Subject Content for GCSE Biology

Assessment:
Candidates may be entered for either Foundation or Higher Tier. All candidates take one 90 minute paper on the core content of the subject (Sc2). They also take a 45 minute extension paper. Coursework assessment is based on the common scheme used by all GCSE science specifications.

The core paper will be the paper taken by double award candidates for OCR Science A (code 1983). OCR publish a support document which provides cross-matching between the Salters support materials and the Science A content.

Candidates may take either extension paper option A or option B.

Coverage of Core Content:
Several different arrangements have been used in schools. These fall into two main categories.

Students for 'triple science' may be taught following the double award scheme, perhaps in classes with double award candidates. They are then given extra tuition to cover the extension material (ideally by timetabling one extra single lesson per week for each subject). Because of the common coursework scheme, sufficient coursework marks can be accumulated through investigations carried out as part of the double award lessons. Schemes of this type are particularly popular where the numbers taking separate sciences are very small.

Where classes are larger, or in FE colleges, where only one subject is being taken, the biology course may be taught as a completely separate course, occupying a single option band in the timetable. In this case, coverage of the core content of the specification can be based on the following units from the double award course:

Keeping Healthy; Balancing Acts; Controlling Change; Staying Alive; Evolution; Waste Not, Want Not and Sections 1 and 2 of Sports Science.

Extension content:
Each of the options contains four 'blocks' of content to be covered. Where biology is taught as a completely separate subject, it is often possible to treat some of the blocks as extension of work begun in a core unit, so giving a smoother progression and saving some teaching time.

Option A (a more traditional approach):
A1: Human physiology (digestion, circulation, excretion, nervous system, hormones, muscles)
A2: Diversity and Adaptation (classification, adaptation in animals and plants)
A3: Microbes and Food (food spoilage and food preservation, microbes in food processing, enzymes, genetic engineering)
A4: Microbes and Disease (disease causing agents, antibiotics, immunisation, plants and disease)

Option B (more closely linked to the earlier Salters biology syllabus):
B1: Ecosystems (diversity, population interdependence, human influences)
B2: Microbes in Action (disease causing organisms, disease control through public health and immunisation, antibiotics, commercial uses of bacteria)
B3: Agriculture and the Environment (control of growing conditions, weeds, selective breeding and genetic engineering)
B4: Gene Technology (DNA and genes, mutation, genetic engineering)

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