The SQA Biology exams took place yesterday. I managed to get my hands on a complete set of papers in the afternoon so I was able to have a look at them last night. Here are a few thoughts.
Standard Grade General Level.
I thought this was quite a hard paper. Both the kidney and the heart were covered [...]
It has been a while, so here is another factoid.
When you wake up in the morning, you are on average 2cm taller than when you went to bed. I know this because when I get into my car in the morning I always have to adjust the rear view mirror. Likewise, when I get back [...]
Though Biology, Chemistry and Physics are more or less discreet Sciences post the 5-14 Curriculum (to become 3-18?), they will always overlap to a certain degree. Teaching Biology in Scottish Schools does mean that we refer to the Periodic table when studying topics that contain “elements” (excuse the pun! ;-)) of Chemistry. Although this version [...]
It has been a while since I have posted a factoid. This particular one was introduced to me by one of my technicians, Sheila Robb. I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to brain games so as I sat with Sheila at break time she told me what to do, and it [...]
On Friday I attended our Biology Subject Support Group meeting at Preston Lodge High School, chaired by Fraser Kiernan. These meetings are always good for catching up with fellow East Lothian Biology Teachers and of course sharing our good practice. We covered many topics during Friday’s meeting including relevant resources, risk assessment and a proposal [...]
There are many great book shops in Edinburgh aside to Waterstone’s. My favorites include the secondhand shops in Stockbridge and on the Bridges. They are great for trawling if you don’t really know what you are looking for, but if you do, they are probably useless (I hope you know what I mean). One particular [...]
We are now in our second week of an HMIe inspection at Knox Academy. This is our week of intensive observation.
Although my department was not chosen to be fully inspected, we were hoping that we would have the satisfaction of an HMIe visit.
Today was our/my lucky day! I was fortunate enough to have the [...]
The Biology Department at Knox Academy put on a fish dissection annually. We do this every February during a named lunchtime. We show the dissection under our video microscope on screen. It can sometimes be quite difficult to identify the various inner organs, so we have a prepared slide show on a second screen that [...]
With an HMI inspection looming, time is very tight. I feel confident that we will gain very good feed back.
However, I am starting to upload lots of jpegs onto flickr. These can be used by pupils and staff for projects. There are no copyrights so feel free to edit and distribute.
You will find the first sets for [...]
