31/03/2025
Here’s a little overview on the lessons last week ☺️
In an online A level session we were looking at the heart and the cardiac cycle. This is a topic that I find flows better not using a PowerPoint so we started with an empty drawing of a heart and added to it as we discussed the steps.
I suggested that the student use this as a revision technique, to write down everything she can remember about the topics and their connections to each other and then check the one we did together to add anything she missed.
For one of my GCSE students we are focussing on required practicals and today we covered resistance and IV-characteristics. We discussed what he already knew about them and then I explained the experiment and common areas the examiners will ask about in questions. For example, they will often ask to draw a circuit and analyse graphs for this one. We then practiced exam questions on it.
With another GCSE students we worked on a biology past paper. She would attempt the question toon first and then we would go through her answer together. She is focussing her revision on other subjects that she is further ahead in to aim to get the grades she needs for sixth form. As a result of this, we largely work on information/skills that are found in all three papers. We have spent a lot of time on maths questions to ensure she can pick the information needed out of the paper, correctly identify the equation, and put the data in the right places. We also look at how to use what extra information the question gives you to answer questions you aren’t sure on. For example, in this question (third picture) she wasn’t sure what measurements would be taken as she didn’t remember the practical from class. So we looked back at the picture and what information at been labelled. They had labelled a timer, we discussed what this does and how time can be a measurement and did the same with the number of bubbles label.
Finally, the last picture is a slide from one of my one of my online lessons, in this one I am going through an A level paper with a student. They first attempt a question so I can see how they approach it and what content they are already confident in. With this example the question is about vaccinations and students need to use their own knowledge and some given to them from a prior part of the question to answer it. At this point if they need a refresher on vaccines we will go through the topic together, if they are confident we move straight on to the exam technique. In this question we can see that it is talking about how vaccinations protect the population from pathogens. One of the ways students lose marks here is focussing on how they help the individual. This student also said ‘herd immunity’ as their answer for the first part. At a GCSE level this is often enough to get the mark but A-level answers often need more detail, to get the mark they also have to say why herd immunity protects the population (by reducing the spread). This is something that the student already knew but didn’t know they had to say it in their answer.
