Year 9 KS3 Science Practical Skills Booklet (16 Practicals)

A ready-to-use KS3 Science core practical booklet covering 16 x Year 9 practicals, with methods, results tables and exam-style questions.

These practicals are drawn from a bespoke transition-year scheme that works through KS3 content via Pearson’s Exploring Science, while introducing the structure of GCSE core practicals early — so students build the habit of doing and discussing practical work before it’s formally assessed. Each page is labelled with its Exploring Science topic code for easy matching to the textbook. Practicals are sequenced for my own setting, so the order may not match yours.

A core practical is a required hands-on investigation — the kind exam boards expect students to have carried out and be able to describe from memory by GCSE. This booklet gives Year 9 students a structured, printable record of every practical they complete this year, so nothing gets lost between exercise books and folders.

Each of the 16 x practicals follows the same format: an aim and “what you should know” learning objective, a step-by-step method with labelled diagrams, a results table where relevant, scaffolded questions, and an extension or challenge task for higher attainers.

Practicals include:

• Testing leaves for starch
• Light intensity and rate of photosynthesis
• Estimating plant populations – quadrats
• Investigating species distribution – transects
• Metal + acid reactions
• Metal displacement reactions
• Extracting copper from copper oxide
• Calculating density of regular and irregular objects
• Enzymes – digesting starch
• Osmosis in potatoes
• Rates of reaction – changing concentration
• Rates of reaction – changing temperature
• Rates of reaction – changing surface area
• Alkali metals – demo and observations
• Magnets and plotting magnetic fields
• Investigating electromagnets

A bonus “Equipment and Their Uses” worksheet is included at the back to help familiarise students with the names and uses of the main apparatus they will come across in Science.

How I use this resource: I issue the whole booklet at the start of the year and students complete the relevant pages during each practical lesson, then use it as a revision resource ahead of assessments. Because every practical includes full method instructions, it also works well for non-specialist or cover staff running the lesson.

Last updated July 2026. Teaching Year 7 and 8 too? Take a look at the matching Year 7 and Year 8 KS3 Science Practical Booklets.

Credit: Diagrams created using https://chemix.org