GCSE Science specifications are released

Here are the draft specifications for GCSE Science from each of the exam boards – they are due to be ratified by Ofqual before end of the summer holidays. Officially for first teaching in September 2016, but some schools run a 3 year GCSE so they will be teaching this from September 2015.
Please could you comment below if your school is doing this – we could do with getting heads together over the summer to formulate an appropriate scheme of work – see below.

This table has links to the relevant webpages (click on each exam board) as well as direct links to the specification as PDFs.

AQA	EdExcel	Eduqas	OCR Gateway	OCR C21
Combined Science (Trilogy) Combined Science (Synergy)	Combined Science	Combined Science	Combined Science	Combined Science
Biology	Biology	Biology	Biology	Biology
Chemistry	Chemistry	Chemistry	Chemistry	Chemistry
Physics	Physics	Physics	Physics	Physics

I will study the physics specifications in more detail and report back, but here’s a comment: the content for these GCSEs has changed greatly. There is little resemblance to the topic structure that existed before.

They all cover new subject criteria as defined in the DfE GCSE Subject Content for combined and single science but aside from the order it’s more or less the same content as the DfE document on first look.

My initial advice would be to study the sample assessments and make a decision on exam board based on accessibility of assessment as the content is all but identical.

 

 

 

TODO:

• Comparison of Proposed Exam structure
• Identification of key descriminators between each course
• Practical requirements.

 

Please comment below with your thoughts and advice – I will collate any pertinent tweets.

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