Teenagers in England will today learn what topics they will be tested on in this summer’s GCSE and A-Level exams.
This summer, for the first time since 2019, GCSE and A-Level exams will be sat after they were cancelled for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it’s been announced that pupils will today receive advance information on the topics that will appear on the exams to help them prepare for and focus on their revision.
But what exactly does this mean?
Well, for some text-based subjects, such as English Language, the advanced information may include the genre or period that unseen texts used during exams will be drawn from, and then for subjects such as Maths, Combined Science, and Physics, equation sheets will be provided to reduce the number of formulas students need to memorise.
Subjects such as Art and Design – which are only assessed through coursework – will not feature any advanced information, however, and then in humanities subjects such as English Literature, History, Ancient History, and Geography, advanced information will not be released, but students will instead students will be assessed on fewer topics.
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The information covers about 300 specifications across GCSE, AS and A-Levels, and will appear on different exam board websites from this morning.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the change – which was announced last year – is not intended to reduce the range of content pupils need to be taught, however, and exam boards also decided they would release information in February rather than earlier in the academic year, as headteachers had called for, so that pupils would continue to learn the entire curriculum.
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The measure is said to be more focused on helping build students’ confidence.
Teenagers in England will today learn what topics they will be tested on in this summer’s GCSE and A-Level exams / Credit: gov.uk
Speaking ahead of the topics being released in advance today, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: “Exams are the best and fairest form of assessment, and we firmly intend for them to take place this summer, giving students a fair chance to show what they know.
“We know students have faced challenges during the pandemic, which is why we’ve put fairness for them at the forefront of our plans.
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“The information to help with their revision published today, as well as the range of other adaptations, will make sure they can do themselves justice in their exams this summer.”
In addition to the advance publishing of topics, exam papers will also be graded more generously this summer than in a normal exam year, although they will not with the assessment watchdog Ofqual setting grade boundaries at a “midway point” between 2021 and when exams were last sat in 2019.
Also speaking ahead of the announcements this morning, Geoff Barton – the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders – said: “We look forward to seeing the information being published to help students focus their revision for this summer’s exams [and] it is extremely important that this really does help to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on learning.”
“We will be studying it in detail to ensure that it provides fairness to students of all ability levels,” he added.
Featured Image – Unsplash (MChe Lee)
News
Yorkshire Tea is Manchester’s ‘favourite’ brand of teabags, according to new data
Danny Jones
The Great British debate of which teabag is best is one that will rage on for millennia, that’s just the way it is, but according to new data, it sounds like we might at least have an answer to which brand makes for Manchester’s favourite brew.
It won’t be a surprise to many of you and we can certainly confirm it on our end but the one and only Yorkshire Tea looks to have taken the cuppa crown when it comes not only to Manchester’s preferred teabag but seemingly the best-loved in Britain as a whole.
This is according to numbers pulled by local firm, TonerGiant. The Atherton-based ink and toner suppliers decided a poll around the office wasn’t enough and instead chose to turn their knowledge of the market and consumer trends into a bit of online research.
At the end of the day, tea is has got to be the most important of all the office supplies, surely?
According to the stats, Yokrshire Tea is Manchester’s favourite brand of tea bags. (Credit: Yorkshire Tea)
Using data from trusted online source Statista, which nailed down the top 25 teabag brands in the UK, each make was then ranked in relation to its average monthly searches via Google Keyword Planner to reveal that Yorkshire Tea was clearly the top dog.
With roughly 390 searches per month in Manchester alone, compared to PG Tips as the next best (260), it seems us Mancs have to concede at least one thing to our fellow Northern county: Yorkshire makes a bloody good brew.
The Roses rivalry raged for centuries but if there’s one thing that brings us together, it’s a good cuppa.
In terms of other tea brands that came in high on the leaderboard, Pukka Tea (170), Twinings (140)and Teapigs (90) made up the rest of the top five most-searched tea brands in Greater Manchester. It’s also interesting to see how those figures looked when extrapolated nationwide. Here’s the full ranking:
Rank
Tea
Average UK monthly searches
1
Yorkshire Tea
27,100
2
PG Tips
18,100
3
Pukka Tea
14,800
4
Twinings
12,100
5
Teapigs
8,100
6
Whittards Tea
6,600
7
Tetley
4,400
8
Clipper Tea
4,400
9
Lipton Tea
3,600
10
Barrys Tea
3,600
11
Thompsons Tea
1,300
12
Typhoo
1,300
13
Taylors Tea
1,300
14
M&S Tea
1,300
15
Tesco Tea
1,000
16
Tick Tock Tea
880
17
Sainsbury’s Tea
720
18
Lyons Tea
720
19
Asda Tea
590
20
Aldi Tea
590
21
Waitrose Tea
590
22
Lidl Tea
480
23
Morrisons Tea
320
24
Bewleys Tea
90
25
Cafedirect Tea
40
Few of these on here we’ve never heard of. Taste test, anyone?
While Yorkshire Tea was found to be Manchester’s and the nation’s favourite, Belfast was the only UK city where Yorkshire Tea didn’t take the top spot. Instead, it was Irish-owned Barry’s Tea that came out as their favourite – we definitely need to hold a ‘brew-off’ between the two. The Hoot, you up for it?
As for supermarket’s own-brand offerings, out of the eight options on the list, Marks and Spencers teabags were found to be the most popular, closely followed by Tesco and then Sainsbury’s.
Commenting on the findings, TonerGiant’s Stuart Deavall said: “With so many office workers opting for tea to get through the day, it’s no surprise that the UK has a day dedicated to the drink.
“In light of National Tea Day on Sunday, 21 April, our new data shows that Yorkshire Tea is the nation’s favourite, with over 27,000 Brits searching every month… We can expect many Brits to be celebrating in style this Sunday, no doubt with a mug of Yorkshire tea in hand”. Speaking of, anyone fancy a brew?…
Featured Images — Yorkshire Tea/Rumman Amin (via Unsplash)
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Manchester palaeontologist unearths bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile
Emily Sergeant
A Manchester-based palaeontologist has unearthed the bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile.
This new identification is a crucial part of a fascinating eight-year long discovery journey.
It all started when a seasoned fossil collector named Paul de la Salle found a giant jawbone on Lilstock Beach, near Bridgewater in Somerset, back in May 2016, and then father and daughter, Justin and Ruby Reynolds from Devon, found the first pieces of a second jawbone and another giant bone while searching for fossils on the beach at Blue Anchor, also in Somerset, in May 2020.
And now, a palaeontologist at the University of Manchester (UoM) Dr Dean Lomax, has identified the fossilised remains of the second gigantic jawbone that measures more than two metres long.
Experts have identified these bones as belonging to the jaws of a new species of enormous ichthyosaur – which is a type of prehistoric marine reptile – and astonishing estimations suggest the oceanic titan would have been more than 25-metres long.
Dr Lomax has been working together with Justin and Ruby Reynolds, along with Paul de la Salle and several family members, since the father-daughter duo first contacted them about their groundbreaking discovery in 2020.
A Manchester palaeontologist has unearthed bones of what may be the largest known marine reptile / Credit: UoM
“I was amazed by Justin and Ruby’s find,” Dr Lomax commented.
“In 2018, my team and Paul de la Salle studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone, and we had hoped that one day another would come to light.”
He explained that Justin and Ruby’s new specimen was “more complete and better preserved” than the first find, and that he “became very excited” at the chance to learn more following their discovery.
As mentioned, the Manchester-based research team, led by Dr Lomax, revealed that the jaw bones belong to a new species of giant ichthyosaur that would’ve been about the size of a blue whale, and they have called the new genus and species Ichthyotitan severnensis – which means ‘giant fish lizard of the Severn’.
The bones – which represent the very last of their kind – are around 202 million years old, and date back to the end of the Triassic Period in a time known as the Rhaetian.
During this time, the gigantic ichthyosaurs swam the seas while the dinosaurs walked on land.
The University of Manchester, where Dr Dean Lomax works as a palaeontologist / Credit: UoM
Ichthyotitan is not the world’s first giant ichthyosaur, but the discoveries by Paul, and Justin and Ruby, are said to be “unique among those known to science”, as they appear roughly 13 million years after their latest geologic relatives – including Shonisaurus sikanniensis from British Columbia in Canada, and Himalayasaurus tibetensis from Tibet in China.
Speaking on the confirmation of the bones’ identification this week, Dr Lomax said: “This research has been ongoing for almost eight years.
“It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period.
Emily Sergeant -
7th February 2022 
