A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
A Science teacher by trade, I've also been known to be found teaching Maths and PE! However, strange as it may seem, my real love is designing resources that can be used by other teachers to maximise the experience of the students. I am constantly thinking of new ways to engage a student with a topic and try to implement that in the design of the lessons.
This is a fully-resourced lesson that looks at how pressure can be calculated using force and area and then explores how hydraulics are used to transmit a force through a fluid and challenges the students to apply the given equation to calculate the force or area. The lesson includes a lesson presentation (18 slides) and a question worksheet which has been differentiated two ways.
The lesson begins by challenging the students to use an answer to a calculation question to work out the equation that links pressure, force and area. A range of mathematical skills are tested throughout the lesson, such as converting between units and rearranging formula, and then the answers are fully explained so any student who was unable to move through the question can visualise the method. Moving forwards, students will be introduced to a hydraulics system and the equation which they will be given on the sheet in the exam. Students will use the equation to calculate the force or area at the second point of the system. This task has been differentiated so that students who find it difficult are still able to access the learning.
This lesson has been written for GCSE aged students
This is a concise lesson that looks at Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, the changes and tweaks that he made and compares it against the modern day version of the table. The aim of the lesson is to show students how accurate Mendeleev was with his table, even with those elements that had not yet been discovered. They will work through some examples with eka-silicon and eka-manganese and also compare eka-aluminium’s predictions against those of gallium. Links are made to the development of the atom so students can understand how the atomic number was used by Mendeleev and how it is used now.
Students are set homework to look at the developments that were made by other scientists as homework and this is not covered in this lesson.
This bundle of 4 lesson presentations and associated resources cover a lot of the mathematical skills that can be tested in Science. Since the move to the new GCSE specifications, the mathematical element has increased significantly and these lessons act to guide students through these skills. Students are shown how to convert between units, rearrange to change the subject of the formula and to use significant figures and standard form.
This bundle of 5 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic B3 (Infection and response) of the AQA Trilogy GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Communicable (infectious diseases)
Viral diseases
Bacterial diseases
Fungal diseases
Protist diseases
Human defence systems
Vaccination
Antibiotics
Discovery and development of drugs
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 11 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic B6.3 (Monitoring and maintaining health) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
The relationship between health and disease
Different types of diseases
The interactions between different types of diseases
The spread of communicable diseases
Reducing and preventing the spread of communicable diseases
The role of white blood cells and platelets in defence
The non-specific defence systems
The role of the immune system in the defence against disease
The use of vaccines and medicines in the prevention and treatment of disease
The discovery and development of potential new medicines
Risk factors and non-communicable diseases
Treatments for CVD
Stem cells in medicine
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This is a concise, fast-paced lesson that introduces students to addition polymers and guides them through drawing displayed formulae to represent both the monomers and polymers involved in these reactions. Students will learn the conditions needed for these reactions and that the polymers produced by addition reactions are the only products. The main part of the lesson involves a step by step guide to show students how to draw displayed formulae. Hints are given throughout the process so that students can remember the key ideas and are able to represent these substances accurately. A number of progress checks have been written into the lesson so that students can assess their understanding any misconceptions can be addressed.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students
This is an engaging lesson that looks at how vaccinations are used in medicine and considers how the introduction of these preventative measures has reduced the incidence of disease.
The lesson begins by introducing vaccinations as the deliberate exposure to antigenic material and then reminds students of the meaning of the term, antigen, so that they understand how this will elicit the desired immune response. Lots of opportunities for discussion have been written into the lesson so that key points such as how the vaccination is altered so that isn’t harmful and how memory cells work can be discussed amongst students before being clarified by the teacher and the lesson content. Moving forwards, students will be given some figures on child mortality rate in 1900 and 2000. They are shown how to manipulate this data in order to work out the percentage change. Students are then challenged to use these skills when comparing the children that were vaccinated for whooping cough in 1968 and 1995 and to make a link between vaccinations and mortality rates. These mathematical skills are being tested more and more in Biology so this guidance will help students to understand how to manipulate data when required. Progress checks have been written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students can constantly assess their understanding.
This lesson has been designed for GCSE aged students. If you’re looking for a lesson on this same topic but for older students at A-level, then my upload “Vaccinations (A-level)” will be more suitable
This is a fully-resourced lesson that looks at how the transfer of electrons from metals to non-metals causes ionic bonds and compounds to form and then explores the different properties of these structures. The lesson includes a detailed and engaging lesson presentation (43 slides) and a task worksheet which has been differentiated two ways.
The lesson begins by introducing the name of the type of bond, but does not go into any more detail at this stage. This is because the lesson is designed to allow the students to discover that in order for both of the atoms involved to get a full outer shell, electrons have to be transferred from one to the other. Over the course of the lesson, students will recognise that it is the metal that loses the electrons and becomes a positive ion whilst the non-metal gains the electrons and becomes a negative ion. There are lots of discussion and discovery points like this written into the lesson so that students can take ownership for their learning. Students are guided through drawing dot and cross diagrams to represent these compounds and as a result links are made to the topics of naming compounds, writing chemical formulae, forming ions and electron configurations. There are a number of quick competitions in the lesson which introduce new terms to the students. One such competition introduces the term lattice and the lesson builds from here to understand why ionic compounds have high melting and boiling points. Moving forwards, students will also learn that solid ionic compounds cannot conduct electricity whilst those in molten form or in an aqueous solution are able to. The final task of the lesson challenges the students to bring all of the information together they have seen to draw a dot and cross diagram for aluminium oxide, explain how it was formed and then explain how aluminium is extracted from this compound by electrolysis. This final task has been differentiated so that students who need extra assistance can still access the learning.
This lesson has been written for GCSE aged students but could be used with higher ability younger students who are pushing on with the elements, compounds and mixtures topic
This bundle of 10 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic C2.1 (Purity and separating mixtures) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Explain what is meant by the purity of a substance and use melting point to distinguish pure from impure
Calculate the relative formula mass separately and in a balanced symbol equation
Deduce the empirical formula of a compound
Explain that many useful materials are formulations of mixtures
Describe and explain the processes of filtration, crystallisation, simple distillation and fractional distillation
Describe the processes of paper and thin-layer chromatography
Recall that chromatography involves a mobile and stationary phase
Interpret chromatograms
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 10 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic C2.2 (Bonding) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Describe metals and non-metals and explain the differences between them
Formation of ions
Common reactions of metals
Explain how the atomic structure of metals and non-metals relates to their position in the Periodic Table
Explain how electron arrangement is related to group and period number
Describe and compare the nature and arrangement of chemical bonds in ionic compounds, simple molecules, giant covalent structures, polymers and metals
Explain chemical bonding in terms of electrostatic forces and as the transfer or sharing of electrons
Construct dot and cross diagrams for simple covalent structures and ionic substances
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 6 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic B2.1 (Supplying the cell) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Explain how substances are transported into and out of cells through diffusion, osmosis and active transport
Describe the process of mitosis in growth, including the cell cycle
Explain the importance of cell differentiation
Describe the production of specialised cells
Recall that stem cells are present in embryonic and adult animals and in meristems in plants
Describe the functions of stem cells
Describe the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 7 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic B2.2(The challenges of size) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Explain the need for exchange surfaces and a transport system in a multicellular organism due to the low SA:V ratio
The exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide with the blood at the alveoli
Explain how the structure of the heart and the blood vessels are adapted to their function
Explain how the red blood cells and plasma are adapted to their transport function in the blood
Describe the processes of transpiration and translocation
Explain how the structure of the xylem and phloem are adapted to their functions in the plant
Explain the effects of a variety of factors on the rate of water uptake
Describe how a simple potometer can be used to investigate the rate of water uptake
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 4 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic B5.2 (Natural selection and evolution) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Developments in biological classification systems
Explain how evolution occurs through natural selection
Describe the evidence for evolution
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 4 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic B5.1 (Inheritance) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Know the meaning of the different genetic terms
Describe that the genome and its interaction with the environment influence the phenotype
Explain the terms haploid and diploid
Explain the role of meiotic division in forming haploid gametes
Explain single gene inheritance
Predict the results of single gene crosses
Describe sex determination in humans using a genetic cross
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 3 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic B6.1 (Monitoring and maintaining the environment) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Be able to explain how to carry out a field investigation into the distribution and abundance of organisms
Be able to estimate population numbers in a given area
Describe both positive and negative human interactions within an ecosystem
Explain human impacts on biodiversity
The benefits and challenges of maintaining local and global biodiversity
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 3 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic B3.3 (Maintaining internal environments) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
The importance of maintaining a constant internal environment in response to internal and external change
Explain how insulin controls blood sugar levels
Explain how glucagon controls blood sugar levels
Compare type I and II diabetes
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 7 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic B3.2 (Coordination and control - the endocrine system) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Describe hormonal coordination by the human endocrine system
Explain the roles of adrenaline and thyroxine in the body
Describe the role of hormones in human reproduction (the menstrual cycle)
The hormonal and non-hormonal methods of contraception
Explain the use of hormones to treat infertility
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 3 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic C2.3 (Properties of materials) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Recall that carbon can form four covalent bonds
Explain the properties of diamond, graphite, fullerenes and graphene in terms of their structures and bonding
Use data to predict states of substances under given substances
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 2 lessons covers all of the content in the sub-topic C3.2 (Energetics) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Distinguish between endothermic and exothermic reactions
Draw and label a reaction profile for both reactions
Explain activation energy
Calculate energy changes in a chemical reaction by considering bond making and bond breaking energies
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
This bundle of 4 lessons covers the majority of the content in the sub-topic C3.3 (Types of chemical reactions) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics and specification points covered within these lessons include:
Explain reduction and oxidation in terms of the loss or gain of oxygen and the loss or gain of electrons
Recall that acids form hydrogen ions when they dissolve in water and solutions of alkalis contain hydroxide ions
Recognise and describe neutralisation reactions
Write balanced equations for the reactions of carbonates and metals with acids
Recall that relative acidity and alkalinity are measured by pH and describe techniques and apparatus to take these measures
All of these lesson presentations and accompanying resources are detailed and engaging and contain regular progress checks to allow the students to constantly assess their understanding.
