Year 9 Science

Brief Summary of the syllabus in Year 9

There are four modules, which are taught in a rotation system:

• Inheritance, Selection and Health
• Speed, pressure and moments
• Reactivity
• Electricity and energy

What skills/attributes are being developed and examined?

• Knowledge & understanding of science
• Application of knowledge & understanding
• Ability to link different scientific areas together
• Ability to carry out scientific investigation

What can parents expect to see in classwork generally and in homework specifically?

Work will be a wide range of tasks from practicals, demonstrations, and investigations, problem solving, comprehension & graphical exercises to note making, assimilation of information and independent research. Parents should note that pupils need to have basic level of scientific knowledge and an understanding of the meaning of scientific words before concepts are fully developed and understood. The challenge in tests is to analyse unfamiliar situations & apply their understanding to it to solve problems and not just to regurgitate facts. Work will be of a suitable level of difficulty for each set. Homework should take 60 to 80 minutes a week.

What can parents do to help in this subject at this stage?

• Encourage pupils to read articles and watch scientific programmes, such as Tomorrow’s World / Horizon
• Discussing scientific ideas & concepts with pupils
• Encouraging pupils to persevere with areas that they find hard

Setting and course schedule

The Year 9 course is based on the 2001 QCA scheme of work, written in-house, but using Heinemann Science Scheme, textbooks of which are intended to act as a valuable resource for study and revision. The course is modular, with topic rotation through different groups at different times so that the Science department can meet the demands for practical resources.

Final Examination

All four modules are taught by the end of the Spring Term and the SATS exams take place in May. This exam will cover ALL SCIENCE MODULES taught in Years 7 to 9. The mark from the SATS test in May from the 5-7 paper is used to re-set the pupils for year 10. The sets of borderline pupils will be decided on by their past performance in the individual module tests during the year and the professional judgement of the teachers.

Test

Pupils are taught all year in sets based on the end of year 8 test. They are taught in two Half-Year groups with each having 4 sets. All modules are taught on rotation throughout the year. There will be tests at the end of each topic, indicating the level at which each pupil was working on that topic area.

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Revision

Revision needs to be a combination of learning the key facts and applying them to solving problems. We suggest that pupils incorporate these two parts into their revision timetable. Revision is personal and many pupils prefer different techniques. Initially more time should be spent revising: key words – their meaning and definitions, key facts and principles and then assimilating these ideas into harder concepts. Pupils could write topic summaries and construct concept or mind maps that will help them link key ideas of each topic together.

Once pupils are familiar with the basic ideas they should spend more time answering questions. A good starting point is questions they have done for homework. Answers can then be checked against the corrected homework answers in their books. But real learning and understanding is tested when the science is applied to unfamiliar situations. To provide the necessary variety it would be advisable to do the past examination questions in the textbooks and to purchase a revision guide that contains tasks to do as well as information.

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Upper Band Grade Descriptor

Level 7

Pupils use knowledge and understanding of physical processes drawn from the key stage 3 programme of study to make links between different phenomena. They make connections between several different topics when explaining phenomena. They use some quantitative definition and perform calculations, using the correct units. They apply abstract ideas in explanations of a range of scientific phenomena.

Level 8

Pupils demonstrate an extensive knowledge and understanding of the scientific processes in the key stage 3 programme of study. They use models to describe and explain phenomena. They use quantitative relationships between scientific quantities in calculations that may involve more than one step. They offer detailed and sometimes quantitative interpretations of graphs. They consider ways of obtaining data and they use their knowledge of scientific processes to explain patterns that they find. They consider scientific phenomena from different perspectives.

Exceptional performance

Pupils demonstrate both breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding of the scientific processes in the key stage 3 programme of study when they describe and explain scientific phenomena. They make effective use of a range of quantitative relationships between scientific quantities. They understand how models are useful in explaining scientific phenomena. They apply their understanding of scientific phenomena to a wide range of systems. They recognise the importance of quantitative data and make effective use of this when they consider questions.

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Pupil Target Setting

This is done after each of the module tests (usually half-termly). In the lesson following each topic test, pupils will determine where they have made mistakes, and what their areas of specific weakness are. They will then use their tracking file to record their assessment marks/levels, together with targets for future.

Transition to GCSE

The pupils will start their GCSE course following the SATs in May. Resetting, described above, will be done at the end of the year, ready for the new academic year in September.

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