Approved GCSE Science specifications for the three English and the Welsh awarding bodies are now available and schools and colleges should be considering what to offer their students from September 2006 and what advice to give them. The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), along with other professional bodies and subject associations, is offering advice to head teachers, science teachers, parents and students. 

Chemistry teachers will want to know what new chemistry-related ideas are presented and what chemistry content is retained, how the new specifications prepare students for A-level chemistry in its current form, and whether there is consistency of demand and treatment across specifications. To help answer these queries the RSC has analysed the chemistry content of each of the new specifications. Table 1 is by no means exhaustive but shows in which specifications the following KS4 chemistry-based topics occur:

• industrial processes - the extraction of metals, the manufacture of bulk chemicals; 
• methods of separation and analysis;
• atom economy and sustainable development; 
• modern materials such as fullerenes and 'designer' polymers.

In addition to these topics, and as means to exemplify level of demand in each of the specifications, Table 1 also shows if there is a treatment of determining enthalpy of reaction by a calculation involving bonds broken and bonds made. 

The RSC has also assessed the practical work that it appears may be required in each of the new specifications. This was done without examining the materials produced by publishers to support the specifications (if any). The results, along with advice on the new Science GCSEs, are available at the RSC website. 

Teachers may be concerned that unfamiliar material appears in the specifications. They should not. The RSC is currently preparing support materials for the new specifications, which will be in schools by September. These will take two forms: teaching materials relating to new content, which will be bundled with content from our back catalogue for ease of use; and video material (produced with Teachers' TV).  

Based on the RSC's analyses, you may wonder how specifications derived from subject criteria and indicative content, divided between core and additional science, can have ended up with areas of content allocated differently. You may also wonder what this means for progression in institutions where students will have taken a wide range of specifications for GCSE.

Colin Osborne, RSC education manager, schools and colleges.