This year in Period 6 for science Year 11 pupils are focussing on “tricky topics” that pop up in GCSE Science. These are topics that have been identified nationally by exam boards as key areas where pupils commonly make mistakes therefore are great topics to help us pick up extra marks and close the gap between where we are now and our target grades. Groups have worked on command words like “compare” - where we know we can draw a table to make sure we are drawing comparisons or “explain” where we know we should be using link words such as “because”.
We have also been drawing attention to our practical skills, knowing that in exams a labelled diagram and accurately naming equipment can start us off with some marks in those long answer questions.
Last week Dr Patchett’s group drew links with their practical skills and knowledge of the structure of cells by extracting DNA from strawberries. We recapped the structure of a plant cell and used our knowledge of the other layers – the cellulose and cell wall and fatty cell membrane to break open the cell. We recapped the names of key equipment including, pestle and mortar, test tubes and pipettes. The results speak for themselves! Well done to all the pupils who took part in this task.
