Post-16 & A-Level

Ectotherms vs endotherms. this is a bearded dragon: he cannot make his own heat, so he must behave his way to the right temperature. Negative feedback, made visible.

A wild galah is pink and grey. Rosie is a lutino: one mutation stops melanin being made, so the grey never appears. Recessive alleles, Punnett squares, genotype vs phenotype.

British hedgehog decline as a real dataset: habitat fragmentation, predation, road mortality. Sampling, abundance and the limits of the evidence.

Gas exchange in a fish, a bird and a mammal — three solutions to the same problem. Surface area, counter-current flow, and why a bird's lung outperforms ours.

Eleven of the animals we keep across five gut designs — hindgut fermenter, foregut, carnivore, and more. Caecotrophy, dentition, poisons and the maths of why big animals eat less than you'd expect. A full self-test with worked long answers.

Why a hedgehog curls without being taught, and why a galah learns to say your name. Reflex, imprinting, conditioning — and the ethics of studying any of it.

Producers, consumers, trophic levels and the 10% rule — built on a real British garden food chain rather than an invented one.

Structural, behavioural and functional adaptations, abiotic vs biotic factors, competition and interdependence — through hedgehogs, bearded dragons and tortoises. 35-mark paper.

The four-step sequence, antibiotic resistance, selective breeding, speciation, evidence and classification — through peppered moths, Aldabra tortoises and Darwin's finches. 45-mark paper.

Genotype vs phenotype, meiosis, Punnett squares, sex determination, inherited disorders and DNA — through hedgehog colour morphs and bearded-dragon sex ratios. 47-mark paper.

Sampling and quadrat calculations, carbon and water cycles, decay, biodiversity, energy transfer and food security — with the turtle sex-ratio climate link. 49-mark paper.

The four reading questions and the 40-mark creative task — language, structure, evaluation and descriptive writing — taught through an original fiction extract set in an animal centre. 80-mark paper.

The paper post-16 students resit most — comparison, language analysis and viewpoint writing, taught through two real tortoise-keeping texts (a modern keeper vs an 1873 gentleman). 80-mark paper.

Around a quarter of a Foundation paper, on every paper at both tiers — sharing in a ratio, percentages, best value, speed and density, exchange rates and proportion. 77-mark paper.

Cell structure and specialisation, microscopy and magnification, cell division, diffusion, osmosis, surface area : volume, photosynthesis and respiration. 81-mark paper.

The nervous and hormonal control systems — reflex arcs, thermoregulation, blood glucose and diabetes, the kidneys and ADH, the endocrine system and the menstrual cycle. 71-mark paper.

Communicable and non-communicable disease, pathogens, the immune system, vaccination, antibiotics and drug development — from Fleming's penicillin to the foxglove. 81-mark paper.

The atom, the history of the model, electronic structure, the periodic table and its groups, ionic, covalent and metallic bonding, and giant structures. 70-mark paper.

Energy stores and transfers, forces and free-body diagrams, F = ma, motion graphs, kinetic energy, momentum and terminal velocity — through real collisions and a skydiver. 76-mark paper.

Husbandry plans, welfare assessment and the evidence a moderator actually wants to see.

Track assignments against criteria, and keep the evidence in one place rather than in six folders and a phone camera roll.

Run a structured examination, record findings, decide a plan and sign it. The habit that every welfare qualification is really assessing.

Species-appropriate handling, stress signals, and knowing when the right decision is to put the animal down and walk away.

Veterinary nursing, zookeeping, welfare officer, behaviourist, wildlife rehab — what each one actually pays and what it actually asks of you.

Which qualification leads where, and the honest answer about which ones employers value.

A full Level 2 teaching unit — the five welfare needs, housing, feeding, handling, health checks and behaviour — with a 79-mark assessment paper and mark scheme. Teaching free.

A full Level 3 teaching unit — body systems, thermoregulation, nutrition and rationing, ecdysis, UVB and advanced welfare — with a 90-mark assessment and mark scheme. Teaching free.

A 48-mark paper: setting up and feeding a hedgehog, boarding costs and pricing a party — money, means, area and multi-step reasoning, with the rounding decisions the exam really tests.

A 52-mark paper: read a hoglet advert against an honest care guide — fact vs opinion, purpose, what's been left out — then write an email and a magazine article.