When your son or daughter starts a physics GCSE course or any GCSE course for that matter it is helpful to understand some of the terminology that you will hear from your child or at parents evening.
Specification
The specification is a hefty document that the exam board produces that tells teachers exactly what can be assessed in the examinations. This is very much the bottom line. It contains really essential information such as the names of the modules, the percentage each module is worth and of course the content of each module. It is worth getting hold of this straight away. You can print one off from the examination board in question for each subject – just make sure that you print the correct one off – simply check with the school. The specification title is probably stated in your schools GCSE curriculum booklet.
Controlled Assessments
These will be phased out in Physics soon but for the moment they are very much here. This is an internally assessed piece of work that is usually worth 25% of the marks for the whole GCSE. It is unlikely that your son/daughter will be given just one chance but it is worth checking when your school will be doing it/them. Make sure that you find out exactly how your school organises itself with these. They should be transparent about it if they have planned well. I will talk more about controlled assessments in future posts.
Past Papers
These are exactly what you’d expect. These are papers that have been sat in the past. They are all available (except the very latest one) online and can be accessed via the particular examination board in question. These are essential when it comes to revision.
Mark Schemes
Each past paper has a corresponding marking scheme – these are the answers if you like. They are quite detailed and sometimes need quite a bit of interpretation. Again these are essential when it comes to revision.
Great Grades in Physics 