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 the different skills needed to calculate the percentage yield. This lesson has been designed for GCSE students and includes an engaging lesson presentation and a skills check worksheet. As well as the obvious Science involved in the lesson, the students’ mathematical skills are challenged as they have to rearrange formulae and also there is a literacy element as recognition of the different types of yield is important. The percentage yield formula is broken down into the two elements of theoretical yield and actual yield and a step by step guide through worked examples is used to visualise how these calculations should be tackled. Students are given regular opportunities to test the skills which they have just learnt (or recalled) before bringing them together to calculate the percentage yield. The lesson finishes with a difficult question which challenges the students to rearrange the formula to make theoretical yield the subject.
This bundle of 15 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic B3 (Organism level systems) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Biology specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
The nervous system
The eye
Hormones and the endocrine system
Adrenaline
Negative feedback loops
Thyroid gland and thyroxine
The menstrual cycle
Contraception
Using hormones to treat infertility
Plant hormones
Homeostasis
Controlling body temperature
Controlling blood glucose
Diabetes
Inside the kidney
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 16 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic C5 (Monitoring and controlling chemical reactions) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Chemistry specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Theoretical yield
Percentage yield
Atom economy
Concentration of solution
Titrations
Titration calculations
Gas calculations
Rates of reaction
The Collision theory
Temperature and the rate of reaction
Concentration and the rate of reaction
Particle size and the rate of reaction
Catalysts and the rate of reaction
Reversible reactions
Temperature and pressure and equilibrium
Choosing reaction conditions
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 19 lessons covers the majority of the content in Topic C2 (Elements, compounds and mixtures) of the OCR Gateway A GCSE Chemistry specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Relative formula mass
Empirical formula
Pure and impure substances
Filtration and crystallisation
Distillation
Chromatography
Metals and non metals
Electronic structure
Forming ions
Ionic compounds
Simple molecules
Giant covalent structures
Polymer molecules
Metallic bonding
Allotropes of carbon
Graphene and the fullerenes
Changing state
Nanoparticles
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 a lot of the content in Topic C7(Rates of reaction and enrgy changes) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science & GCSE Chemistry specifications. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Determining the rate of reaction
The collision theory
The effect of temperature and concentration on the rate of reaction
Catalysts and the rate of reaction
Endothermic and exothermic reactions
Calculating energy changes in reactions
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 a lot of the content in Topic C4 (Extracting metals and equilibria) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science & GCSE Chemistry specifications. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Reactivity of metals
Redox reactions
Extracting metals
Biological metal extraction
Reversible reactions
The conditions of the Haber Process
Temperature and the position of equilibrium
Pressure and the position of equilibrium
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 8 lessons covers a lot of the content in Topic C3 (Chemical changes) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science & GCSE Chemistry specifications. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Acid, alkaline and neutral solutions
Reactions of acids
Detecting gases
Neutralisation reactions
Acid-alkali titrations
Electrolysis of molten salts and solutions
Writing half equations
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 the majority of the content in Topic C2 (States of matter and mixtures) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science & GCSE Chemistry specifications. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Particle arrangement in the states of matter
Physical and chemical changes
Pure and impure substances
Separation methods
Paper chromatography
Interpreting a chromatogram
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 C1 sub-topic called CALCULATIONS INVOLVING MASSES of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science & GCSE Chemistry specifications. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Calculating relative formula mass
Empirical formula
The law of the conservation of mass
Calculating masses in reactions
Calculating concentration of solutions
Avogadro’s constant
Mole calculations
Limiting reactants
Stoichiometry
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 9 lessons covers a lot of the content in Topic B9 (Ecosystems and material cycles) of the Edexcel GCSE Biology specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Levels of organisation in an ecosystem
Biotic and abiotic factors
Interdependence
Types of ecological relationships
Sampling techniques
Efficiency of biomass transfer
Human impacts on ecosystems
Maintaining and increasing biodiversity
The carbon cycle
The nitrogen cycle
Decomposition
The rate of decay
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 a lot of the content in Topic B9 (Ecosystems and material cycles) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Levels of organisation in an ecosystem
Biotic and abiotic factors
Interdependence
Types of ecological relationships
Sampling techniques
Human impacts on ecosystems
Maintaining and increasing biodiversity
The carbon cycle
The nitrogen cycle
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 Topic B8 (Exchange and transport in animals) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
The need to transport substances
Surface to volume ratio
Gas exchange at the alveoli
The structure of blood and its function
The structure of blood vessels
The structure of the heart
Aerobic and anaerobic respiration
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 a lot of the content in Topic B6 (Plant structures and their functions) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
The photosynthesis reaction
The limiting factors of photosynthesis
The structure and function of the xylem and phloem
Transporting water and minerals by transpiration
Factors affecting the rate of transpiration
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 a lot of the content in Topic B5 (Health, disease and development of medicines) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Health
The difference between communicable and non-communicable diseases
Pathogens
Common infections
The spread of diseases and the prevention
The spread of STIs
The physical and chemical defences of the human body
The use of antibiotics
Developing new medicines
Non-communicable diseases
Treating cardiovascular disease
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 a lot of the content in Topic B3 (Genetics) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Advantages and disadvantages of asexual reproduction
Advantages and disadvantages of sexual reproduction
The role of meiosis
The structure of DNA
Understanding and using genetic terminology
Monohybrid inheritance
Sex determination
The causes of variation
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 Topic B1 (Key concepts in Biology) of the Edexcel GCSE Combined Science specification. The topics covered within these lessons include:
Animal cells
Plant cells
Bacterial cells
Specialised cells
Changes in microscopic technology
Number, size and scale
The relationship between quantitative units
Enzyme properties and action
Enzyme activity
Osmosis
Active transport
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 fully-resourced lesson that looks at the meaning of a limiting reactant in a chemical reaction and guides students through how to apply this to a number of calculations. Step by step guides are used to go through worked examples so students are able to visualise how to set out their work.
The lesson begins with a fun analogy involving sausages and potatoes so that students can identify that the potatoes limited the sale of food. Alongside this, students will learn the key term excess. Some time is then taken to ensure that students can spot the limiting reactant and the one in excess in actual chemical reactions and method descriptions. Moving forwards, students will be guided through two calculations that involve limiting reactants - those to calculate the theoretical yield and the other to calculate a balanced symbol equation. Other skills involved in these calculations such as calculating the relative formula mass are recalled and a few examples given to ensure they are confident. The question worksheet has been differentiated two ways so that any students who need extra assistance can still access the learning.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students.
This lesson has been written with the aim of engaging students in the topic of simple and giant covalent molecules, as this is a topic which is often considered to be boring or is brushed over. A variety of tasks have been used to maintain the interest whilst ensuring that they key details and Science are known and understood.
The lesson begins with a quick recap task where students have to recognise a covalent bond from a description and fill the missing part. Moving forwards, they are introduced to the fact that covalent molecules can be simple or giant. They are then presented with a table showing some properties of covalent molecules and having to group them as simple or giant in the short space of time that the table remains displayed on the board. This task challenges their observational skills, something which will again be tested later in the lesson as they study the structure of graphite and diamond. Time is taken to ensure that key details such as the strong covalent bonds in both sets of molecules is understood and that it is the weak intermolecular forces which are actually responsible for the low melting and boiling points. The last part of the lesson introduces diamond and graphite as allotropes of carbon and students will briefly learn why one of these conducts electricity whilst the other doesn’t. If you want a lesson about these allotropes in more detail, then please look for “Diamond and Graphite”. Progress checks have been written into the lesson at regular intervals so that students are constantly assessing their understanding and so misconceptions are quickly identified.
This lesson has been written for GCSE students (14 - 16 years of age in the UK)
This is an engaging and discussion filled lesson which looks at the menstrual cycle and specifically focuses on the interaction of the four hormones in the cycle. This lesson has been designed for GCSE students (ages 14 - 16 in the UK) but is suitable for older students who want a recap on this topic before going into more depth.
In order to understand the cycle, it is critical that students know the roles that each of the hormones perform and also can describe how one hormone affects another. The main task of the lesson goes through the steps in the cycle, but challenges the students to use their prior knowledge of the endocrine system to add in the name of the correct hormone. At appropriate points of the lesson, time is taken to relate this topic to others in Biology, such as the use of oestrogen in the contraceptive pill and also hCG as the hormone which is detected by pregnancy tests. Students will know key landmarks in the 28 day cycle and be able to relate this back to the hormones. There are progress checks throughout the lesson but the final part of the lesson involves three understanding checks where students are challenged to apply their knowledge.
This is a fully-resourced lesson which looks at how IVF is used a treatment for infertility and considers the arguments for and against this process. The lesson includes an engaging, informative and discussion provoking lesson presentation and a pair of differentiated worksheets which challenge the mathematical skills of the students when looking at the % chance of multiple births from IVF.
The lesson begins by getting the students to recognise the phrase “test tube baby” and then to link this to IVF. Extra pieces of interesting information are given throughout the lesson, such as the introduction of Louise Brown at this point. A step by step guide is used to go through the key steps in the process. Questions are continually posed to the students which get them to think and attempt to verbalise their answers such as when they are questioned whether men are needed for this process. There is a focus on key terminology throughout, such as haploid and zygote and genetic screening. Students will learn that multiple births are much more common in IVF births than from natural conception and then they will be asked to manipulate data in a mathematical task with some figures from a maternity ward. As these questions are quite difficult, this worksheet has been differentiated so that all students can access the learning.
Although this has been written for GCSE students, it is suitable for use with older students.