Lessons on GCSE Science Skills including Assessment and Teaching Resources

After years of frsutration of not finding a good ‘one-stop-shop’ for teaching and assessing Science skills I decided to design my own pack of reources to be taught as a unit of work. It allows teachers to explicitly teach the skills, gets students to practice them and then also gives a formal assessment just in the skills that they must have in order to do well in their exams. For example, I definitely haven’t found a good resource yet for teaching standard form to Science students.
These resources are more in-line with the AQA Trilogy/Synergy and Separate Science specs, but I’m sure they’d be totally transferrable to the specs from other boards.

There are three sessions. Here’s how it works

Session 1 - this should take between 2 and 4 hours, depending on the ability of the class. Each student gets the booklet and the teacher leads them through it using the teaching PowerPoint. It’s self explanatory, with lots of opportunitity for scaffolding, modelling the skills at the board and providing informal assessment for immediate feedback and follow up. This could also be delivered in a computer suite, with the students following the PowerPoint at their own individual speeds.

The skills covered are;
%s, ratio calculations and significant figures
Constructing Bar Graphs and Lines graphs
Using Graphs (including the tangent method for rate)
Identifying the variables in investigations (including resolution)
How to calculate the Mean and the Median
Estimating uncertainty in results
Types of error and how to deal with them
Prefixes and Standard Form

Session 2 - With the completed booklet, the students can now try a practice paper, in the appropriate tier. It’s 30 marks and takes the same format as the assessment in session 3. This can be done in pairs, groups, or under the same conditions as the actual assessment. It’s up to you!

Session 3 - The students are now ready to sit the assessment. This is designed to be a Medium Control assessment. It must be done individually, but the students are allowed their booklet and there’s no time limit. Again, it’s 30 marks, so a 50-60 min lesson is ample. It can also be given as a High Control, of course, with no booklet and a time limit. All the questions are skills specific, taken from open source past exam papers from across the three sciences - it took ages to fish them out but it was worth it!

I’ve also included proven grade boundaries to start you off, and a command words sheet. All of the session 1 and 2 materials can be shared electronically with students, or indeed loaded onto your own home learning platform.

If you have any questions, or would like to see a sample of any of the resources before you purchase, please contact me and I’ll be happy to help. michaellake247@hotmail.com