Assessment: Separate Sciences (Triple Science)
Assessment is the responsibility of OCR. See the link general link on the right to the OCR website.
Assessment for each of GCSE Chemistry, GCSE Biology and GCSE Physics follows the same pattern:
GCSE Biology students will do three written exams
Unit 1 (B1, B2, B3) 16.7%
Unit 2 (B4, B5, B6) 16.7%
Unit 3 (Ideas in context plus B7) 33.3%
plus internally assessed skills 33.3%
See Biology specification, teacher support booklet, and sample assessment materal
GCSE Chemistry students will do three written exams
Unit 1 (C1, C2, C3) 16.7%
Unit 2 (C4, C5, C6) 16.7%
Unit 3 (Ideas in context plus C7) 33.3%
plus internally assessed skills 33.3%
See Chemistry specification, teacher support booklet, and sample assessment materal
GCSE Physics students will do three written exams
Unit 1 (P1, P2, P3) 16.7%
Unit 2 (P4, P5, P6) 16.7%
Unit 3 (Ideas in context plus P7) 33.3%
plus internally assessed skills 33.3%
See Physics specification, teacher support booklet, and sample assessment materal.
Written exams
Sample assessment materials from OCR illustrate the written papers. See the links above to the OCR web pages.
Internally assessed skills
In GCSE Biology, GCSE Chemistry and GCSE Physics, students can be assessed for either GCSE Science skills or GCSE Additional Science skills. This means they do either a Case study and Data analysis, or an Investigation.
Schools offering students all three separate science GCSEs can provide a safety net by requiring students to complete at least one assessment of each type. In this way, weak students can be entered in June of Y11 for just two Awards: GCSE Science and GCSE Additional Science.
Coursework guidance for teachers is provided in the teacher support booklets which you can download from the OCR website. See the link under each subject above.
