1. - What are the changes? - What is the Practical Endorsement?
A Level Science Specification Event– January 2015
GCSE & A Level Sciences
from September 2015
- What are the changes? - What is the Practical Endorsement?
Chae Cruickshank, Subject Specialist

2. What are the changes at GCSE?
Criteria already set
Specifications will not be published before July this year and will only be draft
KEY DATES
NEW SPEC
First teaching Sept 2016
First GCSE exams June 2018
OLD SPEC
Last teaching Sept 2015
Last exams June 2017
100% external examination
Ofqual consider it to be a 2 year course
Practical questions in exam and proposed teacher judgement of list of practicals.
Time for exams - min 3 hours at AS and 6 hours at A level, is longer than these times at the moment
Extended response will be the method of assessing longer answers, not quality of written communication
The 15% practical weighting is set by the regulator and this means there will be questions based on practical skills in both AS and A Level questions papers.
The maths weighting, number dependent on which Science, is the first time this has been laid down so specifically. In some cases, it won’t be a significant change and in others, teachers may want to look very carefully at the maths requirements. OCR has laid out the maths requirements in an appendix in all its specifications and mapped them all through the specifications, highlighting opportunities where a particular maths skill can be applied in the scientific context.
The practical endorsement, reported alongside the A Level grade, will be a different way of assessing practical skills over the 2 years of an A Level course.
15% practical weighting
Increased maths weighting

3. What are the changes at A Level?
Linear
AS decoupled from A level
100% external examination (longer time)
KEY DATES
NEW SPEC
First teaching Sept 2015
First AS exams June 2016
First A level exams June 2017
OLD SPEC
Last teaching Sept 2014
Last exams June 2016
Extended response
15% practical weighting
Increased maths weighting
(10% Biology, 20% Chemistry, 40% Physics)
Time for exams - min 3 hours at AS and 6 hours at A level, is longer than these times at the moment
Extended response will be the method of assessing longer answers, not quality of written communication
The 15% practical weighting is set by the regulator and this means there will be questions based on practical skills in both AS and A Level questions papers.
The maths weighting, number dependent on which Science, is the first time this has been laid down so specifically. In some cases, it won’t be a significant change and in others, teachers may want to look very carefully at the maths requirements. OCR has laid out the maths requirements in an appendix in all its specifications and mapped them all through the specifications, highlighting opportunities where a particular maths skill can be applied in the scientific context.
The practical endorsement, reported alongside the A Level grade, will be a different way of assessing practical skills over the 2 years of an A Level course.
Practical Endorsement (will be reported separately to the A Level grade)

4. Practical Endorsement
Centres complete a minimum of 12 practicals.
Teachers decide whether, across the 12 activities, whether each student has demonstrated the required competencies defined in:
Common Practical Assessment Criteria (CPAC)
Use of Apparatus and Techniques listed by DfE Between 12 and 17 for each subject
Psychology – Learners should have experience of the practical activities – self-report, observation, experiment, correlation. These experiences should be applied in the exam.
Guidance cannot be finalised until Ofqual have responded to the results of the Practical Endorsement trialling carried out in a number of centres across the country in Autumn IT IS A TRIAL ACROSS ALL AWARDING BODIES.

5. Practical Endorsement Trial
Psychology – Learners should have experience of the practical activities – self-report, observation, experiment, correlation. These experiences should be applied in the exam.

6. Practical Endorsement Trial
Teachers reported being most confident in the assessment of practical skills and techniques with fewer problems on the identification of pass or fail.
“Students felt that it would make practical work more important to them to take seriously all the time rather than just during controlled assessment.”
Psychology – Learners should have experience of the practical activities – self-report, observation, experiment, correlation. These experiences should be applied in the exam.

7. Practical Endorsement Model
Psychology – Learners should have experience of the practical activities – self-report, observation, experiment, correlation. These experiences should be applied in the exam.

8. Chae Cruickshank, Subject Specialist
A Level Science Specification Event– November 2015
A Level Sciences
from September 2015
- What is OCR’s offer? - What is the Practical Endorsement? - Where can you find support?
Chae Cruickshank, Subject Specialist

9. What do OCR offer?
Teacher choice for each subject and designed by teachers for teachers
Content-led approach
Context-led approach
Chemistry A
Chemistry B (Salters)
Biology A
Biology B (Advancing Biology)
Physics A
Physics B (Advancing Physics)
One psychology specification
Allowing teachers to choose the appropriate response for your students
A suite – content, concept based
B suite – context based, interesting scenarios
Likely end for Human Biology is summer 2016, Applied Science may go on a bit longer.
Standard unchanged from now.
Content broadly the same, minimal changes to criteria.
Ofqual are discontinuing AS and A-level Human Biology with the last awards in June The final award for AS and A-level Applied Science is June 2018, no decision has been made on whether Applied Science will be redeveloped.

10. Content Co-teachable (AS and A level)
All changes are made after discussions with stakeholders e.g. teachers, higher education and learned societies and their feedback
Rationale behind content changes are:
Overlap with GCSE
Feedback from stakeholders was that the AS and A Level content had to be co-teachable. This is clearly laid out for the Sciences.
Any changes have been made after extensive consultation with teachers, higher education, learned societies using a variety of methods.
Any content that clearly overlaps with GCSE has been removed. Teachers have given us feedback and we have taken this into account when decision making about the specifications. We have also tried to include any new content that might help particularly with the new maths requirements, to make this as embedded into the specification as possible.
Feedback from teachers
To meet new maths requirements.