Science practicals are a cornerstone of A Level learning, offering students the opportunity to develop hands-on skills, refine their analytical thinking, and bridge theoretical knowledge with real-world application. Scheduled across key dates in November, these sessions feature four Foundation and twelve Core activities per science, meticulously designed to align with exam board specifications while fostering curiosity and precision.
On the first days of these practicals, two biologists, two chemists, and two physicists delved into their respective fields, equipped with textbooks and reversible notebooks, ready to uncover the secrets of the experiments before them. From the exacting steps of titrations in Chemistry to the exploration of complex concepts in Physics and Biology, the sessions began quietly but soon revealed opportunities for learning and unexpected discovery.
Here, we explore how these sessions unfolded—how meticulous planning, experimental challenges, and even serendipitous mistakes offered valuable lessons and insights for students and educators alike.
Science practicals are underway, with the first ones taking place on Wednesday 6th and Friday 8th November. These A Level JCQ practicals are written and designed by Greene’s staff to provide 4 Foundation and 12 Core practical activities for each science that fulfil the requirements of OCR, AQA, and Edexcel exam boards.
Armed with a textbook and reversible notebook, two Chemists/Biologists and two Physicists turned the first page.
It was a quiet start in Chemistry. Although we had chemicals, the acids and bases were low concentrations, there wasn’t any fire, and even the colour changes were muted. But the experiment, a titration, required rigor and attention to detail, remembering to read measurements at eye level, label your colourless solutions, and take out your funnel!
The students spread out, using one bench each for writing and one for experimentation, and supplying equipment on a third – we really used the whole lab.
The titrations allowed the students to quantify the concentrations of two unknown solutions (sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid), and practice their skills. I found a “homemade” solution labelled 0.1 M, with just enough in it for the experiments. Great, I thought, tearing the label off, this would make a good unknown. A 25.0 cm3 sample should have reacted with 6.25 cm3, but obviously not everything was as it said on the bottle, and only 1-1.5 cm3 were needed to neutralise it – meaning it was about four times more dilute. This, of course, highlights the challenge of labelling homemade solutions: some are made up very accurately, and for a particular purpose, whilst others are rough, needing only to be very dilute for qualitative tests – and the bottle wasn’t labelled “qualitative” or “quantitative”. On the other hand, from a health and safety perspective, something that was already extremely dilute turned out to be even more dilute…
It was also a valuable learning perspective. Using such tiny volumes of solution to neutralise a sample is great for demonstrating error – our percentage errors, normally less than 0.5 %, were now about 10%, because the resolution of the equipment is always the same, and is therefore big compared to the very small volumes. Both students were able to show this, and how much harder concordant titres were with such sensitive end points. So maybe it came about by mistake, but because of its valuable learning, I am going to use this experiment again in future.
The first A level practicals at Greene’s were not just about completing experiments but about embracing the unexpected and drawing lessons from every step of the process. Whether it was refining the precision of titration techniques, understanding the impact of errors, or uncovering the nuances of labelling solutions, the sessions highlighted the importance of curiosity, adaptability, and analytical thinking in scientific work.
These moments of discovery—both planned and unplanned—demonstrated the real-world relevance of the students’ efforts, turning potential challenges into valuable teaching points. By navigating the intricacies of practical science, students not only fulfilled exam requirements but also honed skills that are essential for scientific inquiry.
As the practicals continue, the balance of structure and flexibility promises to foster even more meaningful learning experiences, ensuring that every experiment offers insights far beyond its immediate outcomes.
