February 14, 2010 – 7:37 PM
Edgar Jenkins is Emeritus Professor at the School of Education of the University of Leeds
The history of the schooling of the three basic sciences is different. Chemistry and physics began to find a place in a few public and grammar schools in the mid-nineteenth century after a generation of opposition from classicists. Had the ‘battle’ been won in the 1830s or 1840s, it is geology that would have secured a place in such schools as then existed.
The form and content of school physics and chemistry were shaped by the then form and content of the disciplines themselves. Chemistry was essentially analytical and preparative. Physics as a subject was cobbled together form developments in electricity and magnetism, heat, light and sound, and mechanics and the properties of matter. Biology was rarely taught except to senior pupils intending to study medicine and was little more than a composite of botany and zoology.
There are many elements to the eventual accommodation, including gender and social class, designing and building teaching laboratories, laboratory work and examinations.
The School Regulations of 1904 and the School Certificate Examinations introduced in 1919 set the pattern that largely prevailed until after the second world war. Major changes came in the 1960s with modernizing of content, ‘new’ approaches to teaching and examining, the advent of comprehensive schooling and science for all and much more!
In sum, the social and political history of school science is fascinating, characterized by unresolved tensions and the search for some kind of Holy Grail!
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January 23, 2010 – 4:59 PM
Dr Michael de Podesta is a physicist and Science Ambassador at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory
Last week I attended a meeting organised by QCDA. They were apparently ‘seeking input’ from working physicists into the revised Physics GCSE curriculum. However it soon became clear that no such input was genuinely desired.
Staff from the QCDA asserted that ‘Physics was no harder than any other subject’, specifically mentioning Religious Studies as a subject of equal difficulty. They also asserted that acknowledged problems with the Physics GCSE curriculum were not the responsibility of the QCDA but were ‘caused by physicists’ - I never understood quite how. I summarised the meeting for my colleagues by saying that the lunatics had taken over the asylum.
Physics is harder than some other subjects. It requires practical and theoretical skills, a good memory, conceptual flexibility and mathematical insight. This combination of skills and knowledge is what makes Physics both valuable and difficult. However it is clear that QCDA intend to create a GCSE exam for Physics which actively discriminates against the people that physicists think are good at physics.
The mechanism for this involves publisher/awarding body conglomerates submitting schemes of work which minimally satisfy QCDA guidelines. Despite the input of many talented and creative individuals in schools and awarding bodies alike, this structure is guaranteed to lower standards. It is a race to the bottom: the awarding body which can produce the minimum specification with the easiest examinations will win ‘market share’ from their competitors and exam pass rates will ‘rise’. This is madness.
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October 25, 2009 – 9:36 AM
Mike, Stuart and Alom spent a lovely day yesterday bashing out what they think should be the aims of a good science education. Here are their initial thoughts:
We believe that it is a right (and an expectation) of our society that every child receive knowledge which will help them remain fed, fit and healthy, warm, dry and secure and to be aware of their multiple-dependencies on the environment so that they do not damage the very thing that ensures their continued existence (and that of every other living thing on the planet). We should also share with them knowledge that helps them to philosophically consider their own place in the Universe.
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October 25, 2009 – 9:29 AM
It seems like an obvious question, but perhaps one that we need to address head on when teaching science - what, exactly, is science?
Philosophers and scientists have debated the question through history, often violently disagreeing with each other. We’ve arrived at our own consensus view over at the howscience wiki:
Science is a never-ending and unique process of producing tested, evidence-based explanations for the full range of natural phenomena that we observe to occur around us.
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August 15, 2009 – 5:00 AM
Stuart Billington is a Head of Physics
Teachers are not aware of opportunities to contribute nationally and positively to science education policies, curricula and assessments. Having spent three years trying to impact on this debate and having talked to various people, I’m left with the dejected opinion that this is deliberate.
Education really does seem to be such a political cherry that government doesn’t seem to want to involve anyone beyond there own encampment. Indeed, Daniel Sandford-Smith (the IoP’s Education Manager for Schools and Colleges, at the time) remarked to me in an email a couple of years ago that he was surprised that I was of the opinion that teachers’ views should have any input into the curriculum at all! Add to this the time-constraints on teachers during term-time (and their running for the hills in holiday time) and the ever-dimishing set of specialist teachers in the physical sciences and you’re left with a bleak outlook indeed.
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August 13, 2009 – 10:22 PM
Mike Bell is a Science teacher in St Ives, Cambs
Looking back over the decline of science education over 20 years, I think we have to conclude that the only solution is for practicing science teachers to form a new organisation and put forward well argued, evidence-based proposals directly. For some reason the professionals who should have represented us - IoP, RSC, ASE unions etc, - have all sat on their hands and allowed the current situation to develop.
The manifesto below is a distillation of ideas from various discussions and blogs. I do not put it forward as a “done deal”, but more as a discussion point. If such an organisation is created we could use our developed “manifesto” as the basis for creating the sort of science course we want.
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Bernard Dawson is a Head of Science
I can only agree with the comments already expressed, that the one size fits all approach leads to a ridiculous compromise for the most able, and for the integrity of the subjects themselves. I am Head of Science at a top school in England, and as a chemist I have viewed with bewilderment the recent alteration of double science.
When QCA came out with their programmes of study for KS3 a lot of emphasis was put on continuity and progression. This got thrown away with the introduction of core science and additional science. After KS3, the obvious thing to do on educational grounds is to teach atomic structure properly, the periodic table properly, and bonding properly. This is the only way to give students extended practice with and confidence at, manipulating chemical formulae and following that, equations. Yet all those topics are really left for additional science in year 11 under the new scheme.
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Emma Collins is a science teacher at a comprehensive school in London
Science is one of the most important subjects children can learn these days, specifically because everything we have relies on science. The UK is losing scientists at an alarming rate not just because they leave the country but because fewer and fewer students are continuing with science at higher levels.
Looking at the science curriculum I have had to teach, the new GCSE courses are nowhere near good enough to support students’ interest and imagination. In year 10, the science is dumbed down and does not challenge them scientifically. The exams challenge them in their understranding of ethics and english and therefore there is no real test for the scientific knowledge that they have acquired.
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Roz Fresson teaches A-level Biology at a sixth form college.
Point1: We have steadily seen a decline, over the past 10 years or so (since Curriculum 2000) in the ability of our students to work independently. (This is a generalisation as there are always excellent students.) I have often wondered if this is due to the pressure on schools to spoon feed their pupils with endless easy worksheets and ‘fun’ activities meant to stimulate them to think, but sadly not to work - by themsleves, concentrating and focusing on a tricky topic.
We have a Taster Day in July for the just finished kids to come and try out their chosen subjects to see if they will really like them after all. They come from schools all over our region and vary tremendously in terms of their science experience - from schools that only offer the Applied Science GCSE (which it NOT suitable preparation for A level Science courses!) to those with triple sciences and Core and Additional. They were very happy playing with enzymes and classification but the crunch always seemed to come when they had to do calculations or apply themselves to a problem - just as previous writers have noted.
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Paul is a science teacher
Fully in agreemant with the comment about a single exam board. I am getting fed up with the emphasis on teaching “skills”, particularly “Thinking Skills” in the absence of any specified content. Read Daniel T Willilngham to find out more about the importance of content.
I fequently get angry at departmnent meetings when we have this year’s version of “what the chief examiner really meant about the internal assessment criteria” explained to us. Surely if they print a specification, that’s what we use. A particularly annoying one this year was about using 2mm square graph paper, something about it being easier for the moderator to judge accuracy.
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