In Year 9, students will begin their GCSE studies by completing the baseline ‘How Science Works’ practical assessments and core practical experiments including separating techniques and using microscopes.

Students will then begin to follow the Edexcel 2016 Science GCSEs. One group will follow individual GCSEs in Biology (1BI0), Chemistry(1CH0) and Physics (1PH0). The remaining students will follow the combined Science (1SC0) GCSE course.

Combined science students will sit six exams at the end of the course as shown here:

There will be two Biology exams, two Chemistry exams and two Physics exams. As it’s a double award qualification, students will receive two grades. These grades could be the same number, e.g. 6, 6 or 7, 7. However, some students may receive a grade with adjacent numbers, e.g. 6, 7.

Separate science students study all of the content from Biology, Chemistry and Physics disciplines of Combined Science, but with added extra material in each discipline. The students receive extra timetabled lessons to cover the extra content. Separate science students also sit six exams at the end of the course. These six exams, at 1hr 45 minutes, are slightly longer than the Combined Science exams. Each exam will cover half of the content for that discipline.

In the separate science pathway students will receive a grade between 1 and 9 for each of Biology, Chemistry and Physics GCSEs.

Further details about the two courses can be found at:
https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/sciences-2016.html
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/Science/2016/teaching-and-learning-materials/Edexcel-GCSE-Science-Explaining-our-exams-guide.pdf