Courses and Schemes of Work
The department has agreed schemes of work for each of its courses. Teachers with parallel groups discuss progress regularly and try to ensure that these groups work in roughly the same order and at the same rate, giving equal opportunity for all.
The syllabus, scheme of work and practical assessment for each of the courses are briefly discussed with some examples of typical activities included showing practical work, group work, text related activities, student centred learning and IT work.
AQA A-Level Chemistry (Modular)
Modified versions of this well-estabilshed course have been taught for many years at Greenhead College resulting in a wealth of expertise and collective tailor written resources being readily available. The current syllabus from the Board has been arranged into schemes of work covering a number of modules and these are given to each student at the start of each module.
A number of class, home and practical worksheets have been put together by the department staff, along with revision lessons and sheets for further clarification of theory.
The practical coursework is internally assessed with the board requesting a sample for the purpose of moderation.
Again, teachers developed a number of pratical exercises and mark schemes for this purpose.
Salters A-level Chemistry (Modular)
The University of York Science in Education department in 1990 introduced this innovative A-level course. Greenhead College was one of 24 trial schools initially involved with the project with the first group taking their A-levels in 1992. It has proved to be a popular course with 3 groups (52 students) starting in September 1993, increasing to 5 groups (~100 students) starting in September 2001.
There are 12 units in this A-level course taught over two years. A typical work scheme for one of these units is included showing also the idea of concept mapping, resulting in the more difficult topics in A-level chemistry being 'drip-fed' to the students throughout the course.
Student objective
sheets give a detailed guide to the work students will cover in a
particular unit and a synopsis.
In spring of the first year the students receive the open-book examination
paper from the Board. This consists of two recent scientific articles
that they have to précis into 1000 words, which is then returned
to the board.
In spring of the second year an individual investigation is usually carried out. Each student spends about 20 hours on practical work investigating a topic of their choice. They then produce a report on the work carried out. A member of the department then marks these reports with the board requesting a sample for the purpose of moderation.
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