Science department

A very busy year for science has revolved around the introduction of the Revised Curriculum for Northern Ireland. This has enabled us to produce a really interesting, practically-based course which, in its first year, has been well received and enjoyed by the Year 8 pupils and the teachers alike. This has been the product of many courses, in-service training and sharing of ideas. The Year 8 scheme has now been written and adopted and our Year 9 course is ready for operation. As a lot of this course and our new Single Award Science course are quite ICT based, we were delighted to receive the funding to convert our computer system to C2K. We took the opportunity to convert our ‘spare’ science lab to a purpose-built computer suite. This has already proved invaluable and each Year 10 pupil has had the opportunity to produce assessed Powerpoint presentations, which have also given us the opportunity to try out the “Self and Peer Assessment” strand of the Revised Curriculum.
Our new Single Award Science GCSE has been going well, with much-improved module results and we eagerly await the final grades of the first batch of pupils to complete the course.
We enjoyed our success in the Model Flight competition, organized by Bombardier in Belfast. All the Dunluce teams were highly placed, with Jake Wilson and Andrew McAlister gaining 4th place in the Key Stage 3 section of the competition. A few weeks later we were in the air for real, on a Bombardier plane, for the courtesy flight over the Mournes.