I don’t remember the criteria. I just asked my son and he thinks about 60% of the year group do separate sciences and 40% do combined science.

The combined science classes have less science teaching time (three fewer 55min lessons per fortnight overall) but cover less material. They have 3 lessons per science subject, vs the 4 lessons per science subject for the triple scientists. So it’s 2/3 of the material in 3/4 of the time. Not a huge difference in pace really between the separate and combined sciences.

It’s really hard to tell from just the hours whether there’ll be a content issue for your school. I would perhaps ask for a private conversation with one of the teachers to understand what you can best do to support her. My son’s physics class has nearly finished most of the curriculum now, but there’s still a few key topics to go in eg biology.

Find out the actual curriculum situation from the school, you don’t need to involve your daughter. And take it from there. It’s a bit weird why this has happened but I guess you’re maybe not wanting to be too outing on reasons specifically related to the school, if you know what they are. Teacher absence or something?

DD is in a grammar school and everyone does triple science and gets 2h per week per science in Y10 (I imagine it will be the same in Y11.)

1h10 sounds far from ideal, and I imagine they will be whizzing through the content very quickly in lessons. If your DD is predicted a 9 she is probably a quick and proactive learner, so she should make sure she consolidates her learning at home after every lesson by referring to the syllabus, study guides, online resources.

My DD feels that one of her science teachers is quite weak, so she is taking the above approach to make sure there are no surprises later on!

What's happened to the other lesson? Is that allocated to another science?

It may be fine, if they have worked out how the syllabus will be completed. If they have more biology than chemistry, perhaps they will finish biology quicker and then the biology teacher will either take on teaching one of the remaining chemistry topics, or will take primary responsibility for revision. Another option would be that any chemistry practice papers are completed in the spare lesson, since they don't actually need the teacher for that.

I think in year 9 DD's class had uneven distribution of their lessons between the sciences, but they just made adjustments like that to ensure they completed the syllabus.

If they are short of a chemistry teacher, then giving every class a bit less chemistry than would be ideal is probably better than one class having everything taught by a non-specialist.

Unless it’s being imposed by a Mat, it’s not out of the schools control - if it’s a staffing issue then someone else could teach it (not ideal but better than nobody).

It's not the UK. The most recent change to 1h30 is realistically outside of the school's control unless they completely redo the timetable - the government has directed an earlier finish one day a week, and schools aren't allowed to change start/finish times or shorten breaks. The original issue with it only being 1h30 not 1h55 was the school's timetabling choice. Of course they can run extra contact time at lunchtimes or similar, but that's not a great outcome either because it's less down time and there's too little of that as it is.

I'm going to give them a week (it's mocks this week and next) to come up with an communicate a plan. Then if they don't (experience suggests they will not!) I'll ask more pointed questions.

I started the thread to get an idea of what is 'normal' because I know I'll get something about contact time and the specification thrown at me!