Psychology News

Exploring Crime Conference

Insight Conferences have announced details of their forthcoming Exploring Crime Conference at the University of Leicester on 10 – 11 July 2008.

The aim of the conference is to give those students attending an insight into specialised areas within crime and help to enrich their studies and pursue future careers.

The cost for the conference is £95.00, which includes all conference presentations and materials, overnight accommodation, a full English breakfast and an evening meal. Refreshments will also be provided throughout the day for the students and teachers.

The conference should be an excellent opportunity for students to experience university life and explore areas within the world of crime relating to Psychology, Science, Sociology and Law along with meeting peers from across the country who share similar interests and aspirations.

Insight Conferences are now taking bookings and are able to hold provisional places for 10 working days for any students/schools interested in attending. They can be contacted via or email or phone (01509) 550832 to make your booking provisionally.

More details and their email address can be found on www.insightconferences.co.uk

Posted in Conferences, Insight Conferences by Mark Holah | No Comments »

More free stuff

Jamie is giving away a free copy of the newish Banyard and Grayson book to celebrate psychblog.co.uk being a year old. (I refuse to call it a Birthday though Jamie) To have a chance of winning this excellent book all you have to do is go over to his site and register.

Posted in Books, Resources, ocr by Mark Holah | No Comments »

Dates for last re-sits of the current psychology AS and A level

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.

Posted in Specifications, WJEC, aqa, edexcel, ocr by Mark Holah | 1 Comment »

2009 GCSE Psychology Drafts

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

Posted in GCSE, WJEC, aqa, edexcel, ocr by Mark Holah | No Comments »

Free Psychology DVD

Steve Taylor from onlineclassroom.tv has kindly provided psychnews.co.uk with an excellent DVD to give away as a prize.

Classic Studies in Psychology 1 is a best selling, smashing DVD, which consists of a five short video programmes designed to give teachers the flexibility to integrate illustrative video material into their lessons. This compact DVD features original footage, up to date expert analysis and reinforcing graphics to bring five major studies to life.

The five classic studies include the Strange Situation, Bandura on Social Learning, Loftus on Eye Witness Testimony, Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.

To win the DVD is very easy really. All you have to do is subscribe to this site (psychnews.co.uk) by entering your email into the box on the right and following a link in your email which activates your subscription.  You will then be entered into the free draw.

On April 30th your email will be picked out (somehow randomly – although I am not quite sure which random method I should use – suggestions welcome) and give the lucky recipient a week to reply to the email. If this recipient does not reply, I will do the same random procedure again until somebody wins the classic studies psychology 1 DVD.

I promise that the winner will not be an employee of psychnews (psychnews doesn’t have any employees) or any member of psychnews’ family (as nobody related to psychnews reads this blog as far as I know).

Anybody who already subscribes to this site will automatically be entered into the prize draw although you could always subscribe again with an alternative email to double your chance of winning the prize. Obviously all email addresses will have to be genuine for this crafty way of winning to work.

There is a review of the DVD here.

Posted in Resources, aqa, dvds, edexcel, ocr, onlineclassroom, video by Mark Holah | No Comments »

Psychological Profiling Event

There is an exciting CPD event being held next month in Somerset, for psychology teachers interested to hear national police criminal behaviour analyst Paul Lobb speak on the past, present and future of forensic psychological profiling.

The event will be held at Millfield School, Street, Somerset on Tuesday, April 22nd, from 6:30pm.

The focus of this event will be a talk from Paul Lobb, a forensic psychologist, on criminal profiling. The cost is only £10 per person, which covers the cost of the meal following the talk. This event is non-profit making, supported by ATP and should provide an excellent networking opportunity.

For more details contact
George Smith (Millfield)
0775 446 0540
gbs@millfieldschool.com

Or

Claire Barker (Wells CS)
07749 845 218
c.barker@wells-cathedral.school.com

Here is a copy of the flyer for the event – onenightonly.pdf

Reply before 11th April to guarantee a place.

Posted in Conferences, Courses by Mark Holah | No Comments »

www.alevelpsychology.co.uk

If you teach AQA (A) psychology you may be already aware of this site. Keiron Walsh has developed alevelpsychology.co.uk The site has a blog, lots of free resources and my favourite – Resource of the Week.

Do have a look around the website.

This post could also be an opprtunity for teachers to add any AQA psychology blogs to the comments for other teachers to enjoy.

Posted in Resources, aqa, blogs by Mark Holah | 3 Comments »

UCAS entries slightly up whereas psychology is slightly down.

The latest figures from UCAS show a continued rise in the number of university applicants.

As of 15 January (the date by which applicants should apply to be given equal consideration) there were 430,489 people applying for a full-time undergraduate course at UK universities and colleges – a rise of 8.9% or 35,182.

Although the top five subject choices remain the same at this point in the year as last year there are changes in order.

Psychology has fallen from second to third choice.

Law by area remains top, pre-clinical medicine climbs from third to second, psychology falls to third and English studies and management studies swap places and are now fourth and fifth respectively.

http://www.ucas.com/website/news/media_releases/2008/2008-02-14

Posted in ucas by Mark Holah | No Comments »

The Complete Companion

The Complete Companion (second edition) is now available and I am sure that many schools, and colleges will adopt it (and perhaps Coco the cat too) as their set textbook for AQA (A) AS psychology.

The first edition of this best selling textbook was published by Nelson Thornes in 2003 and this second edition is published by Folens.

This textbook is again written by Cara Flanagan and Mike Cardwell and is mapped onto the new 2008 AQA (A) specifications.

Not surprisingly, the book is very impressive. It is called the complete companion because it provides everything an AS psychology student will need to be successful at AQA (A) AS psychology. The book covers all of the topics and skills needed for the new specification and provides exam tips throughout.

There are some great activities included and my favourite bits are the brief biographies of some of the researchers covered in the book. I was very impressed with the quality of the layout and design of the book. The textbook has an improved layout, more colours, more images and the paper is glossier and is of a better quality than the first edition. The only downside to this is that it weighs more.

The book is also supported by a fine, free online blog, which already has articles related to the book

Posted in Books, Folens, aqa by Mark Holah | No Comments »

GCSE changes for September 2009

OCR has introduced a website devoted to the new changes to GCSEs. The site www.GCSEchanges.co.uk has information and updates relating to the new GCSEs for first teaching in September 2009.

The draft specifications for GCSE psychology will be available next month and you can register on the site for updates. The site is actually quite good.

www.gcsechanges.co.uk

Posted in GCSE, ocr by Mark Holah | No Comments »