Some summer listening (unfortunately not in podcast form):

BBC – BBC Radio 4 Programmes – Case Study.

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.

If like me you teach health psychology, you probably already use the bbc web site for resources. The bbc page www.bbc.co.uk/health has a wealth of information useful for psychology teachers but again if you are like me you probably forget to read it. However, I now subscribe to their monthly newsletter, which ensures that I keep up-to-date with the latest health issues in the news.

For example, this month’s newsletter contains articles about lifestyle, breast cancer, depression and diabetes.

Here is the link to subscribe to the excellent monthly newsletter www.bbc.co.uk/health/newsletter