Anyone using "myGCSEScience" site? Comments?

[Tansie]

here

Is it any good?

How much does it cost, please? Is there a free access bit and a paid for 'extras' bit?

DS1 has just finished Y10 and is doing fast-track triple science. There was no 'normal track' for him to do which is a pity. He's just done 'not very well' in his end-of-year exams and agrees he didn't revise effectively, but tells me he's keen (or as keen as any 15 year old boy can be!) and prepared to do some science over the summer hols to catch or keep up.

Before we shell out a lot of cash, I'd be grateful if anyone can give us any advice or their thoughts about it!

TIA

[Tansie]

Don't know what happened to my title! "& quot"??



Is there a 'myInabilityToTypeInBasicEnglish' site I can access. too?

[titchy]

Dd really likes it. She doesn't have the paid-for version. Why don't you try the free version first?

[Tansie]

Thanks, titchy- anyone else?

[NorthWards]

Apparently the site was basically all the work DS did for his GCSE science exams. He went through the videos and took down notes of all the things he had forgot from lessons in the previous years, and didn't need to access the paid version in order to do this.

I think the activities might be subscription based, but the videos do not seem to be.

[sinningsaint]

DD discovered this about a week before her first exam this year and swore by it, ended up being pretty much the only science revision she did! I will let you know if it was good enough come 21st August...

[kscience]

The videos re free and it is one of the sites that I have recommended to my triple Science pupils to use for revision. It covers the specification we are using in adequate depth and in a lesson type style which pupils are familiar with.
Would be a good grounding, but I would not expect an A* from just using one source. Does DS have a revision guide and workbook? These can be useful as answering questions means that they can not passively watch a video or skim through a book and not take any of it in.
Find out which exam board they are following and go to the website and download past papers. There will be mark schemes and you can search for grade boundaries by specification and year. This will give DS a really good idea of the requirements for exams and be more familiar with styles of questions and depth/common answers/required phrases.


OH yes...and good luck

[ihatethecold]

Ooh. I'm glad I found this thread. My ds is starting his gcse's in sept.
Thanks

[Tansie]

Thanks everyone esp kscience. DS is doing AQA; but sadly no revision guide as such or workbook (though I know he does have a book which I must look at more closely). To me, seeing worked answers is key, to know exactly what is expected of them. An example is DS is 'doing electricity' which is great, but- does he know that a 'target' might be to be able to draw any circuit diagram? To know exactly what happens where you have components in parallel or in series? I sort of need 'study this chapter/watch this video and be able to answer these question when you've finished'.

DH has had a look at the free content of myGCSEscience and we're going to talk about whether we think DS needs more depth.

As an aside I heard -and maybe kscience can put me right?- that a problem with past papers is that there are so few as the curriculum changed quite recently?

[sinningsaint]

DD did AQA and there certainly are revision guides and textbooks. The basic ones were £2.50 from her school (you can buy from places such as amazon as well) and were like these lonsdale ones. You could aslo buy more expensive ones though along with a textbook which came to around £20 which were similar to this .

[sinningsaint]

As for past papers, with AQA a lot of the content is the same it has just been moved around a bit. E.g a topic may have been moved from P1 to P3, which shouldn't matter if he is doing triple anyway as he has to cover it all!

[Tansie]

Revisiting this-

DS has been looking at the free videos, one or so a day, over the summer but I'm still not sure- or have no way of telling- if anything's sinking in!

Still deciding whether to pay the subscription to get the extra content.

Any more thoughts, please?

[Hobnobissupersweet]

My students love this site, and quite a few of them have paid for the extra content. I have a fairly weak y10 group so might be able to see more if it has helped on Thursday when I get their core science results ( of course if they are great it will only be down to my fab etching though and not the app )

[sillybillies]

We recommend it to our students and have been known to shown them in class during revision lessons as starters! The videos are free and the content is excellent. Lots of my students love to use it to support their revision. I haven't looked at the stuff you need to subscribe to so can't comment on it,