If I had to write a new science curriculum....

National Curriculum for Science (The AC-G version)

 

I was a science teacher for a decade and have since continued a keen interest in science education through teacher training and educational research.

Michael Gove our new(ish) Minster for Education has today clarified that he wants school subjects to have key facts and knowledge that every school leaver should know. He wants teachers to advise on what this key knowledge is. I do not want to make judgements on this policy, but it has made me think what I would do if given the chance to devise the National Curriculum for Science in England.

In that flight of fantasy I might do a term at least on photosynthesis and plants, a term on the solar system and astronomy and a term doing field work or maybe a year on each, examined by small assessment tasks and a big note book of their learning journey and own scientific discoveries. Loads of practicals: microscopes; telescopes; quadrats; pond-dipping, web searches: Hooke; the Herschels; Fossey; electron microscope images; using large telescope time to view an image; blogging, on going experiments: growing plants in different conditions; mapping sunspots; pupil's own enquiries, it would be amazing. That is amazing for me, but maybe not for pupils needing a rounded science education.

OK, so the NC stays, so what form should it take?

Would I want to go back to the original separate subjects of Biology, Chemistry and Physics throughout Key Stage 3 and 4? The argument for are that science teachers have to teach all three, of which they are only really expert in one when they start training to become a teacher. The argument against this is that at secondary school level, science should be considered interdisciplinary because pupils are too young to choose and that all subjects are required to be a scientific literate citizen. There are probably others.

The list of facts for Science scares me. Teachers would just end up teaching facts, through rote learning, without any need for conceptual understanding. We won't need science teachers, just computer programmes that pupils follow until they get 100% (then maybe they get a prize of doing a practical!).
What is wrong with what we have now? The QCA curriculum is probably over prescribed, but there is some good stuff there. I like the structure, that it accounts for progression of key ideas if taught in a sensible order based progression. I am a big fan of the four (yes, four - interdependence is a political anomaly IMO): Energy, Forces, Particles, Cells (I prefer Life & Survival).

Wynne Harlen has recently (2010) edited Principles and big ideas of science education which proposes the key principles of science (both content and skills) with the

"aim of identifying the key ideas that students should encounter in their science education to enable them to understand, enjoy and marvel at the natural world"

Harlen points out that

"what we teach owes more to history than to new thinking."

This is very true, but I would also argue that history can tell us a lot about conceptual progression of scientific ideas and the key concepts. However, I agree that the science curriculum is very much focused on the past rather than the present and the future.

This international panel decided upon 10 principles of science education and 14 big ideas of science (10 ideas of science and 4 ideas about science).

Is science just a pure discipline where we learn it for the love of learning? Or should it be a requirement that all children leave school scientifically literate whether they go onto studying further science or are a citizen that needs a basic understanding of science.

The 10 principles of science education cover the goals of science education along with the need for formative assessment, evidence based progression of ideas (with benchmarks) as well as crucially the training and development of the teacher including work with practicing scientists.

The training and development of teachers is for me crucial. There are teachers of my generation who I feel have fallen into an existence of lack of professional pride. The government demands of results have turned them into factory farms of exam grades, with just inputs and outputs. Tell me what to teach, I'll teach that and I will ensure that my pupils can get their target grade. They seem to me to have their professional judgement sapped from them, abstaining from responsibility of curriculum design, thinking about what pupils will have been taught previously and even about what they will do in the future. The outcome is all what counts not the process of getting there. When I was teaching in schools and whenever I deliver INSET there are teachers who claim they do not have time to do 'formative assessment', or no time to allow pupils to learn in groups or carry out extended projects because they 'have to get through the curriculum'. This is not everyone, but a lot of teachers are in this frame of mind. It is time to give their professionality back and make them active in the curriculum, rather than passive processors.

Back to the curriculum, Harlen's team come up with perhaps predictability: particles, gravity, forces, energy, earth science & climate, Solar System and universe, cells, energy in food chains, genetics, diversity and evolution. I would argue that any science teacher who did not come up with these would raise serious questions to me! However, it is important to establish the key concepts.

Then the 'Ideas about Science' rightly (in my view) take four points about the processes of science. In recent times, there has been a push to teach through enquiry. In principle I think it is essential that pupils experience practical enquiry, but I do not believe that it should be instead of learning and exploring concepts. I think the learning about key concepts is essential in school science, without a conceptual basis it is impossible to design or carry out meaningful investigations. I really believe that scientific concepts can be developed through guided enquiry, which then allow pupils to carry out their own enquiries to apply the scientific concepts they have learnt. However, in practice, it seems that teachers do teach too much content as facts rather than concepts.

It is important to read to the end of Harlen's report which synthesises the principles and the big ideas into a working curriculum. It is a model I feel is very workable.

So, if you have got this far through my stream of consciousness, you will see that I have realised that I have some key beliefs about what a NC should be and that there should be a NC. Perhaps the NC for science should be a set of guiding principles, but certainly not a list of facts. It is so much easier knowing what it should not be than exactly what it should be! Though the Harlen model seems to me an excellent starting point - it just would have to be seen how teachers use it in practice.

This week the curriculum review panel has been announced. I hope that they use Harlen's report as a basis for science education. What does concern me is that although there will be a NC, free schools and academies will not have to use the NC! So will that mean that every science teacher can teach whatever they like? Will it be back to the times where there is no NC? It is very interesting times.

AC-G

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mediareleases/release.php?id=1435