I followed Wikid Science thinking it would be a three year course but it evolved into a 2 year course because many people are starting GCSE in year 9. I teach in a special school (which ability wise isn’t that far removed from the lower ability end of a mainstream comprehensive) and I’m now in a position where we have year 9 to fill – either with accredited courses or something else.
I’m torn between stretching the BTEC level 1 course over three years (with suitable enrichment and development activities) or writing a skills-based course for year 9 to revisit the skills/content which didn’t get the time they deserved in a two year course.
With a fluid population my instinct is to keep the BTEC as short as possible (possibly easier to manage coursework since our students have to do everything at school and with support) and go for a skills based year – but I’d be interested to hear what others have to say
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The intention of this post is to give an introduction to the state of science education in England. I am interested in how science education works in other countries and was hoping that this could be the first in a series of blog posts comparing science education around the world.
(Since devolution of power to regional assemblies Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have slightly different arrangements).
School education in England is divided into 6 phases – starting with Early Years and Foundation stage (0 – 5 years) and finishing with key stage 5 (16 – 19 years). A summary of the main phases can be found here. Science starts off with play based investigations and builds into more open ended projects/topics in the primary phase. Secondary education builds on this and leads to GCSE qualifications at age 16 then A-levels (needed for university) at 18.
Early Years and Foundation stage
Key stage 1
Key stage 2
Key stage 3
Key stage 4
Key stage 5
Age
0 – 5
5 – 7
7 – 11
11 – 14
14 – 16
GCSE Exams
16 – 18
A-level Exams
In 1988 we saw the introduction of the National Curriculum. This gave the minimum curriculum entitlement that every child should receive. With the prescriptive National Curriculum came a set of assessment criteria divided into ‘National Curriculum levels’ detailing progression in scientific enquiry, biology, chemistry and physics. This would be used until the end of key stage 3 when examination criteria would be used instead.
The National Curriculum for primary education can be found here and secondary education here (these links seem to change on a regular basis)
The publication of a scheme of work by the QCA (who created the curriculum) and the introduction of high-stakes testing at the end of each key stage polarised the curriculum and put increasing pressure on teachers to be getting good results. The original curriculum was very content heavy and teachers struggled to cover all the material. The National Curriculum has been slimmed down several times, and the levels tinkered with repeatedly but the function of the curriculum remains the same. The latest revision of the curriculum at key stage 3 (11-14) was intended to remove lots of the mandatory content and move to a more skills based approach, with teachers having more flexibility to teach what they want (together with the abolition of statutory testing). This mirrors a similar approach taken with the key stage 4 curriculum previously (but in this case the examination boards chose most of the examinable content rather than it being specified in the curriculum so there is still little freedom for the science teacher).
More and more secondary schools are choosing to condense key stage 3 into 2 years, and spend an extra year doing examination course (since the exam results are one of the measures used to compile school league tables and judge the effectiveness of schools). The GCSE exam (taught from 14 – 16) is in the process of being made more rigorous, and course that are perceived to be easy (like the modular multiple choice course) have been discontinued. There is little content at this level that cannot be taught by any competent science teacher and so many teachers teach across all disciplines of science until A-level where the increased subject depth needs more extensive subject knowledge.
The exact content and style of the science GCSE depends on the examination board the school has chosen to accredit the qualification (there are several to choose between). With much of the content being selected by the exam boards there can be significant variation between them and schools tend to select courses that suit the skills and ethos of the department. We are also seeing a shift towards vocational science qualifications for students unlikely to follow science past compulsory education.
Other issues that affect the quality of science education include deteriorating behaviour (which can limit practical work in lessons), large class sizes, staff absence, number of students with special educational needs, shortage of specialist physics teachers not to mention the constant change and interference from politicians into the teaching in our schools.
I would be interested to hear how our system compares with other countries, and answer any questions about the way science is taught in England.
Followers of my blog know that I like APP. That’s not to say that I don’t realise its limitations and problems, and I know it has got a lot of bad press because of the way some schools have chosen to implement it. I still maintain that APP has a lot going for it – especially when it comes to developing students as scientists, and for consistency of assessment data between primary and secondary.
However I’d recommend schools to maintain familiarity with the statutory level descriptors and their use. Teachers will have to use these descriptors at the end of each key stage, and therefore be confident in any judgements they make. APP levels will provide evidence of the general level that a student is working at and their development as a ‘scientist’ but they are not statutory.
My advice would be for teachers to use the National Curriculum level descriptors to assess some of their work, or to be conversant with the statements and how APP descriptors work alongside them.
I attended a county APP network meeting last week which included a show & tell session. Being a model of good organisation I remembered that I was meant to be taking something two day before. I could have simply gone through my schemes of work and picked an example of how we use APP, but instead I wanted to include something fresh.
I looked at the lesson plan for my next Y7 lesson, which was from the A&E sequence. Students were looking at some of the key pieces of equipment used in a hospital used to aid diagnosis. The teaching resources needed a little differentiation, partly to make them more accessible and partly to speed up that part of the lesson so we were free to move on.
I looked at the APP criteria that matched this lesson, which also gave me an idea of the outcomes I could expect from my students and what the next steps should be. I chose AF2 and students were recognising roles in the hospital with science and applications of science.
1
Identify a link to science in familiar objects
Recognise scientific developments that help us
2
Describe in familiar contexts how science helps us do things
Identify people who use science to help others
3
Identify aspects of our lives, or of the work that people do, which are based on scientific ideas
Link applications to specific characteristic or properties
4
Identify aspects of science used within particular jobs or roles
Recognise applications of specific scientific ideas
5
Link application of science or technology to their underpinning scientific ideas
Identify ethical or moral issues linked to scientific or technological developments
I then modified the task so that students would have more of a chance to demonstrate these skills in a way that suited their special needs. I decided that students would be presenting to the hospital board (who were looking for job cuts) and explaining to them that science was important in the hospital and which jobs used some kind of science. Students would also mention the key pieces of apparatus used in a hospital, relating applications of science to specific properties (e.g. the X-ray machine).
Students were videoed making their presentation to the hospital board after planning the presentation (in pairs). Students then watched back the presentations as a class the next lesson and offered peer feedback on both the presentations and the specific science skills (above) we were looking at.
I’ve included the presentation and worksheet that I used for this lesson, however I wanted to make the point that APP isn’t about collecting mountains of paperwork or one off assessment style lessons. It can be used to aid most science activities (either for assessment, development or both) and that the writing of Wikid Science makes this process extremely easy.
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The intention of this post is to give an introduction to the state of science education in England. I am interested in how science education works in other countries and was hoping that this could be the first in a series of blog posts comparing science education around the world. 
I attended a county APP network meeting last week which included a show & tell session. Being a model of good organisation I remembered that I was meant to be taking something two day before. I could have simply gone through my schemes of work and picked an example of how we use APP, but instead I wanted to include something fresh.
Themocracy