Chemistry
Welcome to the Chemistry page.
Below you will find information on the course with a link to the Course Curriculum.
To view the Course Curriculum, please click here
Year 12
Teaching is based around building upon the skills and content taught at Key Stage 4 and go into greater depth in terms of content and complexity. There is unpicking of the simpler forms of theory taught in Key Stage 4. The Year builds in complexity and challenge and to provide a foundation for Year 13 content, which starts to border on University Level content.
Students develop their knowledge from GCSE (beginning with a recap of the GCSE content, for example, the Atomic structure topic the students start off with is a lot of GCSE repetition and so is the Amount of substance topic). As the course continues the students delve deeper into the scientific concepts that they may have touched on in GCSE learning more in depth why the scientific concepts work the way they do and why chemical reactions happen in the way they do. They delve into the nanoscape, looking at atoms and their behaviour as well as reactions and their behaviour. Students in Year 12 have the chance to compete in the Chemistry Olympiad.
Autumn |
Organic Introduction to organic chemistry Alkanes Halogenoalkanes Alkenes Alcohols Organic analysis |
Spring |
Physical Atomic structure Amount of substance Bonding Energetics Kinetics Chemical equilibria and le Chatelier’s principle Oxidation, reduction and redox |
Summer |
Periodicity Group 2, the alkaline earth metals Group 7 (17), the halogens |
Year 13
The Challenge in this year is to build upon the content taught in Year 12 and then being able to go into further depth and apply it to subject specific skills.
Students develop their knowledge from Year 12, looking further in detail into the concepts they covered (for example, looking at Born Haber cycle as an extension of Hess’s law). As the course continues the students delve deeper into the scientific concepts that they may have touched on in Year 12 learning more in depth why the scientific concepts work the way they do. Students in Year 13 also have the chance to compete in the Chemistry Olympiad and have the opportunity to visit the Natural History Museum in a Chemistry / Biology trip to see further the different colour substances that transition metals form.
Autumn |
Optical isomerism Aldehydes and ketones Carboxylic acids and esters Aromatic chemistry Amines Polymers Amino acids, proteins and DNA Organic synthesis Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy Chromatography |
Spring |
Thermodynamics Rate equations Equilibrium constant Kc Electrode potentials and electrochemical cells Acids and bases |
Summer |
Properties of period 3 elements and their oxides Transition metals Reactions of ions in aqueous solution |