Background

UTC@MediaCityUK takes students from around 90 feeder schools into Year 10 and delivers Pearson Edexcel GCSE 9-1 courses in Combined Science, Biology, Chemistry and Physics and Pearson Edexcel  A level Physics.

The clarity of the specifications and the accessibility of the questions were the reasons I changed to Pearson Edexcel

On the new Pearson Edexcel GCSE exam papers, it was nice to see questions for students of all abilities including questions for the Grade 1/2 students. The specification makes it very clear what they need to learn without any ‘reading between the lines’ and we value that clarity as staff when teaching.

When my A level students fed back on their experience of Pearson Edexcel papers they said ‘I knew what the question was asking me to do’ and this is key to their success. One A level student went from a Grade D to Grade B simply by swapping from another board.

The support given for exam practice 

The other really important addition is the production of extra secure mock papers. This has been brilliant as I’ve been able to set a completely blind mock paper for our year 11s this year. No-one in the department has seen it - not even me; it’s been printed by admin and locked away with the exams officer so we’ll have the most accurate understanding of our students attainment without the temptation to give hints and tips.

For me, the biggest thing is the Exam Wizard – firstly because it’s free to use, but also because it gives me access not just to GCSE and A level questions, but Internationl GCSE and International A level ones. This has been particularly useful when preparing our students for the new spec and we needed practice questions for assessment. International GCSE provided a great source of them. Access to the A level also provides excellent stretch and challenge questions. The ability to find by topic, tier, year and download mark schemes and examiners reports makes it so valuable to all the team.

The GCSE exam experience for my students 

We knew the exams were going to be tough – we could see that from the Specimen papers we gave our students and this was a big worry. When our students came out – they were ‘buzzing’ – they felt that it had been easier than the specimen papers they had sat as mocks and felt that they were confident. This was really good to see. When we as staff looked at the paper, we were relieved, as these were tough – but not so hard our students couldn’t do them and we felt they were a fair reflection.

The outcomes from the exams and the post-16 take up of science courses

A small number of our students arrive having had poor experiences of education including being excluded, home schooled, illness and absence or just being so unhappy they did not learn. So when we get them we often have to overcome their fears and lack of learning having stalled at Key Stage 3. That said, we had students hitting Grade 7, 8 in all subjects and even Grade 9 in chemistry, so with the right support and work ethic our students do as well as any others and this is seen in the high post 16 progression rates. For some of our students, we have given them a chance at gaining GCSEs when perhaps they were not in a position to gain anything. I celebrated the grade 2 and 3 for some students, just as much as the grade 8 and 9 for others. For everyone to complete the papers and get grades – that’s what we wanted.

What has been great has been the number of students who have chosen to stay with us for A level physics – 10 out of the cohort of 12 in year 12. The quality of our teaching matters as at least 3 have chosen A level physics alongside their more creative subjects such as Photography or Film and TV. We also have a group who are doing Maths, Physics and Computer Science.

For those who wanted to do other Science A levels – many went to other sixth form colleges to study Biology, Mathematics and Chemistry and we are thrilled as a team to hear them talk about how much they loved science.