Opinion

The 7 skills of a good A-level chemist

By 2016-10-20T10:11:00

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Kristy Turner looks at how to help students improve their core chemistry skills

Have you ever heard a student described as ‘weak’? Or do you know of a student being advised not to continue studying a subject because of the jump between GCSE and A-level?

Recently I undertook some training in character education for my pastoral role as a Year 13 tutor. As part of this we were encouraged to stop thinking that intelligence is fixed, or that the destinies of our students were predetermined by their GCSE attainment or a set of attributes they were born with. Instead, we were asked to think about what skills good students have and how those skills could be developed in those who don’t achieve as highly.

I wondered how this idea would look for chemistry students. So, I set about designing a chemistry-based ‘radar’ to help students rate their own skills. The student and I could use this to develop some targets beyond the usual ‘revise more’ or ‘do more past papers’.

Kristy Turner explains the 7 skills of a good A-level chemist.

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