Science, double science and bio/chem/physics?

[lisalisa]

Can someone please explain to me what the differences between these GCSEs are and why the options have been changed ( in my day we were given choices only of the trad 3 - boi/chem or physics). Is it some kind of dumbing down?

gosh - what a lot of responses - shrinking voilet - thank you for your most helpful response.

Dd loves science so i want her to do as much as possible. Luckily she is in the top set as her school offer all 3 ( chem/bio/phys) to only the top set. She is likely to want to do some science at least at A Lvel ( she is a sciencey maths person and not good at english or humanities at all - bottomo set in fact!)so thanks for the tip about double science possibly not being enough if they want to do A level. I will remember that tip.

fennel - its certainly a new idea to me 0- at my state comprehensive in 1984 there was no such thing as single or double science - only the traditional 3 science options.

and thank you to everyone else who I haven't mentioned btw - I hav only read a few of the posts as I need to digest the thread in great detail . I will post later.

Isn't MN great?

Some more questions - what are iGCSEs? Are they - as their name suggests - independent school GCSEs and how bizarre if they are and if indep schools can take totally different exams?

can state schools opt for iGCSEs? I know someone above said that they can't choose iGCSEs - i.e. the subjects - but maybe they can opt for them totally instead?

Snorkle - why would you avoid the Physics A level because it has had maths removed? Is that becuase the unis won't consider it in same light and if so what can you do instead?
And as a general question - WHY are they making GCSEs and A levels so much easeir than they used to be?

Lisalisa, can you explain what your option problems are? I am all new to this as my son is in year 6, so it is very interesting to me. What options do you think would be suitable for your dc?

HI MillyR - my dd is only in year 7 so no problems as such yet!

I just assumed that was on offer was bio/chem/physics as it used to be. Then as dd did so amazingly well in her mid term science assessment and is top of set one ( proud mummy emoticon) I decided to read the sceince blurb in teh prosepcturs and found all this waffle about single science and double science and thought wtf? I hope this is not going to ruin dd's chances of getting good A levels and good uni. I do like to look to the future as you can see!

If the school is offering 3 sciences then I expect they will have made sure that it is possible to do a good mix of of other subjects at GCSE as well. I don't think just having 2 GCSEs in science would hold her back as there will be children applying to university who didn't have the choice of doing 3 and an admissions tutor wouldn't want to discriminate, but if she likes science then it makes sense to do all 3, particularly as she is better at them and would get higher grades than if she did a humanity instead (from what you say).

My son does not enjoy humanity/social science subjects and I expect he will ask to drop them all at GCSE, although he will still have to do English literature.

iGCSE is international, not independent. I don't know if they are available at any state schools though.

IGCSE. I don't know whether any state schools offer it - government is not keen on them, but as I said below, DS1's independent school has moved over to them as the teachers felt that the current GCSE syllabi on offer were not good preparation for AS/A2 and science related courses at Russell Group universities.

State schools were thought to be unable to offer iGCSEs because they're not 'approved courses' and the government won't fund them. However a state grammar school in Bexley has recently introduced them (because they think the science GCSEs have been too dumbed down) story here and seems to think the funding issue will be OK as the pupils are doing GCSEs in some subjects.

Lisalisa, I doubt universities would discriminate against the 'Advancing Physics' A level - it has been approved by the IoP after all. The reason I'd avoid it is that in my opinion (as a physics graduate) that if you take the maths out of physics what's left isn't really true physics.

snorkle - is there such a thing now as straight physics a level anymore?

Why oh why do they hvae to play with the curriculum all the time? Worked perfectly well in my day...!

Yes, there is Physics A level. Quite a few do it at my DCs school.

Yes there is still straight physics. OCR for example, offer two physics syllabi. Arguably both are straight physics, but imo their 'Physics A' is straighter than their 'Physics B - Advancing Physics' syllabus.

Actually I think they've always tinkered with syllabuses and had slightly alternative ones. In my day it was the Nuffield variants that people grumbled about (I think they were actually quite good, but more practical based than the others).

Any school offering the Advancing Physics course would still call it plain Physics.

I'm not familiar with Advancing Physics, but having looked at their website, it just looks like a context approach to the subject (ie similar to Nuffield).

I teach Edexcel course and it allows us to mix & match concept and context, and still have the same examinations.

The QCA has such a heavy hand in the specifications - the boards make out they have very little flexibility in what to cover.

It is right that a Science course should change with the times.

DS does double science and was told end yr9 it would not affect him doing science A level if wanted to. Lots of others in his year do triple science and some do vocational single science. However having just done mocks the school now says that the double science classes are all doing the foundation course (meaning they can only get a C max), this effectively means he can't do any of sciences at A level as school insists on a B for A level subjects. As you can imagine I'm hopping mad and wondering how to warn yr9 pupils now making their choices of this hidden agenda.

We have (hopefully) sorted it out by getting him private tuition outside school and insisting he is entered for higher level (the only 1 out of 60-70 in his year doing double).

That is bad champagne. Glad you've sorted it out though. I'd have thought anybody in the double science sets who scored highly enough in the mocks to do the higher tier should be able to and the school ought to sort out the teaching required. Otherwise it seems like there's some sort of discrimination going on.

My DD is Yr9 and we are just starting to look at GCSE options, so I was so pleased to find this thread!

She is good at science and keen to do all 3 subjects, but she is also a good linguist and so wants to do at least 2 languages and I am beginning to see her running out of space. It has been really helpful to see everyone's thoughts / opinions / advice.

Champagne, I was talking about this on another thread, about children/parents not being 'informed' enough in some cases. This is a prime example.

Luckily you have the wherewithall to arrange tutoring and can make a fuss at the school, thank goodness. No doubt there will be other children whose parents are not so keen to sort it out (or have no idea about foundation/higher levels) and for whom the opportunity to get a higher grade has now disappeared.

Hopefully, by you insisting on your DS taking the higher level, it will alert the school to the fact that they have made a mistake in informing you that he could go on to do an A level in a science subject with the double science GCSE (which many pupils do). Good luck to your DS!

Champagne - that is quite shocking to drop that bombshell after the GCSE course is underway.

There is very little extra on the Higher level paper - it shouldn't be that hard for the school to teach all the material.

I have heard it said, by someone who was training to be a science teacher, that the double award doesn't help teach people to be scientists, it teaches them a smattering about sciences.

Its probably a good idea that non-sciency types do this rather than nowt, as in my day, but sounds like its not really enough if they are likely to want to go into a science-based career.

The third module that triple scientists do is just more of the same though. It justs adds breadth to the subject, not depth.

Two-thirds of the separate sciences is exactly the same as the Science/Additional Science. There is no magic bullet. A-level courses take over from Additional Science. They do not assume that a student has done the third module.

It is your A-levels that are important for your science career, not your GCSEs - but missing out on a foreign language or humanity is probably more of a loss than the small gain in knowledge of one or two branches of Science (assuming that not all three will be studied at A-level).

There is nothing wrong with Separate Sciences (my own boys did/are doing three awards) but it is important what you gain from doing these, and what you lose out on. It has never been the tradition to do get three awards for Sciences, because a broad and balanced curriculum is very important.

There is certainly no need for any budding scientist to do three awards, unless artificially imposed by lazy timetablers.

from what I've been told the triple science option is no better than the double - you just learn even more dumbed down drivel. So really even for science types triple isn't a great deal &, even if they don't like it, keeping their curriculum broad at that age is a good thing imo.

Exactly, snorkle.

Although I think the current courses have their merits too. I swing from one extreme to the other on how I feel about them. I certainly think the intentions behind them are very good.

I did 5 years of French too, and can manage very well in France. I only use it as a tourist now, but feel very comfortable. I found it invaluable when I was working in France - all using schoolgirl French.

I'm certainly glad that I persevered with it at school, rather than being tempted to do Biology. I now know as much Biology as I would ever have learnt at school, but if I dropped French, I wouldn't be at the level I am now.