Results Day

[Jojo]

One question - I've noticed a theme with regards to the Science subjects in that you've all found them or know people that have taken the individual Sciences and found them very difficult with many people not gaining a grade higher than a C.....are the individual Sciences "that" hard? Only my eldest son is wanting to take triple science because of the career path he's wanting to take.

im not sure, i did double science which wasnt that difficult i didnt think, we did each science separately with different teachers, different exams for each etc but only came out with 2 gcses instead of 3. and also we just got 2 of the same grade rather than varying grades like i think you get with triple science (although im not 100% sure). my school didnt give the option of doing triple science when i was there, all the boys schools though were made to do triple science, and a lot of them went on to do at least one science subject at alevel so they must have got at least a B in that subject to do it. so i dont know from personal experience how difficult it is to take but i do know quite a lot of people who did well in it to carry it on to alevel. also, one of my sis friend did triple science and got 3 As

i do know, however, that alevel sciences most people tend to find difficult. the thing with taking triple science rather than double science at gcse is that if you take an alevel science the jump between gcse and alevel wont be as large cos you will have covered more stuff at gcse

The fuss that was made for him to be able to take triple science was astounding tbh - they weren't going to run a course to start with but because so many children wanted to do it, they've had to run it now. He is really looking forward to it and loves all things sciency anyway, which obviously is a help and then maybe it can help him decide which to take forward to A level...

[di marco]

One question - I've noticed a theme with regards to the Science subjects in that you've all found them or know people that have taken the individual Sciences and found them very difficult with many people not gaining a grade higher than a C.....are the individual Sciences "that" hard? Only my eldest son is wanting to take triple science because of the career path he's wanting to take.

im not sure, i did double science which wasnt that difficult i didnt think, we did each science separately with different teachers, different exams for each etc but only came out with 2 gcses instead of 3. and also we just got 2 of the same grade rather than varying grades like i think you get with triple science (although im not 100% sure). my school didnt give the option of doing triple science when i was there, all the boys schools though were made to do triple science, and a lot of them went on to do at least one science subject at alevel so they must have got at least a B in that subject to do it. so i dont know from personal experience how difficult it is to take but i do know quite a lot of people who did well in it to carry it on to alevel. also, one of my sis friend did triple science and got 3 As

i do know, however, that alevel sciences most people tend to find difficult. the thing with taking triple science rather than double science at gcse is that if you take an alevel science the jump between gcse and alevel wont be as large cos you will have covered more stuff at gcse

The fuss that was made for him to be able to take triple science was astounding tbh - they weren't going to run a course to start with but because so many children wanted to do it, they've had to run it now. He is really looking forward to it and loves all things sciency anyway, which obviously is a help and then maybe it can help him decide which to take forward to A level...

the amount of schools which dont want to cater for what the students want to do is appalling! my sis wanted to do food tech for alevel (something the school had always offered and said they were offering for her year), then they decided without telling the students that they werent going to offer it and put them down to do something else without even asking them! their excuse was that only 6 people wanted to do it which wasnt enough to run the course, even though theres only 8 ovens in each room so realistically you couldnt really have more than 8 people doing it anyway! yet they run music with only 3 people and physics for only 1 person!

im glad in the end your sons school decided to run triple science. i think the good thing about triple science is cos you get a separate grade for each science subject you can see which subject you are best at, whereas with double science you get an overall grade and so might be a lot worst at one of the sciences than you are at the other 2 but you wouldnt know. hope your son enjoys the course. what does he want to do with science afterwards, as you said it would help him with his career?

[Trinity]

My eldest wants to do medicine and took physics, chemistry and biology at standard grade level (equivalent of GCSE).

In Scotland there is not the option of doing a combined science course, but there is still a reluctance on the part of schools to allow pupils to take 3 sciences. I went to a meeting at the school where the depute head said taking 3 sciences severely narrowed your child's future prospects etc etc.

My son did 3 sciences, and at higher level he is continuing two of them, with the intention of picking up physics again in sixth year.

My younger son is doing physics and chemistry, his other subjects are identical to my elders choices - English, Maths, French , History, Music but he is doing computing instead of biology. Strangely there is no objection to this combination.

Te depute teacher also gave incorrect advice on University courses to several parent whose children wanted to do dentistry and vet. medicine. 3 sciences are definitely required by some Scottish Universities to do these subjects.

There seems to be a bias against science in some schools.

[Abi]

I did Double Science GCSE and had to learn all three subjects seperately, but as diM said, you just came out with two GCSEs instead of three. I've never heard of people saying that Triple Science is massively harder though. He'll just learn more topics. You've got to think of it as being instead of doing Double Science + Geography (For example), he's doing 3 GCSEs in Science. He'll have to put in more work than those doing double science, because his is worth more. People have probably done worse in Triple Science in the past because they have put in the same work as someone doing Double Science, instead of doing more, which they have to.

Plus now, aren't science GCSEs modular? As in, you do a module, and you do an exam, instead of doing all the modules and having one huge exam at the end? Because that will make it a lot easier for him, especially as it sounds like he has a great head on him.

[Kirsty :]]

I did Double Award Science at GCSE and found it was very good in that it's just the right amount of information to take in, we did a module in the January and exam in June.

However, having said that, this year I took Biology at AS Level and found it so much more difficult to catch onto than my other friends who all took triple award science at GCSE as they'd already gone into that amount of detail whereas we hadn't so it was a big jump to go from I thought and I came out with a U and my other friends who took triple science the year before B-D's... but I'm not exactly the brainiest of people so I suppose it just depends on the individual and how they cope with work load and that

[Abbie]

I have to say, I did Double Award science and took Biology AS and found it no problem, Infact I know people who took Triple science at GCSE an have done a sceince at AS and havent done as well as those who did the Double Award.
For me not choosing Triple science made no difference, but thats just me

[Abi]

Out of interest JoJo, what does he want to do in the future? Because most universities don't really look at what GCSEs you got. So as long as he has science in some form, whether it is double or triple won't affect him in the slightest. He just has to get the grades to do sciences at A Level, and then it will be the AS level grades they look at. Having said that, Oxford, Cambridge and LSE pay a lot of attention to GCSEs, and UCL, Kings and Imperial do to some extent. But it is the grades, rather than the subjects. If he is more likely to get A*A* at double science than A*A*A* at Triple, then maybe double is the way to go...

[Tori]

I know some colleges now only let you do a science A Level if you've done triple science. Maybe it's only the ones near me, though!

[samantha nixon]

I know some colleges now only let you do a science A Level if you've done triple science. Maybe it's only the ones near me, though!

Yh it may be as it isnt like that around here, as you only need BB to do biology, not sure about chemisry and physics thogh


my school also never offered us the chance to do biology, chemistry and physics seperately, we just got normal science, then additional science (top set) and additional applied, but we got seperate grades for each of the modules we got 2 for each science so ended up with 6 grades that got added together

I wish my school had done them seperately as my biology was good i got an A in one of the modules, but the physcis and chemistry brought it down for the first year, and the 2nd year was just hard

also if your son likes science jojo, I dont think he will find it hard, my cousin did 5 science gcse's (not sure whether seperate or what they were) and she did really well and so did most of the year

[Abbie]

I know some colleges now only let you do a science A Level if you've done triple science. Maybe it's only the ones near me, though!

Wow! Really?