Dear Katie,
All teachers in maintained schools are employed as teachers of science and
therefore have to teach all three subjects as well as scientific enquiry.
(I am referring to the English system, so apologies to Wales, Scotland and
NI). However there is a severe imbalance between biology, chemistry and
physics teachers, with physics and chemistry being in the shortest supply.
This inevitably means that physics and chemistry teachers are concentrated
on those areas of the timetable with terminal exams (ie GCSE and AS/ A2) and
therefore lower school years tend to be taught by biology teachers more than
chemists or physicists. This situation is going to get worse as the numbers
going through teacher training are small (roughly 250 a year for physics and
400 for chemistry), especially compared with the number of retiring
teachers. 35% of physics teachers are in their late 50's for example. The
situation is not significantly better for biology teachers, but the shortage
is not as acute.
Increasingly biologists are being asked to teach more and more chemistry and
biology higher and higher up the school. While they are all well qualified
teachers, they do not necessarily feel confident teaching outside their
specialism.
Steven
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Dr Steven Chapman
Young People's Programme Manager
the BA
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National Science Week 7-16 March 2003 www.the-ba.net/nsw
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-----Original Message-----
From: Katherine [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 February 2003 14:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] New pilot science curriculum in the UK
My name is Katherine Spall and I am a 3 year PhD student in the University
of Liverpool carrying out research into Students Attitudes Towards Science.
I have actually found that students do not have muh of an idea about what
Physics Biology and Chemistry are until they get to year 10 and even then
it is a poor understanding.
I have also looked at the teachers that are involved in teaching all the
age ranges and I found that a lot are not just teaching their specialist
subject but other science subjects as well. In fact this is of concern to
a large proportion of the teachers I spoke to.
--On 17 February 2003 10:17 +0000 Steven Chapman
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sorry to correct but science between 14 and 16 in England is taught
> (usually) as Physics Chemistry and Biology for those students doing the
> double award at GCSE. In many schools this is done by physics, chemistry
> and biology specialists, though recruitment is a severe problem.
>
> The students are well aware that they being taught physics, chemistry and
> biology.
>
> Of course I am sure there is much anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
>
> Steven
>
> PS Non members - try e-membership of the BA free for three months! Visit
> the BAckroom today at: www.the-ba.net/members
>
>
> Steven Chapman
> Young People's Programme Manager
> the BA
> 23 Savile Row, London, W1S 2EZ
> T: +44 (0)20 7973 3057
>
> F: +44 (0)20 7973 3051
>
> National Science Week, 7 - 16 March 2003 www.the-ba.net/nsw
>
> BA Festival of Science, University of Salford 8 - 12 September 2003
> www.the-ba.net/festivalofscience
>
> For details of all events for adults and children, including March
> BAYSDAYS www.the-ba.net
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Johnson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 16 February 2003 23:00
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] New pilot science curriculum in the UK
>
> Barbara,
>
> Thanks for writing to me on list - others on the list who
> know me will know of my passion for transparency.
>
> First off, hooray for psci-com! We have all seen some
> first rate postings in this thread in the last week. I
> knew you could do it.
>
> Ben
>> I must confess to being too dispirited to not comment but also to not
> look
>> up the proposals. However a country gets the scientists it deserves ..yes
>> the quote is for free ...so conscience made me look it up. First
> impressions
>> are this dumbing down is getting dumber.
>
> I'm afraid dispirited is flavour of the month around here,
> but we should not be down hearted. I will not do a sort of
> MK line by line analysis of your last, since I am
> sympathetic to much of what you say; but, I cannot ignore
> "a country get the scientists it deserves". People (who
> are real) do not get what they deserve, they get what they
> allow others to give them. Whatever they allow others to
> give them, they deserve better. Countries (which are not
> real) get what their leaders/histories drop on them.
> Nobody deserves that (even in Iraq).
>
> I have a deep rooted suspicion of the term "dumbing down".
> Too often it is used to dismiss any kind of work which
> attempts to deal with people as they really are. I have
> recently been involved in a project which ran across
> fifteen European countries simultaneously. Naturally, we
> worked in local languages, and tried to identify science
> issues which were of local concern. When you do this kind
> of thing across national boundaries, you are praised for
> your sensitivity to national/cultural imperatives. Too
> often, when you do exactly the same thing with different
> groups within a single nation you are accused of dumbing
> down. You can't have it both ways - if everybody is an
> Oxbridge don there is no problem, and if they are not, then
> we need to address them according to their particular needs
> and circumstances. This is the case regardless of the
> messages we wish to convey.
>
> An example: I recently bought a microwave oven. Nowhere
> in the manual does it explain to me how EM radiation causes
> any substance to get hot. On the other hand, it tells me
> all I need to know to bake a potato.
>
> Back to the curriculum -
> I share your dismay with the demise of separately labelled
> sciences in school. One of the key lessons for future
> citizens about science must be that all sciences are not
> the same: nature of evidence, criteria for proof,
> institutional background, career structures etc. Almost
> everything is different. And I am old fashioned enough to
> hope that people can tell an ecologist from a nuclear
> physicist.
>
> However, it seems to me that if we are teaching science to
> everybody under the age of 16, we should not be preparing
> them all for a place at the high table. Rather, we should
> prepare them to be end users or citizens or consumers of
> the outputs of science. To that end (and without a
> detailed understanding of the pilot project in question) I
> would suggest that an exploration of the science behind
> contemporary issues (AND its social implications) would be
> a good place to start. Not least because, if a pupil is
> invited to consider the rival claims made by competing
> groups within society based on scientific arguments, they
> should know when a chemist is straying into sociology, or a
> politician into physics.
>
> pip pip
>
> ben
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:07:08 -0000 Barbara Wood-Kaczmar
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> After 7 years going into schools with trained engineers to give
>> presentations i found
>> 1 schools teaching 3 separate science subjects yielded best student
> response
>> in terms of them wishing to embrace a science career, visit a science
>> establishment or opt for science work experience.
>> 2 schools offering only combined science had students uninterested in
>> science and unused to the idea of there being 3 sciences. one teacher
> asked
>> us not to use the word physics as they never mentioned which areas were
>> which so it was pointless to advise taking a level physics if you wish to
> do
>> a career in engineering.
>>
>> these schools also had science teachers with eg a degree in chemistry now
>> teaching biology and freely admitting they knew nothing about it
>> So will these proposals improve science education/
>> not in my experience. I imply no criticism of new young teachers formed
>> under the current system but i would advise smarten up rather than
>> further dumbing down.
>> Barbara
>> Barbara Wood-Kaczmar
>> [log in to unmask]
>> tel/fax 01279 724371
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Ben Johnson
> Graphic Science
> Faculty of Applied Sciences
> University of the West of England
> Coldharbour Lane
> Bristol
> BS16 1QY
>
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Phone +44 (0)117 344 3756
> Mobile 07813 580 397
> http://www.uwe.ac.uk/fas/graphicscience
>
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