5 science gcses

[christywhisty]

Had parents evening on Thursday for DS yr8. There was talk of doing 5 science gcses from Yr9 which are the chemistry, physics and biology and I assume double science.
Will most of work be cross over between the double science and the individual subjects?
Is there any point in it really? Will it give them a better grounding for a'levels?
DS teacher said they don't want to put too much pressure on them and keep the fun in science for them.

I don't know - my son is y9, and doing the three sciences. he sits some exams this year (year9), but I haven't heard mentioned the double science - and they are pushed hard as well.......

That sounds like an awful lot of exams to me. I really don't see the point.

Why would anyone do three separate sciences plus double science?

I don't think you can end up with 5 science GCSEs. They probably all start off going for double science and then those that can manage do the triple award.

You need 'ScienceTeacher'on here.

I did double science at school (no other choice at the school I was at), and it covered all three so can't think it would be done as well as the three separately. The three separately would be better - more in-depth I would think.

As far as I am aware you either do triple science or double.

Apart from the triple dd1's school had options for additional science and 21st Century science IIRC. Maybe it's something like that?

The double wouldn't be in addition to the separate sciences, it would be instead of.

At my dds school all the pupils take double science starting in year 9 then those who are capable do triple science from year 10. I thought their was a significant cross over between the two courses and really can't see the point of doing double and triple science?

I've heard of this, it's totally pointless and means that you have to sit all the double science exams twice so tht they can be certificated separately. No new knowledge is gained at all, but the school's GCSE points per pupil and probably percentage getting 5 or more grade A*-C increases.

be careful they don't mean them to do btec science 9which is allegedly worth 4 gcse's - though you cannot go onto science a levels with it)
you can't do double science and the three seperate sciences and end up with five gcse's : double science means you have done 2/3 of the work for each science, for the triple (ie seperates) you do 3/3 of the syllabus - same syllabus, same work

Thanks
DS's teacher definitely said they would end up with 5 science gcses which included chemistry, physics and biology. The science teacher was the first teacher we saw so by the end of the evening I have probably got a bit confused, which is partly why I am asking. Maybe it is additional science and 21st science as ellingwoman has suggested?

Loshad, you can in fact end up with 5 science GCSEs: science, additional science, physics, chemistry & biology if you sit the common parts twice. Odd rules apply as to which results count towards which award as detailed here - point 9 onwards.
But you are right that no extra learning is involved.

The Science specifications are made up as follows:

Science (Year 10) = B1a, B1b, C1a, C1b, P1a, P1b

Additional Science (Year 11) = B2, C2, P2

Biology = B1a, B1b, B2, B3
and the same for Chemistry and Physics.

To get five GCSEs, the candidate would need to cash in the Sciene and Additional Science modules twice, as well as the extension modules. They would have no opportunity to resit, or to have a duff internally assessed task.

There would be no point in this. Noone in higher education will see any value in it.

There's no point in doing seperate physics, chem and bio and doing double science. You cover the whole of the double science GCSE by doing them seperately and do a bit extra on top.