Studying GCSE Chemistry provides the foundation for understanding the material world. Scientific understanding is changing our lives and is vital to the world's future prosperity. All students should gain an appreciation of how the complex and diverse phenomena of the natural world can be described in terms of a small number of key ideas that relate to the sciences and that are both inter-linked and of universal application. 

The key ideas specific to the Chemistry content include:

● That matter is composed of tiny particles called atoms, and there are about 100 different naturally occurring types of atoms called elements

● elements show relationships in their chemical and physical properties

● these periodic properties can be explained in terms of the atomic structure of the elements

● the shapes of molecules and the way giant structures are arranged are of great importance regarding the way they behave

● there are barriers to the reaction, so reactions occur at different rates

● chemical reactions take place in only three different ways