Why does BIOLOGY A2 cover so much when Britiain needs more biologists?

[seekinginspiration]

Biology A2 covering everything puts teenagers off science.
I don't have any children taking Biology but my eldest kids both had/have loads of friends who took or are taking this subject. I don't understand why A* GCSE students in history, art, media studies, physics and almost every subject (except chemistry) go on to get A-C grades in the subject at A2; but not in BIOLOGY. So many of my kids friends taking Biology end up in my kitchen in despair with their D or worse grades? For the January exams DD1s boyfriend got Ds and says for one exam they had not covered that part of the syllabus. BTW I know why they are in my kitchen.

If he was the only boy who had sat in my kitchen in the same situation I'd think it must be him, but this seems to have been going on for 6 years. My nephew took an A level exam about 6 years ago which was completely about fish and marine life - the teacher had told them not to revise marine life as the exams would definitely not cover marine life. Why does BIOLOGY A2 cover so much? I think Britiain needs more biologists, there must be a way round this problem, what is it?

[Kez100]

Look up the actual statistics for A Grades at A level Biology. If there are some then its the children/teachers you have experience of which are the issue to be addressed.

[Wallywithabrolly]

Not a subject I have a particular experience of but if you look at the stats Here the results for Biology look better than for some other subjects and worse than others - so pretty bog standard I would suggest.
Maybe it's the coverage of the specification that was the problem or possibly advice from the teacher?

[bananashavenobones]

Why does Medicine cover so much when Britain needs good doctors?

[Kez100]

Look at French results! Why on earth do they make it harder by asking questions in a foreign language?

[crazymum53]

It looks to me as if the school is better at teaching Arts subjects for this to be the case.
These results and poor revision advice are the school's responsibility.
Does the school have a particular specialism ?

[Loshad]

My biology results are excellent, as are most of the other biology teachers i know
Quite a lot of As and A2 biology is applying your knowledge - so marine life might not be specifically on the spec but you would be required to apply your knowledge of eg respiration, taxonomy or whatever.
Not sure Britain does need more biologists - isn't really a supply problem of either teachers or researchers.

[mitochondria]

It is all about applying knowledge. Some really random stuff comes up on the A2 papers - there was one a couple of years ago which seemed to be mostly about shrews. Cue lots of "but we haven't done shrews" - that wasn't the point.

Britain doesn't seem to be short of biology teachers, IME. Physicists, yes.