Comparing A-level Physics 2015 Update

UPDATE Feb 2015:

Ned Prideaux has helpfully updated the spreadsheet using the accredited specs.
He has also included boundary data (from the 2014 series) from Ronan McDonald which may be of interest as well.

The document is online as a google doc and is best downloaded into Excel for viewing.


The exam boards have published their draft specifications for the A-level sciences - albeit with huge caveats about them not yet being accredited by Ofqual.

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@Bio_Joe has helpfully put together a comparison for the A-level biology specs, so I've used his basic structure and done the same for the Physics.

AQA, Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas have produced one specification each - although Edexcel still have the spec repeated so that you can teach by concept or context (though the exam is the same however you teach it).  AQA haven't included a context driven approach in their spec, but will be providing a scheme of work to show how you could do this using the published specification.  OCR has produced two specs, including Advancing Physics, whch are examined using different exams.

Co-teaching.
Most of the boards have arranged topics so that the AS and the first few A-level topics are the same.  Interestingly, WJEC Eduqas hasn't, and the topics are in slightly different orders for each year.  I don't think that will be a bit issue, but it will need a bit of thinking about when planning the teaching.

Multiple choice.
Both AQA and Pearson Edexcel have included some multiple choice questions in the assessment model.

Practical work.
All the boards have, as required, specified practical work that must be carried out for the practical endorsement. There is some overlap in the practicals (for example g by freefall and Young (or Young's) modulus appear in all the specs.  AQA and OCR have stopped at the minimum of 12 practical.  This includes 'Research skills' for OCR and allows students to explore a physics topic they are interested in via books and 'tinternet.Edexcel have included 16 practicals as their minimum. 

WJEC Eduqas have specified far more practicals than the other boards (including for example investigation of radioactive decay via a dice analogy or determination of h using LEDs) which would provide a really nice skeleton of a practical teaching scheme.  To be honest, even if you don't choose this spec, it's worth having a look at the practical work they suggest to help you plan as there are some good straightforward ideas in there.

It's quite a big document so I've resorted to a google spreadsheet.  Please feel free to use, with acknowledgement.

What practical assessment?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a high stakes accountability system will tend to prevent accurate teacher assessment.  Or at least, that is what Ofqual and the exam boards would like us believe.

Having talked to many teachers about controlled assessment (and having been involved in supervising coursework) I think that actually Ofqual and the exams boards are probably correct.  Current controlled assessment measures very little of a student's ability to skillfully carry out practical work, and is overly focussed on one (or at most two) practical experiences.  The time taken to ensure that the whole class completes the appropriate work, with the appropriate supervision eats into the time that could be used to teach content, or do other practical work.  (And involves numerous catch-up sessions after school and during holidays if my child's experience of year 11 science coursework is anything to go by). 

So Ofqual have, at one fell swoop, removed teacher assessed practical work from A-levels from 2015.  Instead, students will be expected to develop 12 practical skill sets through carrying out a minimum of 12 named practicals.  The skills are the same for all exam boards, but they are free to choose their own practicals.  The skills are given in appendix 5c of the subject criteria, but until the draft specifications are published (towards the end of June) we won't know what the practicals are.

Helen Rogerson published a blog outlining her view on the loss of practical assessment and I think that she makes a very good point. 

But...

What if the removal of examined practical assessment means that teachers will stop doing practical work?  If we don't assess practical work, then even though teachers think that it is educationally desirable, they might stop doing it.  Senior leaders might decide that if practical work isn't assessed then why spend large part amounts of money on science equipment and consumables?

This appears to be the view of the Wellcome trust, various university academics and SCORE.  

Again, I can see why they are worried.  It may be that practical science becomes limited to the 12 named practicals in the specs - much like the teaching of English literature appears to be limited to the books named in the new GCSE specs.  Teachers will plan for, and teach, only the practicals that they have to provide evidence of the students carrying out.  On the other hand, anecdotal evidence from teachers who have switched from GCSE sciences to iGCSE sciences have said that the removal of controlled assessment work has led to an increase in the amount of practical work that they do.

Before we can start to discuss the effect of the changes to practical work it would be helpful to know what practical work A-level students currently do.  Michael Gove and Ofqual have referred to reports of Universities complaining that A-levels don’t prepare students well enough for university.  It may be that, in some schools, practical work has already reduced to only that required to complete the controlled assessment part of the course.

In schools like that, it may be that having to do 12 practicals over the space of 2 years might actually be an improvement.

Without data though, we just don’t know.

To that end, I am intending to carry out some preliminary research into what practical work in science (and particularly physics) is currently planned and carried out at A-level in a number of local educational establishments.  I’m hoping that I will be able to revisit the schools as the changes to A-levels are made and see how they are responding to the new structure.

Watch this space!

How many students get G?

Will there be lots of students who are 'demotivated' by the new grading structure for the GCSEs?

On 16th November the BBC published a story about the new grading structure that will be brought in for the revamped GCSEs in (initially) English and Maths in 2015 and then in the other Ebacc subjects in 2016.

The new structure will see the loss of letter grades (A* to G) and in their place will be numerical grades (9 to 1), with 9 being at the top of the scale and 1 at the bottom.  In their response to the GCSE consultation Ofqual said:

"In response to feedback to our consultation, we have moved from the eight grades we proposed to nine grades. In part this was to avoid the risk of people assuming that eight new grades would map onto the current eight grades. We also want to avoid the risk of reducing the opportunity for less able students to demonstrate the progress they have made and have their achievements recognised." pg 6

So Ofqual were not giving many details about the equivalence of 'old' and 'new' gradings.  However, the BBC report suggests the following potential equivalence:

"Ms Marshall, from King's College London, has told the BBC she understands that for English at least, there will only be one or two grades below the equivalent of a C.
"It's my understanding that there will be more or less three levels for A grades, two levels for a B and two for a C," she said."

Which of course, leaves two levels for grades lower than a (current) C, rather than the current four.

I wondered how many students this would affect?

Each year, once the examining season is done and dusted, and results day has arrived JCQ publishes details of the results for that session.

The following are the percentage of students in English and Maths that achieved each grade.

English (731153 students sat the exam):
A* 3.3%   A 10.9%   B 20.3%   C 29.1%   D 21.5%   E 9.2%  F 3.8%   G 1.2%  U  0.7%
(36.4% of students achieving D - U)

Maths (760170 students sat the exam):
A* 4.9%   A 9.4%   B 16.2%   C 27.1%   D 18.1%   E 10.0%  F 6.9%   G 4.7%  U  2.7%
(35.5% of students achieving D - U)

From these figures, we can see that there are far fewer students at the bottom end of the scale than at the top end.  The grading system currently provides very finely differentiated marks for E - U grades, and much less differentiation at A* - C).

I can therefore see the strong justification for providing a much smaller grade range below the nominal 'good' grade.

Of course, this doesn't address the fact that the 'new' GCSEs are likely to be harder than the old ones, so perhaps students getting a C currently, wouldn't do so in the future.

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Out of interest, the figures for the various sciences are:

Biology (174428 students sat the exam)
A* 14.4%   A 26%   B 28.3%   C 21.1%   D 7.7%   E 1.7%  F 0.5%   G 0.3%  U  0.1%
(10.3% of students achieving D - U)

Chemistry (166091 students sat the exam)
A* 16.6%   A 25.6%   B 26.9%   C 20.9%   D 7.7%   E 1.7%  F 0.4%   G 0.1%  U  0.1%
(10% of students achieving D - U) 

Physics  (160735 students sat the exam)
A* 16.0%   A 25.5%   B 27.8%   C 21.5%   D 7.4%   E 1.3%  F 0.3%   G 0.1%  U  0.1%
(9.2% of students achieving D - U) 

Science (451433 students sat the exam)
A* 1.4%   A 6.7%   B 16.2%   C 28.8%   D 24.6%   E 12.5%  F 6.0%   G 2.5%  U  1.3%
(46.9% of students achieving D - U)

Additional Science (283391 students sat the exam)
A* 2.6%   A 9.2%   B 20.0%   C 32.3%   D 20.6%   E 8.9%  F 4.0%   G 1.6%  U  0.8%
(35.9% of students achieving D - U)