Loving the labs?
Or simply into science?
Anam and Emma's stories
Anam Saeed, Emma Davis and tutor John Naylor, loving the labs at Brinsworth Comprehensive, Rotherham.Anam
My name is Anam and I'm 16 years old and I did an applied science vocational GCSE course. It's 60% coursework, which I am better at, so I knew this course would suit me better and it's only 40% towards the exam.
Emma
I'm Emma, I'm 16 years old and I did GCSE applied science. I found it easy but there's a lot of work to do, so even though it is easy it's very time consuming.
Tutor
The students at the beginning are quite hesitant and they're reliant upon the teacher as they have been all the way through school. By the end of the two years they're quite confident in taking a project, running with it, taking the work away and doing what they need to do in their own time and bringing it back into lessons and handing it in on time.
Anam
It's looking at different aspects of science at work and how it's dealt with in today's society.
Tutor
It's more practical based so they actually get to try techniques. We try to make it very work based so we took them out on to work-based visits. We got speakers into school, so that the students could then actually try the techniques that they'd seen and heard about themselves in school, which we then obviously used for practical assessments.
Anam
A lot of the skills we learned from the Applied Science course was the IT skills were improved because a lot of the work was based on the computer. Co-operative skills like working well as a team and on your own initiative as well, like a lot of independent working. We also gained confidence by asking other people what they felt, and interviewing them, and that would be good for later life.
Tutor
They have to do their own research. They have to work well as a team. To carry out experiments and then apply that to the real word.
Anam
I think the course is a very good course to do and I enjoyed it - it was a lot of fun. I was learning different things; it was a whole new experience to me so I really enjoyed it.
Tutor
If they go on to apprenticeships, or work, or further education, the skills that they have used will undoubtedly benefit them in the future.

