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.
Lesson designed for KS3 to creatively approach the topic of the tilt of Earth's axis and the seasons. Using hibernation and migration to explore these concepts.
Students start by watching short clip (John Lewis Bear and the Hare)
Research activity on the seasons and hibernation
Choice of task: produce a documentary on the tilt of the axis OR to imagine a world without seasons (choose how to present this). Lower ability could make a model to demonstrate how the tilt affects the seasons.
Taboo plenary
For use over several lessons to enable students to explore this area fully. Fun and interactive!!! (and highlighting the hedgehog which is in huge decline in this country)
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.
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 high ability year 10 group - an activity to test comprehension and understanding from previous lesson on Insulin and diabetes.
Could support less able pupils through accompanied use of a textbook.
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.
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.
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.
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)