With the support of JISC (part of the Higher Education Funding Council of England) www.theFaculties.org has made approximately 300 films of lecturers speaking on themes and topics from the A-level curriculum.
More than 30 of those themes are in Psychology – see www.thepsychologyfaculty.org More will follow in the coming weeks. The videos also offer advice to A-level students about where they might study Psychology at University, and about the careers that can follow their degree. .
Although this resource has only just been launched it is promised that in time it will cover the entire UK A-level curriculum. It is possible on the site for Psychology teachers and students to suggest further topics and ways in which the expertise of academic Psychologists can be employed in the secondary school classroom.
www.thepsychologyfaculty.org
The blog for the Complete Companion which provides extra stuff that they cannot squeeze into their books as well as providing extra resources, updates on research and answers to questions, now has a forum.
The forum allows further discussion of AQA A related issues; especially important as we are seeing much change in the specifications.
Check it out here
http://www.oxfordschoolblogs.co.uk/psychcompanion/blog/community/
Cara Flanagan has j
ust posted a comparison table of pass rates for the different boards on the new Folens blog here (which by the way also looks pretty good; I’ve subscribed)
The key comment from her psychexchange forum post is:
The fact that the different boards probably do attract slightly different cohorts mean that direct comparisons are not possible but there are certainly some major differences in pass rates.
AS – May 25th 2011 Wednesday am
WJEC PY1 (1h 15m)
OCR G541 (1h 00m)
Edexcel Unit 1 (1h 20m)
AQA (A) PSYA1 (1h 30m)
AQA (B) PSYB2 (1h 30m)
AS – June 7th 2011 Tuesday pm
AQA (A) PSYA1 (1h 30m)
AQA (B) PSB2 (1h 30m)
Edexcel Unit 2 (1h 40m)
OCR G542 (2h 00m)
WJEC PY2 (1h 45m)
A2 – June 17th 2011 Friday pm
AQA (A) PSYA3 (1h 30m)
AQA (B) PSYB3 (2h 00m)
WJEC PY3 (1h 30m)
OCR G543 (1h 30m)
Edexcel Unit 3 (1h 30m)
A2 – June 21st 2011 Tuesday am
AQA (A) PSYA4 (2h 00m)
AQA (B) PSYB4 (2h 00m)
OCR G544 (1h 30m)
Edexcel Unit 4 (2h 00m)
WJEC PY4 (2h 30m)
All of the dates and times were kindly provided by www.modernisationonline.org.uk
January 2010 exams are here.
AS - January 12th 2011 Wednesday am
Edexcel Unit 1 (1h 20m)
AQA (A) PSYA1 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY1 (1 h 15m)
OCR G541 (1h 00m)
AQA (B) PSYB1 (1h 30m)
AS - January 19th 2011 Wednesday am
AQA (A) PSYA2 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY2 (1 h 45m)
OCR G542 (2h 00m)
AQA (B) PSYB2 (1h 30m)
Note that Edexcel do not offer unit 2 in January
A2 January 28th 2011 Friday am
Edexcel Unit 3 (1h 30m)
AQA (A) PSYA3 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY3 (1 h 30m)
OCR G543 (1h 30m)
AQA(B) PSYB3 (1h 30m)
February 2nd 2011 Wednesday pm
Edexcel Unit 4 (2h 00m)
AQA (A) PSYA4 (2h)
WJEC PY4 (2h 30m)
OCR G544 (1h 30m)
AQA (B) PSYB4 (2h 00m)
All of the dates and times were kindly provided by www.modernisationonline.org.uk
GCSE exams coming soon and GCE summer exam are here.
AQA is having to re-set Psychology exam papers due to be sat on the 16th May.
Following a theft of a Parcel Force van containing exam papers AQA has re-set a number of its GCE and GCSE exam papers. The Parcel Force van was stolen in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, on 15 April.
The van was later found with some parcels still inside and some nearby. Some of the exam papers were recovered, but a number were missing.
AQA said that the loss of just one exam paper from a set could mean the exam was compromised so it took the decision to replace the papers nationally.
Among the exam papers were the AS psychology papers PYA1, PYA2 and PYA3.
Stolen AQA exam papers included GCE Business Studies, Biology Specification A, Computing, French, Modern Hebrew, History of Art, ICT, Law, Media Studies, Psychology Specification A, Sociology and Spanish.
Furthermore GCSE English Specification A and English Literature Specification A were stolen.
Here is the letter sent out to all centres from AQA
In their statement AQA noted that “incidents like this are extremely rare” although they fail to mention that a similar incident did occur fairly recently in April 2004 (see BBC 2004). Perhaps the days of sending exam papers via Parcel Force vans are numbered.
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For psychology, candidates currently working towards their AS exams in May, and A2 exams in July there will still be a number of opportunities for re-sits.
AS re-sits will be available in January 2009 and then the following May 2009. No more re-sits of the current AS psychology exams will be available after May 2009.
A2 re-sits will be available in January 2009, June 2009, January 2010 and June 2010.
Of course, only those units that are normally offered in January will be available in January.
For those psychology candidates studying the new specifications, the A2 units will not be available for examination until 2010, which means that candidates cannot complete the full A level in the first year of the new specifications.
Furthermore, the units from the current (legacy) specifications cannot be combined with units from the new specifications.
The draft 2009 psychology GCSE specifications from OCR and AQA have been published.
The drafts have to be submitted to the regulators in April 2008 and the specifications will be available from September 2008, with first teaching from September 2009.
Edexcel and WJEC have announced that they will offer GCSE psychology from 2009 but have not yet published their drafts.
The OCR GCSE draft psychology specifications are here
The AQA GCSE draft psychology specifications are here
Update – here is the link to Edexcel draft GCSE specifications
Update – here is the link to WJEC draft GCSE specifications
