From September 2006 schools across England and Wales will have to deliver the new KS4 Programme of study. The wide consultation initiated by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in the year 2000 resulted in the piloting of the new criteria in 78 different schools and colleges. The piloting was performed by the awarding body Oxford Cambridge RSA (OCR) and a team of educational experts from the University of York (Burden and Hall, 2006). The awarding bodies OCR, Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) and Edexcel have now produced distinct specifications offering a range of teaching and learning styles as well as a variety of assessment schemes. The final decision on which GCSEs to offer will depend on the school's staffing and timetabling, the progression routes required by the students, as well as available resources and budgetary constraints. This review describes the range of Science GCSEs offered by the different awarding bodies, the timetabling, flexibility, and assessment implications and provides a breakdown of the biology content for each of the new specifications.
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