The WIKID scheme
And the new GCSE’s
Who am I
•
•
•
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Jon Bradford
Head of Science
Mill Hill County High School
KS3
– Year 7 & 8 = WIKID (past two years)
– Year 9 – under review
• KS4
– OCR Gateway
What is WIKID
• Developed by Science UPD8
• Supported by the ASE
• To meet the new KS3 requirements when they
changed in 2008
• Inquiry based approach
A different approach
• Narrative approach
– Use a story to
• Engage students
• Provide a context for the work
• For example
– Rocks
• Students take on the role of volcanologists
Evacuate 1 Eruption
Team leader briefing –
You are part of a team of scientists monitoring North, South or East Sector near
an active volcano. The team must advise the Mayor if and when to order an
evacuation of the city.
Your team has scientists who are experts in different areas of science:
Seismology (earth tremors)
Geochemistry (gas monitoring)
Air surveillance
Geodesy (volcano dome shape)
Having analysed the separate data you must collate all the information in to the summary
sheet.
You must identify when you would evacuate the area and inform your mayor.
North south and East sites may need to respond at different times.
Evacuate 1 Eruption
SS4
Emergency Planning Map – North Team
You will monitor hazards
in the North Sector.
You must advise the
Mayor of Charlottesville if
and when he needs to
order an evacuation.
north sector
east sector
south sector
The seven E’s
• Engage
– Starter (storyline/context)
• Elicit
– Access previous knowledge
• Explore
– Student centred activity/experiment
• Explain
– Teacher led review of key points
The seven E’s
• Elaborate
– Further work in a familiar context where students
have to explain their ideas in more depth
• Expand
– Apply knowledge to a new un familiar context
• Evaluate
– Opportunities for formative and summative
assessment
• Quizzes and written tasks (APP)
Pro’s and con’s
• Pro’s
– Less traditional, puts science in context, more
variety, more student led, addresses How Science
Works, establishes good teaching and learning
practices
• Con’s
– Workload
• adapting to suit students and teachers
• Teachers and technicians preparing resources
New GCSE’s
• Little change to content
– Some units rejigged
• Big changes to assessment
– 6 mark answers
– Less structures answers (no scafolding)
– More How Science Works questions
– More questions on using and analysing data
– Controlled Assessment
WIKID @ KS4
• SEGUE
– Two term bridging course
– Similar style but building in some core GCSE
content
• Crucial
– Not a whole scheme, but just key topics
• New or difficult topics
– Aiming to address the How Science Works
elements
How does it help?
• Students are more used to
– Writing in their own words in more detail
– Thinking for themselves to solve a problem
– Analysing and evaluating data
– Answering about How Science Works questions
– Working independently of teachers to plan
experiments