How we got on with the A2 in 2002: report from Boston Spa Comprehensive School

The timing is much better we only had 4 hours per week for the AS but 5 hours for the A2. We had 4 weeks in July to start the course and had time to think, discuss and do experiments properly without being in a rush.

We liked the coursework assessment. We did 11.5, and got it done early before any other department was doing assessments. This saved a lot of stress later pupils had time to do it properly. We liked the Food Science special study and experiments - most pupils were doing biology so this helped. We also liked the January exam since it saved revision work for June and gave one less exam.

Most challenging was Topic 11. We did this in July, and pupils found it much harder than Topics 6 to 10. It was a big jump into A2, and a few pupils changed their options in A2 and dropped chemistry - including two able pupils. Therefore next year I and pupils from A2 have decided that this year's A2 will start with Topic 12, then 13 and back to just look at 11 if time. They will come fresh to Topic 11 in September and I think they will do better.

We like the book. We had answers to the end-of-topic questions, with notes on how to do questions, on our own internal computer network so pupils could check their answers when they got them. I found that pupils did not abuse this system but would come to discuss problems when they had looked at the answers.

We like the idea of taking two books into final exam - this has made revision interesting, and different from other subjects where pupils just have to learn.

We like the way the last five topics linked the whole course together. We hope that the sample exam gives a good guide to Unit 6. We have used old synoptic papers in revision to help us - this will be easier when we have a few past papers to look at in a few years' time.

Robin Thompson