GCSE Science

You can find the details of the GCSE Combined Science – Trilogy (AQA) curriculum at TLC LIVE Online School below.

Speaking

Students are encouraged in all topics to express themselves and their opinions about the wider impact of science. Opportunities will be provided to develop debating and discussion skills about the moral and ethical issues raised in certain scientific practices.

Instructional language will be practiced, ensuring students can explain a clear methodology and good questioning skills will be obtained through generating hypotheses to be investigated.

Listening

Students will listen to instructions given in different ways (directly from the teacher, via a video, with and without visual cues) and will be required to put the instructions in action by following the correct sequence. The task could be to sequence a set of images, write a list for a method or carry out an experiment following the instructions given. The importance of safety in science will be highlighted and linked to the importance of listening.

There will be a requirement for students to repeat back certain instructions before embarking on investigations. Teacher/student conversations will be an essential part of all lessons with the student demonstrating listening skills in order to respond. Questioning will be part of all lessons; the teacher asking the student questions throughout and providing time for the student to process what has been asked and formulating a response. The student should also be encouraged to ask questions and focus on the answers given to further their learning.

Literacy

Reading scientific texts is a specific skill that will be taught throughout the science units. A variety of texts will be selected that can be explored and accessed through the teacher modelling the reading and through shared reading taking place in sessions. Active reading skills such as continuous reading, close reading, skimming and scanning will be developed and practised and the texts selected will be challenging and purposeful.

There will be a focus on the use and understanding of scientific vocabulary to aid comprehension of these texts and to use it during lesson dialogue and discussion as well as written tasks. When writing in science, how to structure and organise texts will be modelled by the teacher and key vocabulary will have been discussed so that the student can use it confidently.

Numeracy

Numeracy skills will be acquired in all three areas of science, mainly through scientific experiments which will involve data collection and analysis in order to draw conclusions and answer a hypothesis. Accurate measurements will also be a key skill to be developed in science so that data collected and experiments conducted are as precise as possible.

Reading a range of scales will be necessary and interpreting graphs and other data collection formats will be done on a regular basis. Using microscopes requires knowledge of scale conversions and calculations to work out magnification and work involving chemical equations also require a solid algebraic understanding.