All the AQA GCSE Biology activities on this page are mapped to specification 8461 and marked as the student works, so nothing comes back to you. They're grouped by what they're actually good for, which is more useful than an alphabetical list: a nine minute recall activity suits a starter, and a longer one with a calculation in it suits intervention. The specification splits into seven topics, from cell biology through to ecology, and the list below covers what we have live in each. Where you want the real thing rather than practice, the official AQA past papers are free and linked at the bottom. What we can't tell you is which of your students has done any of it.
This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Biology 8461, rather than what a full course would cover. It's generated from the live activities, so it's accurate on the day you read it.
How the activities are grouped
The groups below come from what each activity is made of rather than from a label somebody typed. A short run of recall questions gets tagged as a starter; something longer with a calculation in it gets tagged for intervention. An activity often earns more than one group.
One tag is missing on purpose. Nearly every Biology activity we have suits independent study, so a heading for it would contain the whole page and tell you nothing. The groups you see are the ones that narrow the list down.
What the specification covers
AQA 8461 runs across seven topics: cell biology, organisation, infection and response, bioenergetics, homeostasis and response, inheritance and variation and evolution, and ecology.
Coverage is uneven and worth knowing before you plan around it. Cell biology and organisation have the most built, because that is where the course starts and where we started. Ecology has the least. The list below is the honest state of it, not a claim of full coverage.
The list further down is grouped by classroom use. If you would rather see the same content laid out against the specification structure, topic by topic, there is a link to it at the end of that list.
Using them in a lesson
The three activities embedded further down are playable here, without an account, so you can see what a student sees before you set anything.
For a weekly routine rather than a one-off, fifteen-minute revision has the shape most departments can keep up. If you want to set one as homework, revision homework that marks itself covers what you do and do not get back. To put several in front of one class in a set order, build a sprint and share a single link.
Past papers for the same specification
Our past paper archive carries AQA's own Biology papers and mark schemes, free and unaltered. A useful pairing is one activity to warm the topic up, then one real exam question on the same content, marked together in the next lesson.
What this page does not do
It doesn't track anything. There's no list of who opened a link or how far they got, so your own assessment data stays the measure of whether revision is working.
It doesn't claim complete specification coverage. The list is what exists.
It isn't a scheme of work. It's a set of short activities to drop into one you already have. For the shape of a revision programme around them, see how to structure a GCSE revision programme.
Every live Biology activity for AQA
46 activities,
all mapped to AQA GCSE Biology (8461).
AQA GCSE Biology 8461, the separate science rather than the combined science award. Each activity names the specification on its own page, so you can check it rather than take our word for it. Combined Science content sits under its own specification.
Does it cover all seven topics?
Not evenly. The list below is what's live today, and it's stronger on cell biology and organisation than on ecology. The page is generated from what exists rather than from what we'd like to exist, so it will fill in as more is built.
Are the required practicals covered?
Only where an activity happens to touch one. We don't currently have activities built specifically around the required practicals, and saying otherwise would be easy to disprove in a lesson.
Can I use these with a Combined Science class?
Some of the content overlaps, but the activities are mapped to 8461 rather than to the combined specification, so check the module page before setting one. Anything about the extra separate-science content will not fit.
How do students get them?
Share a link. Students need a free account only to save progress across sessions, and you'll get no report of who completed what, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.
How long does each activity take?
Most sit between seven and fifteen minutes, and every module page states its own length. The groups below are ordered so the shortest come first.
Put one in front of a class
Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.
15-minute GCSE revision activities for teachersShort, specification-matched revision activities for those spare fifteen minutes: a starter, tutor time, the end of a lesson or a cover period. Students get their answers checked as they work, so there is nothing for you to mark afterwards.
GCSE revision homework that marks itselfHow to set revision as homework without creating a pile of marking: one link, questions checked as the student answers them, and feedback that arrives while it still matters. Includes what this approach doesn't give you.