A mock paper which I have put together for our year 13 students - taking questions from a variety of years and syllabuses to avoid the usual learning of mark schemes which I tend to encounter!!
Used with a high ability year 12 group as part of the mass transport topic.
Used the 'Grilled Cheese' font, so titles may need changing if you do not have this font on your computer.
Designed for high ability year 8s - in small groups, pupils use the provided information to plan a mini 'lesson' on their allocated deficiency.
One pupils stays at their station to teach others - the rest move around the room, learning about the other deficiencies. They then return to their group, and teach their presenter about what they have learnt.
Move on to look at BMIs, with some celeb data. Pupils are prompted to consider how this may not be a reliable measure of health. e.g. rugby player categorised as obese.
Presentation to introduce learning in Science. Gets pupils to reflect on science in Primary schools and discuss their anxieties/excitement for secondary school science.
In small groups, use A3 paper for pupils to draw their mental image of a scientist. 99% will go with the mad scientist stereotype. Look at each other's drawings, and then go through some images of 'real-life' scientist, to get pupils to reconsider their initial stereotype - making the point that we can all be scientists as we make hypotheses, analyse, and consider solutions.
Skills sort (I laminated these) - Which skills are most important to a scientist. Pupils work in small groups, and generate excellent discussion, with teacher playing devil's advocate. Gets pupils to think about how scientists actually work.
Finally pupils can redraw their scientists, annotating diagrams with the key skills which a scientist may showcase!
Really fun lesson.
Lesson designed for high ability class - but could be adapted to suit any needs.
- Began lesson with recap to previous learning relating to the nervous system.
- Assess prior knowledge using laminated structure labels and A3 eye diagram.
- Students move around the room using the table, and assorted sheets to collect information.
- Use this information to reorder their labelled diagram, now they have a enhanced understanding.
- Discussion regarding perception of colour
- Plenary ('To the left'): books closed, each group gets a new diagram. In silence, one person in the group labels a structure, and passes it to the left, and so on. pupils may amend each others' answers, but this is a silent activity to check understanding.
Used with my high ability year 7 class.
Glued the passport into the front of their books, and added their 'passport photo' in which they drew themselves as scientists.
Investigation skills linked heavily to the KS3 National Curriculum.
Following a practical students write the data in the table heading, and tick off the skills they have developed/demonstrated. Could enhance this with a red amber green system to show the progress they are making towards a skill.
When writing up a practical I encourage them to finish with a reflection in which they link back to these skills. I found previously they struggled to describe skills so this gives them a prompt.
Aim to demonstrate each skill through a range of different practicals across the year, such that by then end they may hope to achieve 'expert' status. I produced this to link to the idea of the new A-level CPAC criteria and the idea of demonstrating mastery of practical techniques.
With each new book they may receive a new passport.
Year 9 - iGCSE Biology, higher ability.
Lesson on human populations and limiting factors which affect population growth. Cover bacterial sigmoid curve (to be printed for students). I used an old sheet of exam questions (not uploaded) to test their understanding of growth curves.
Next lesson: to look at population pyramids.
Lesson to a mixed ability year 7 group, 100 minute session but could be adjusted.
Market place activity, using differentiated booklets. AfL Dice game.
Followed by more ethics based activities, looking at how doctors can make the decision of who receives a donor organ. Developing higher order thinking skills (Bloom's) by ranking and justifying ideas.
Donor cards to be printed, and used as exit pass for 3-2-1 plenary.
Designed for use with high ability year 9 class to cover the new GCSE scheme, mark scheme included.
Have not included a question on cancer, as members of this class have recently lost family members.
Used with a high ability year 10 class.
- case study sheets (end of ppt) printed out in sets for each table, to allow students to answer the questions on the ppt.
Used with high ability year 12 class to go through the impacts of farming on diversity within an ecosystem - in conjunction with the Oxford A level Biology textbook.
Used with year 9 and 10 classes (high ability) studying the new GCSE Biology course.
The challenge sheet (shown on the ppt) near the end of the lesson was downloaded from another author on TES and is a fantastic resource (https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/surface-area-to-volume-ratio-logic-challenge-11313026)
Used with high ability year 8 class, following a lesson on sexual and asexual reproduction.
I chose to laminate the info sheets for use with several groups and to save future spending on photocopying! Would work really well in a school with iPads/class IT access so they could do their own research or as an extension find out about another animal.
British Science week 2016
This presentation explores the history of science and how it is capable of having both a positive and negative influence. It also looks at some key science talking points from 2015/2016. There is a short quiz, and finally some key questions to consider and hopefully spark an interesting discussion!