Welcome to Chemistry at Dean Close School. Chemistry is a challenging and fulfilling subject and we are very proud of our facilities. The Chemistry department is made up of three laboratories, each with separate wet and dry areas for teaching theory and practical. We firmly believe in the importance of practical chemistry and most topics have relevant experiments for the scholars to do themselves.
The Syllabus
We teach the three year Edexcel IGCSE syllabus, with each year consisting of a section of the syllabus and allowing time for an extended project. The AS and A2 Chemistry courses follow the AQA syllabus. Sixth form pupils will be taught by two different teachers who will offer help and guidance throughout the course. They will be signed up as a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry for the time that they are studying chemistry, receiving a monthly magazine called ‘Chemistry World’ and use of the ‘chemnet’ web community.
Projects
Fourth Form: At the start of the Fourth Form we have the Kitchen Chemistry project. This short course is endorsed by Heston Blumenthal and gives our new pupils the chance to use a wide variety of apparatus that they may not have come across before. Investigations include studying frozen emulsions (strawberry bombe) and which popular soft drink is the fizziest?
Remove: Theft in the Chemistry department! A villain has stolen the department’s hard saved petty cash, without it there can be no more biscuits in the tea room. You must form your own forensic team and investigate the crime scene. Dust for fingerprints, check for signs of forced entry and try to piece together the events that led up to the crime.
Lower Sixth Form: After the stress of the AS exams there is time for a little fun. In the last few weeks of term our Lower Sixth classes use what they have learned to make real-world pharmaceutical products. They look specifically at Aspirin and Oil of Wintergreen (Deep Heat) using reflux, distillation, recrystallization and melting point apparatus.
Extension
We like to stretch our scholars here at Dean Close. For our most able students we offer the following additional activities:
Chemistry Club: Intended for lower school but open to all, Tuesday night’s Chemistry Club allows scholars to perform experiments that don’t always appear in the syllabus. Expect pretty colours, several varieties of goo and plenty of things going bang.
Biochemistry: Ambitious sixth form scholars may be invited to join the biochemistry extension group. They will be taught by Mr Aron Needs (B.Sc Hons. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry) and work from university-level textbooks. Topics include, respiration, ATP and DNA fingerprinting.
Trips
Munich April 2011: A group of Sixth formers travelled to Munich in a joint expedition with the History department. They visited the largest science and technology museum in the world, The Deutsches Museum, followed the production of a car from sheet steel to rolling off the production line at the BMW factory and toured one of the famous Bavarian breweries. Such was the success of this trip that it is to become a biennial Chemistry/History trip for the Fifth form and Remove with the next trip planned for 2013.
Bristol University: We have links with the Bristol University outreach programme and often visit their award-winning chemistry department. In the 2010-11 academic year, Sixth formers attended a spectroscopy day, which included a tour of the School of Chemistry and demonstrations of many different spectroscopic methods. We were also delighted to be invited to the brand new contemporary science day, a day of lectures and demonstrations from scientists working at the cutting edge.