Biology

The purpose-built Department has three very well equipped laboratories, a lecture theatre, a small seminar room, an extensive Departmental library, and a conservatory.

Biology is taught to all students in their first three years, following Edexcel's IGCSE specification. In the Fifth Form, slightly more take Edexcel's IGCSE Biology than Double Science. Practical skills are now tested in a written examination too. In the Sixth Form, students will be prepared for the new AQA Biology specification divided into two AS and two A2 modules. Practical skills will be tested via a series of experiments and subsequent written tests, the exercises being set by AQA. There are typically eight IGCSE sets and three sets in each of the Sixth Form years.

There is a particularly well stocked departmental library, containing a mixture of well-tried and newly-released books and journals, which is open to all the boys throughout the day. This is particularly useful for those boys who continue the subject to A level, and also offers a quiet place to work within the department itself.

During the Easter holidays of the Lower Sixth year all A level students attend a Field Course at Trebetherick, North Cornwall, where they study the ecology of a rocky shore.

Health and sex education is integrated into Biology and PE lessons, and into the Seminar programmes undertaken by all pupils at various levels.