New People and Fresh Starts

http://www.ase.org.uk/news/ase-news/ase-announces-new-chief-executive/?

'Shaun Reason is to become the new Chief Executive of The Association for Science Education. Shaun, who was recently the Chief Executive of a Group Charity and a former headteacher, comments on taking on the exciting new role, 

“I'm very much looking forward to starting at the ASE and helping to have a positive impact on supporting science education in the UK. I'm keen to meet up with all those connected with the Association and to encourage those who are not members to join and to appreciate the benefits that can be found as a member.”

Shaun will take over the role as CEO at ASE from 1 May.'

I have to say I am encouraged and hopeful at the comments our soon-to-be CEO has made about the ASE. For several years now we have known the ASE is in trouble. It has been losing members fast and cost-savings have not been able to keep up with this loss in revenue. 

However, I would say to Shaun that making ASE into an organisation that has sufficient benefits teachers, other educators and companies will want to join in significant numbers it is not going to be an easy journey. 

I am chair of the West of England region, my committee and I are expected to recruit new members within the region. How can we do that when I have no way of advertising our events outside of our current regional members? It is my understanding that the regions are directly answerable to the CEO, so I would appreciate his support with this issue.  

Still with regions, I feel there are conflicting ideas about what the purpose of regions is. I have been informally told that regions should be generating revenue for the ASE as a whole, yet of the £86 membership fee my region only see £1 per local member. How can our region provide value for money on a local level, raise enough money to sustain our own activities and expenses as well as raise significant revenue for ASE nationally? I see the role of the region as one of supporting members, and using the revenue we have to do this. Perhaps there is a balance to be found and I hope Shaun can work with regions on this.

I have been a regional committee member for three years. For the first two of those I know we felt adrift and cut off from HQ. Emails going unanswered and confusion over issues with bank accounts. This situation had been present for at least 7 years prior to that, my fellow committee members tell me. I would like to see Shaun develop a good working relationship with the regional officers in order to help us feel valued. 

My last request related to regions. I want to see higher expectations and better sharing of practice between regional committees. We put on regional conferences and there is the opportunity to use these to raise the profile of ASE as well as a little revenue. However, there are many issues to be addressed. Cost: how much does each region charge, should we be consistent across the organisation and if so how, should payment be organised via eventbrite, the ASE website or through another organisation such as a former science learning centre? Venue, location, scheduling, catering, partners, branding, advertising, paying speakers' expenses, and finding speakers to talk about relevant issues are all areas that would benefit from being discussed and monitored. I would like to see Shaun attend regional events and experience them so he can help to share best practice and support the volunteers in regional committees to improve their offering. 

Apart from being a regional officer for the ASE, I am a teacher. As a head of department and science teacher I would ask Shaun to review the member benefits as I am concerned they do not offer value for money. We (teachers) are struggling under the pressures of the changes the government are bringing in and we are looking to ASE for advice and leadership. It is not forthcoming. I know why, I understand why. However, if science education and supporting members is not the first and biggest priority of the ASE then how can we hope to hang onto members and how can we hope to bring through talented and enthusiastic volunteers to continue the work of the ASE?

I hope that Shaun can lessen the pressures on council and assembly to look at internal politics and help to focus the Chair Trio and the committees they run onto education. I am of the strong opinion that until the national ASE committees and post-holders can concentrate on our core business of supporting members then the ASE membership figures cannot recover. 

I think that the benefits of ASE membership are worth £20/quarter, but I am an active member, making connections and boosting the helenrogerson80 brand on the back of the ASE. What about those who are not doing that, what do they get from the ASE. I hope that Shaun can help sell the ASE to potential member and make it into an organisation that is growing rather than shrinking. 

The ASE is important to science education national and internationally and for the sake of the education of our children it must survive. I wish Shaun all the best in his new role and offer him my support where it is needed. 

Using a Stick to Make Changes in Education

When it looked like 100% of the assessment of GCSE science was going to be examination based I was dismayed. "Science is a practical subject and we will lose that if the assessment doesn't reflect this".

In 2005 I went to an event for all the science teachers in Dudley and Wolverhampton LAs. I didn't make notes, but I do remember it was someone from York as the National Science Learning Centre was mentioned a lot. The speaker said that assessment is what drives the taught curriculum and that there were issues in how to assess 'how science works' part of the upcoming GCSE science. (The 2006 GCSE where double science was split to core and additional and 'how science works' was introduced). *at least this is what I remember hearing.

I found this quite powerful, and it did/does reflect my practice. I teach to the test. To this day I teach to the test: why would I not look at the hoop my students have to jump through and aim them as clearly as I can in the right direction?

However, it also made me feel like a tiny cog in the wheel. What I do, how I do it and what my students get out of it, is dictated by the skill of exam writers.

At the end of June I went to the ASE celebration conference in Hatfield. As part of that I attended two sessions host by AQA. We were looking at threats and possible solutions to science education in the next ten years. The audience had to suggest policies to address these threats. The topics picked were linked assessment and STEM. As part of the discussions there were suggestions put forward of how to 'encourage' schools to adopt the policy ideas being proposed: the responses were 'ofqual', 'league tables', 'ofsted' etc. All the things that are used as a stick against schools.

So I go back to my considerations about practical work. Is the call for there to be a practical aspect to the GCSE science assessment because it is a genuine skill that scientists need to be ready for a job, university or college? Or is it simply that we are proud in the UK of our practical science culture and want to maintain it through using the stick of assessment. Do either of these reasons really require that we examine practical work?

I would really like to see a culture where we didn't need the stick to enforce a certain type of practice. If it is good for the students then that should be enough reason to do it.

It all comes back to the professionalism of teachers: do we deserve it? Should we be given the responsibility and see if the 'profession' can rise to it?Would practice actually improve for the better because we would be adding things to both to school life and to lessons that would have an impact that is not possible to measure in exams, but will benefit the adult that child will become and the society it will live in.

But, my thoughts always come back to the probability that teaching to the test is so ingrained in teachers that "Science is a practical subject and we will lose that if the assessment doesn't reflect this".


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Itch and Simon Mayo

At the ASE conference I had the please to be in a session where Annette Smith (the CEO of the ASE) interviewed Simon Mayo about his books. The books are about Itch, a boy who discovers a new element.



Annette began by asking Simon why he wanted to write a book with science as a main theme. Simon Mayo replied that while he was working at radio five he interviewed a lot of scientists and gained an interest in science. Then his son (aged 10) became obsessed with science. Simon tried to find something for him to read and found nothing. So Simon decided to write his own story for his son and that became his first book. At the same time, Daniel Radcliffe sang the periodic table song on Graham Norton and this spurred Simon Mayo on to publish as he realised someone else would spot the gap in the market.

Annette asked Simon about science at school. The audience were all science teachers after all. We are interested in learning from the experience of our pupils. Simon Mayo said that no one inspired him in the area of science at school and it is quite a departure to now be going to schools talking to young people about science.

The character Itch is an element collector. Simon Mayo was keen to ensure that the science in the books was real. The characters get themselves into and out of trouble because of the element. Simon Mayo talked to Professor Paddy Regan and Professor Andrea Sella and learned about the theoretical 'island of stability', where elements will reach a size big enough for them to be stable for days, weeks or months. Long enough for the story at least. He also learned he could get away with it if he said the new element was made in a supernova.

Someone did comment to him, that the most unrealistic thing about the books was the speed at which the new element (126 in case you are wondering) got its official name.

Simon Mayo stated that making science cool was not the intention when writing his book, he believes that kids will spot if if you try to trick them into liking science. He just wanted to write a good story.

Simon then went on to describe the session he delivers to students when he visits schools. Firstly, there is augmented reality on the front on the covers. Download the app, point it at the cover and amazing stuff happens!

He said that there was a debate between his editor, agent and himself about how much explanation of the periodic table do you add to the book? He read the section that introduces the periodic table from the first Itch novel to illustrate his point.



Simon said he tried to bring the Itch books back to elements when possible. He was inspired by this banned book on chemistry experiments:



Which Itch is too. It cost Simon £400 on eBay. He said that the kids he visits are often more interested in this boom than the Itch booms by the end of the visit!

He also told the audience that the hiding place for element 126 is a real place, although he took some poetic licence. The building is no longer a school, but it is in the books.



At the end of the hour Annette gave Simon the 'be safe' book from the ASE bookshop!



An engaging hour, and I can recommend the books as I have read them.


Did you know that if you ingest tellurium you smell of garlic for months.


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Summary of #ASEchat 25th March 2013 (92) How can we support new subject leaders?

The chat mainly consisted of advice from the contributors to people who would be starting a new post. They could be split into thee main categories. A lot of advice was about building relationships, another strong theme was leadership and finally there were ideas about how to develop into the subject leader role.

The comments below will be a useful read for anyone preparing for a leadership role.

There was a theme about relationships:

Early in #asechat @gregtheseal said that a new subject leader would need to build relationships with the team and @bio_joe said make sure any internal candiate you beat to the job doesn’t become an enemy. @hrogerson tweeted in reply that a new post holder should talk to everyone in the department and be friendly. @MrsDrSarah said that it was important that new post holders be honest, but not brutal as the development of the team is important.

@KDWscience tweeted that never being too busy for your staff is an important characteristic in a new leader and @littlejenster comments that having a sense of humour and being able to listen were important too.

@DavidCumbers said that subject leaders should pick fights carefully. Which will need to be fought today, which can wait until the subject leader knows where their backup will come from. Along similar lines: @stanothermic tweeted that new subject leaders should know that they will have to say things that others won’t like.

@Mrcjhewitt tweeted another reason why relationships are important, he said that too many post holders leave team building until later, but although one person can make a difference, they can’t do everything.

Another strand about leadership:

@hrogerson said that new post holders should lead by example and be prepared to do what you ask others to do. @oboelizzy made the comments that a new post holder should focus on teaching and learning in the classroom.

@littlejaneyface said that new subject leaders should know how to prioritise, they may feel the need to change everything to make their mark, but this won’t be practical for the whole department.

@gregtheseal said that subject leaders should make sure that they are doing the things they are asking others to do. He also said that subject leaders should think about the purpose of their actions, for example, why collect data if you are not going to use it.

@IETFaraday tweeted that subject leaders should start every meeting with “this meeting will help learning by…” If you can’t say why, postpone the meeting until you can! @Bio_joe backed up this idea by saying that “sharing best practice” should be a standing item on the agenda.

@julesgordon1 said that TLR holders should talk to each other before the meeting so they have the same vision and Heads of Faculty can share the delivery with the other post holders.

@damianainscough tweeted that new subject leaders should know their success criteria in terms of student outcomes. (Improve “T+L” and similar is not specific enough).

@IETFaraday said that new post holders should be prepared to challenge both upwards and downwards: Stand up for your staff, but also stand up for whole school priorities

@Mrcjhewitt said that subject leaders can build time and expertise if they remember you lead a team...not do everything themselves; they should value and trust others.

@Bio_Joe gave some other advice about building relationships: Find out what everyone's motivations are in the team. Why are they a teacher? What do they want to do? What interests do they have?

And some ideas about how new subject leaders can be developed:

@ashl3ylaw explained that new subject leaders can be supported by having a mentor, who is someone in a similar role with more experience. The two will meet regularly for discussions. @A_Weatherall somed up the support in a word: “mentoring”. 

@DavidCumbers suggested that new subject leaders should meet the rest of the school in the staffroom, and @hrogerson responded that she agreed as some of the best support can be found outside of the department. And @miss_m_w said that new subject leaders should make opportunities to meet with other subject leaders to share successes and ways to deal with issues.

@specialsciteach said that she was allowed to find her way with a guiding hand in the background: a new post holder needs to be able to make their own decisions, with support.

@hrogerson said that as a line manager of new post holders she would give them something achievable to work towards, that a newly appointed subject leader may not know what their job entails and direction from the line manager is important.

Other advice:

@obeolizzy said that new subject leaders should look at work of R. Driver, R.

Millar, J. Osborne, P. Scott, R. Watson, D.West, J.Wellington, R.Duschl, P. Adey, et al. In other tweet she said that subject leaders should attend ASE conferences.

@heatherakane tweeted that there has been a lot done by National Strategy on effective departments and new post holders should read them

@gregtheseal said that the NSLC aspiring heads of science course was the best CPD he had done. 

ASE session: asking good questions

Why are good questions important?

Robin Millar of York University began this session with the comments:

• Assessment is the most significant driver of real change.
• Defines real learning goals
• It provides an "operational definition" of what the learning means.

I would have to agree with all of the sentiments above.


The emphasis on quality of written communication has changed the way many science departments teach. It was the six mark questions that have driven this.

Range of learning intentions:

1. Recall
2. Understand ideas and models
3. Present and analyse information
4. Carry out standard procedures
5. Process display and interpret information

We were introduced to the York Science Project. Where questions are being written to check understanding.

We were told: "York Science is about checking understanding. Interested in writing good questions that check understanding. You can't see understanding, you can only check it."

I knew this already because I have been using York Science Resources in my lessons. The questions/activities are useful because they not only give an idea about what the students don't know, but what they do believe and in some cases how strongly.

Mary Whitehouse described some way of questioning: construct an explanation;

• chose sentences from multiple choice to make explanation - see second photo,
• chose true sentences from a list,
• identify ideas from text (directed activity related to text)

Carol Davenport then spoke about writing exam questions. To be honest it is a topic I haven't thought much about before. The exam papers arrive, the students complain, I say "oh dear they won't know how to do that", and that is as far as it goes.

Carol described that when she writes for the exam board she starts with the point on the specification and writes an answer that related to that point.
Then find the context and the question.
The process for writing an exam question is quite involved. The question goes through several drafts and revisions and is seen and reviewed by a lot of people. Even though it doesn't feel like that when I see the final paper!

Consider "is your question going to get the answer you think it will?"



Finally Mary Whitehouse showed us an example of a poor question.

What makes a good question?



While the top photograph shows a version of the question suitable for American students talk of "sidewalk" and an image of a parking meter may confuse UK students. The word "crack" could also cause confusion.

Below is an edited version of the same question.



Teachers download questions from all sort of places, so be aware of the question.

I know I have selected activities that once the students start them I realise are poorly worded. However, I find that end of topic tests from published schemes of work are the most poor; students struggling to interpret the question and access the marks.

Project 2061 was mentioned as the source of questions. But US based and biased towards US language.

Finally Robin Millar said when summing up:

• Question doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough to do a job... Back and forth with writing questions.

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What is science education for?

What is it that we are delivering? And what do we need to change/move forward? What it is that we could do better if we could?

The questions above were posed by our new Head Teacher on Monday in her initial address to the staff. She wants each department to think about it carefully from an individual area's point of view.

This isn't something new to me.

I have mentioned the book "how science works" by James Williams before. The opening chapter is called "understanding the nature of science". After reading this I realised that this was my main purpose in teaching. While I am teaching students things like F=ma, electrons orbit the nucleus and chlorophyll is a green pigment that they need to pass exams, I need to remember that teaching them about the nature of science is important for the rest of their lives.

I believe there is a consensus that the young people should leave school scientifically literate. (ie able to make decisions that involve science). After the ASE conference lecture by Professor Paul Hardaker (a meteorologist) I realised that even reading the weather forecast requires a level of scientific literacy.

I am more of a "bringer together of ideas" than an imaginative person. I rely on experience over creativity. So in order to write the aims for my department I am not going to be original, but start with the "aims of a good science department" from the ASE Guide to Secondary Education (https://secure.ase.org.uk/membersarea/shop/details.asp?id=132).

They are:

1. A grasp of the "big" ideas that enable active participation in decisions involving science and technology
2. A basic understanding of what science is, how it works and what are its strengths and limitations
3. The ability to continue learning

If you want to know the rationale then you will have to buy the book!

In a previous blog post about a lecture given by Michael Reiss he talks about the purpose of education being the "flourishing of young people". I would hope that science education in my department will aim to do this in the context of our subject.
http://geordiescience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/ase-conference-and-purpose-of-science.html
Professor Reiss also points out that there is an overlap between what students learn in the classroom and outside of it (e.g. From YouTube). It is increasingly important that we help the young people learn to interpret this information critically and correctly. So I believe that aim 3 is a very important point to consider in that context.

(I think about the lecture given by Paul Hardaker where he spent time talking about climate change and the lack of acceptance among the general public.)

Under aim 1 I would want to ensure that students get to experience science theories first hand in an controlled context in the lab, so they can see and believe certain scientific phenomena. I believe that students can't discover scientific ideas through play, but need scaffolding to reach accepted conclusions and understand the evidence behind them.

Of course what the "big ideas" are in aim 1 are up for debate.

I think aim 2 is overlooked by many science teachers, myself included in my early teaching career. See my comments above about the book "How Science Works". For those who are going on to further science studies and those who are not they have to understand that no idea in science cannot be challenged and refined. Science is not a group of indisputable facts, yet it is also not something that can be argued from all sides. It is difficult to give 13/14 year olds experience of this though.

It is easy to take someone else's opinions, particularly when they are written in a published book, and accept them as part of your policies. Easy to do when you are creating policies as a tick box exercise. However, I do believe these three aims and I am committed to achieving them for the students I teach. I won't be adopting them, writing them down and hoping it is what we do, I want to take the next step and embed them in our curriculum, teaching and attitude.

What is it that we are delivering? And what do we need to change/move forward? What it is that we could do better if we could?

On my journey to answer this I have my aims, now I need to look at what we are doing and in what way we meet them.


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John Lewis Lecture: Professor Paul Hardaker, CEO of the IoP. ASE conference blog post 2

This blog post is an edited version of the things I noted during the John Lewis lecture. They make not make sense as I was gripped by what Paul Hardaker had to say so didn't always have time to type what he was saying.

This lecture and the lecture by Michael Reiss in the previous blog post as ones that have most been useful during the last week at school, which I didn't expect when I went to them!

The first thing I noted was I that John Lewis (who passed away in autumn 2012) sounded like a truly inspiring man, influencing a lot of positive reforms and changes and I was proud to be in a lecture in his name.

Professor Hardaker started with an image that captivated him. It is below. The photo doesn't do it justice as his version was animated and showed the general weather patterns on the Earth.



At the moment in my lessons and curriculum development plans I am looking to develop the idea that science develops and changes. So I quickly noted the names Fitzroy who Paul Hardaker described as being responsible for bringing science into predicting the weather, and LF Richardson - took the globe and put a grid around the globe to help track the weather, now a days they still use grids, but the grid goes up into the atmosphere and down into ocean too.

Professor Hardaker also explained that collaboration important in weather and climate as 97% of the UK information comes from other countries. I thought that this was a very useful point to make to students about the nature of science in the modern world.

Prof Hardaker describe his perfect Christmas gift: a toaster that connects to the weather forecast and burns the most appropriate symbol to your morning slice of toast.



Weather scientists use models. What you can do is limited by computing resources. Climate models are very large scale, not good resolution. However the local weather does have good resolution so that localised weather issues can be identified.

We were snow an example of requiring good resolution. Each arrow represents a section on the grid. Hurricane Catharina would not have been predictable if the was not the same level of detail/resolution.



The computer models are also run a number of times to take into account as many possible variables as possible. When Michael Fish failed to predict the Hurricane to hit southern England in the 80s, the computer models were not as accurate as they are now. The top image shows what they were able to do then and the bottom one is what we can do now with the same information. Again showing real development of science and technology.



Professor Hardaker then went on to describe the hard work that goes into displaying weather information for the public.

It occurred to me at this point that the weather is the science that the general public interact with every day. And we don't teach it in science!

He showed us the image below as asked which way of displaying weather we like the best. In a room of scientists version 2 was preferred. Professor Hardaker explained that each version got 25% preference in public surveys.


This section of the lecture gave me a sense of purpose for when I am teaching young people to interpret data.

Paul Hardaker then went onto talk about students studying meteorology.

Meteorology is 50/50 male/female. But a lot of these students come from social science, not from science, which causes a problem as the students need maths and physics to access meteorology. Most of the meteorology is taught in geography, so the students don't realise the maths and physics necessary. University students often have to go back and do a masters after their geography degrees to improve their subject knowledge.

Being CEO of the IoP it was inevitable that Paul Hardaker would talk about the recent IoP report into girls studying physics.


We need more female public role models.




Paul Hardaker then finished his lecture by talking about the Greenhouse effect and Global Warming. I took the first image because I liked it. A lot of people don't understand the greenhouse effect and I think this image does a good job.



Professor Hardaker displayed a lot of data about climate change:







The image below shows the temperatures we have had and the lower graph has the computer model for the temperatures without the effect of global warming.




If we double CO2 then temp goes up 1 degree, but the atmopshere can hold more water at this temperature, which causes another 3 derees of change in temperature, and aerosols in the air, ice, snow will also affect temp another 0.5-5.5 degrees.

Professor Hardaker said that storm surges are more worrying than sea level rises in shorter term.

After to using data to prove to a room of scientists that climate change is real he went on to look at the complicated nature of tackling it.



Paul Hardaker asked "Why do we disagree about climate change?" He explained that is was related to how we frame the argument.
-Economic problem,
-Technology problem,
-Global injustice,
-Over consumption (population/prosperity),
-Natural variability and we should just adapt to climate change,
-Perhaps we are at a tipping point so need to geo-engineer with giant mirrors and ships in the Atlantic pumping areosols into atmosphere.

He said that we need to reduce emissions by 80%, but we need to start the journey, and think about how we use energy, even if we don't know the exact solution yet.



The most disturbing slide was the last one.




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Location:Reading

ASE conference and the Purpose of Science Education

This is my first blog post about the ASE conference. It is almost a week since I came back and whilst the euphoria I felt during the 3 1/2 days is gone the resolution to be a better teacher and head of department remains.

The first lecture I attended was at 9.30am on Thursday morning. It was by Professor Michael Reiss and felt like a whistle stop tour of all the ideas and policies related to science education and some related to education in general.



The context of his talk was the revision of national curriculum and who will be the awarding body. OCR sponsored the talk: it wasn't biased towards them, but I can imagine that awarding bodies are getting as much advice from people like Michael Reiss as possible to ensure their survival!

He started on a very popular topic for a lot of people in education: Hattie's meta studies of educational research. The list of the most influential 10 factors in order are in the image below.


Professor Reiss pointed out that most of these factors are under the control of the teacher, not the curriculum. I found this point very interesting, I have taught some terrible schemes of work, that I firmly believe hampered my students' learning, so it takes a leap to believe that curriculum doesn't factor directly in the top 10.

Michael Riess then went on to describe work by Tim Oates on factors that control what students learn. I didn't get the opportunity to take a photo or write everything down, but a selection is below:

1. Curriculum content, (awarding body and the text book)
2. Assessment
3. Inspections
4. Institutional forms and structure
5. Funding

Curriculum is one of a vary large number of things that affect what is taught. This related well to a blog post I wrote about the intended, taught and learned curricula - all of which are different!


Professor Reiss then went on to discuss what it meant to be "True to Science".
He said science was: reaching science conclusions, gathering imperical data, creating and using models, testing. And went on to comment that science is different to other subjects in the way that it concerns all three of mathematical, ethical and aesthetic knowledge.

He also said that as educators we are not good at getting across at school that the way of working in science is also applicable elsewhere, eg geography, history, archaeology.



Teaching science in school is very important because The school lab can simplify the model of science, as it is complex. Youngsters cannot learn science by simply experiencing it. In schools science we are trying to get students to understand different levels: context, macro, invisible and model

A point I found interesting was that the top performing countries in the PISA rankings tend to have more direct assessment of the practical work than UK. As we move even further away from assessing practical skills this is a very interesting point to note.

Michael Reiss then went on to talk about outsider art and what he called outsider science. I wasn't sure why. But I have since been told that he believes that the people with "outsider" opinions shouldn't be dismissed, but respected if not agreed with.
Outsider art: art produced by people who are not trained artists.
Outsider science: creationism, climate denial, alien abduction, 400,000 people believe they have been abducted by aliens, astrology, conspiracy theories.




As Professor Reiss started to wind up his lecture he moved from the topic of science education to what education is about in a wider sense. I found interesting his comment that "overall aim of education should be the flourishing of students. At the moment the curriculum starts with the subjects".

(I know of schools who have tried to develop skills based curricula, but not that have really had a massive impact outside their school and some, I might even say most, that have been scrapped.)

Professor Reiss then described the skills that people call for in school leavers:
1. Cognitive skills
2. Interpersonal skills e,g, communicate to another, articulate thoughts in variety if ways
3. Intrapersonal skills e.g. Adaptability and self management

Relating this general overview to science education he outlined some factors that are "True to science education":
1. Formal and informal learning
2. Lifelong learning
3. Both academic and vocational science
4. There is more permeability between what we do in the science laboratory and what you can experience outside of the school e.g. You tube

Michael Reiss also talked about double award vs triple award. He posed the interesting question: are students put into a two teir system if they do double? Particularly if you consider that students who do triple archive half a grade more at a-level than those who do double award science.

Finally he talked about what influences students to study science and maths at university. He talked about a study that interviewed about 60 students all of whom had the a-levels to do physical sciences or maths as a degree, half chose to do so and half who didn't.

The conclusions are in the photo below.



And a story indicating this is shown in this photo.




I am very pleased I attended this lecture as it gave me a lot to think about. Lectures like this are an important part of the ASE conference, when else would a regular science teacher be able to hear the thoughts and ideas of a Professor of Science Education from the IoE? Thank you to ASE and OCR, as well as Michael Reiss. (Factiod: he was staying at the same hotel as me!)

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Location:Rudgleigh Ave,,United Kingdom

ASE conference - what should I go to?

I am going to all four days of the ASE conference - mainly because I can this year. It only cost £132, before the hotel.

There is a lot of choice at the conference. I want to get the balance right! Policy, science, STEM, the future of the ASE and pedagogy. Here are the events I have picked out so far:


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Location:Rudgleigh Ave,,United Kingdom

ASE West of England Conference 2012

On Saturday we ran our annual regional ASE conference.

The main discovery was the Eventbrite website. It is a fantastic resource, allowing delegates to automatically sign up and I would recommend it to anyone running an event where they want automatic replies and automatic collection of information to help with sign-in.

The day started with the lecture by Aude Alapini- Odunlade, Exeter University. We invited her because Allison and I from the committee had seen her talk before and were REALLY impressed, the description is here: http://geordiescience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/iop-stimulating-physics-south-west.html Aude left a small selection of resources, all of them were snapped up quickly.

Then the delegates went into the first set of workshops. I stayed on the desk, ready to help anyone who arrived late.

As I walked around the workshops there was a great atmosphere as the people who had given up their time and money to get some CPD engaged fully with the workshops.

At break there were opportunities for networking and I witnessed a delegate make useful connections to the IoP and get some ideas of where to go for support for A-level physics. This made the morning for me as I believe that connecting people should be a main aim of the ASE.

The delegates went into their second set of workshops and back to learning.

Of the 100 people who signed up 31 didn't show up, which was dissapointing. I think that I will try to find out if the IoP have the same sorts of issues with their South West Physics conference, and again with the Chem Labs conference. I know that people get ill, but 30% seems quite high, especially when the conference was fully booked. I didn't want to risk adding more people as if they had all turned up then we would have had too many for the space to watch the key note.

Whether charging would make a difference is another question. I personally don't want to charge members, when we are able to cover the cost of the conference from the money we get from non-members. (Costs are tea and coffee and the travel expenses of the key note speaker).

Lastly we went to the planetarium for a very quick ABM, at which I was elected to chair-elect! Sarah has done it for 6 years so far, I don't see why she doesn't want to do it for a 7th. Then we watched the planetarium show aimed at key stage 3/key stage 4. I did learn something, as I didn't realise that black dwarf stars were purely theoretical and that the universe wasn't actually old enough to have produced any yet. I just read my Physics for You text book and accepted what it said.

We haven't yet had time to analyse the opinions of the delegates. I really hope that they liked it as it is quite an effort to put on.

We did have a few people decide to join the ASE that day, and I hope that is because the committee put on a good show for the association. The issue now is to provide those new members with the same support and community that was available on Saturday throughout their membership of the ASE.

Roll on 2013.

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Location:At-Bristol

Why tweet?

I don't usually like to write blogs posts about twitter. It all gets a bit circular when your main audience for the blog are people you connect with via twitter. However, over the weekend I have been gradually feeling the need to put something in writing.

Why are we tweeting? Really, honestly, deep down, why do we feel the need to go on to social media and make a comment?

I started with the TES forums. I was looking for a new job and miserable in my current role. I was also quite lonely. So I would read the job hunting forums and pay and conditions. I then grew to know members of the community and they became my "friends". Then I registered for a facebook account. This type of social media I do like; it helps connect me with my family (who are far away) and the friends I don't see very often.

I am not sure why I moved to twitter. I tried it because my partner was using it, but I didn't like it. Then I decided to have another go and found cleverfiend and teachingofsci, who I recognised from the TES forums as helpful people. The community of science teachers and other teachers grew.

The twitter community is on the whole very positive and it is full of teachers who want to improve their practice. But I am a glass half empty sort of person and I find it hard sometimes to deal with those who seem to self-congratulate and self-publicise.

But am I doing that too? Am I one of the twitter users who does it for personal gain?

I hope not.

My aim is to connect science teachers and make science teaching the best it can be. This is on a personal level, school level, regional level and national level. Because I am a science teacher and believe in teaching balanced science to all English school children.

It is bigger than me.

Twitter allows me to connect with the people I need to even be able to start to reach my aim, but it isn't the only thing I do because I am a member of the science teacher body the ASE and that is much more important that retweeting the thoughts of someone I believe will give me a "leg up".

So today I look at two sets of hashtags. The one that I feel part of #asechat and think that yes, I am making a difference and supporting science teachers (as they are definitely supporting me). The hash tag is a community. The people there are tweeting to share what they know and add to the knowledge floating in the ether, and in the knowledge that when they need support the community will give back.

And I look at another and think, why tweet? No community, no support, not adding anything new to the educational knowledge of followers, nothing but sound bites being put into a computer database, (adding to global warming). A lot of contributors tweeting for the sake of self-promotion.

But then, I am missing the point. Twitter is a microblogging site. It is there to allow you to say. "I am at a cafe drinking coffee", and the teachers collaborating was never the intention.

ASE West of England Newsletter

I am not sure if this will make it to the ASE members in the West of England. Just in case it doesn't here is the issuu version:

Open publication - Free publishing - More ase

ASE Conference January 2013

I intend to go to the ASE conference 2013. It is being held in Reading, which is convenient for both my  and my science teacher partner, Richard.

As we are both members and will get the 20% early bird discount it isn't too expensive to stay for all four days, three nights.

I want to go to the international day as I teach a lot of international students and communicating with international teachers will help me to understand the prior experiences of the students and therefore teach them more appropriately.

I know that I want to go to some frontier lectures. I enjoyed hearing about cutting edge science. Sometimes I get so involved in education I forget about "science". I want to take as many opportunities as I can to remind myself.

I will also be careful not to arrange any booked courses on Friday afternoon, as I really hope the ASE can get a key note speaker for that time. Although I would like to go to a literacy workshop at that time.

This year I am interested to hear the presidential address and I want to go to some sessions that relate to the changes happening to the curriculum and the way that GCSE/EBC science will be assessed.

The added bonus of the conference will be meeting a lot of the people I know from twitter. Putting a face to the twitter handle will be great.

Excitement over the January ASE conference

The annual ASE conference is 4 months away, but I am excited already.



The preview brochure has come through the post in the last week.

I have been through and highlighted everything I want to go to. I need a Hermione Granger time turner thingy to go to everything I have chosen. And as more is added I may struggle even more.

I know this year that I will only choose a couple of booked courses so I can change my plans as more events are added to the programme.

I really hope that there is a lecture like the in the zone lecture last year or David Attenborough the year before. I will keep my Friday afternoon free just in case.

I would recommend to anyone to go to a frontier lecture, as well as the teaching workshops and debates.

I have other things in my life this term, a trip up North, a holiday in Cornwall and of course Christmas, this just makes my job a bit more entertaining too.

If you are a science teacher you should try to go.

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Using journals to help improve my teaching

I am a member of the ASE, which means that I receive the journal School Science Review four times per year.

I am also a member of the IoP and have subscribed for £50 per year to get the journal Physics education that is printed 6 times per year. I was told by the nice lady on the phone that I could get access to the online version of Physics Education via the IoP website, but I knew that already and I had only once logged in to view Physics Education. A paper copy would be much more useful, and it has proven to be.

In January's edition of Physics Education I very much enjoyed the article "The electric vocabulary". In a previous school year I was told to write a research lesson where the students studied the history of electricity and magnetism. The lesson plan was that the students researched a particular person and produced a mind-map/poster about them using prompts that I had given. As a plenary to see how good the research had been I gave the whole class a quiz and they had to find the answers on the posters the others had created. (This lesson was over two hours long). The idea being that by working through the quiz they would see the progression of ideas. However, the article by James Sheilds gave a different slant to the progression of science ideas through the development of electricity. By focussing on the language I would be able to introduce other aspects of literacy to this type of lesson.

I also appreciate the article on "Teaching waves with Google Earth", which gives locations where phenomena such as diffraction has been seen. I plan to explore and see what I can find in the locality and beyond. This should help engagement with waves and allow my students to see the science in their every day lives.

I have written a blog post recently about sharing practice and I find School Science Review useful for finding out about projects that other science teachers and departments have been doing. The first article I used was one about a group of year 11 students learning about environmental science by making their own gardens. We tried to replicate this with a group of year 8s, which was fun.

The latest edition of SSR is themed on space education. I read with interest an article about a school who has based all their year 8 science on space to help improve enjoyment and engagement in science. The article was of interest to me. I have been involved in writing a home-made scheme of work and don't recognise the advantages in the way that the author of the article does, so it was interesting to read. Can I manage to get a department to write a scheme of work and take ownership of it?

I have copied articles for other members of staff, and as a result we have bought mini scale chemistry equipment, taken part in STEM activities and I have learned about implementing AfL. On top of all that that the book reviews are very useful.

The final Journal I subscribe to is Science in School. It is a pan-European journal that covers all science topics. It includes cutting edge science, teaching materials and resources that can be copied for use and interviews with real scientists. Often I find the resources are slightly on the edge of what I teach, but I also like this as I learn from what they write. The journal can be accessed by students as it is laid out more like a magazine, which makes it a potential teaching resource too.

I am not a member of RSC, so I don't get to read education in Chemistry. It is possible to subscribe, but I have decided not to spend the money. Hopefully I will get a copy at my new school, and if not then I may ask the school to pay for the subscription.

I hope that I can pay more attention to the journal articles and as a result they can impact on my teaching.

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Organising a teachmeet

The ASE west subcommittee have decided to organise a teachmeet. This is doesn't seem that interesting as a lot of people do this and there is a teachmeet somewhere in the country at least twice per week in the term time. It does get quite interesting when you consider that only one of the organisers know what it is and what it entails. That organiser is me, and I am not one of the main ones responsibilities.

I heard about teachmeets where I hear about most things, on twitter. The first one I went to was at Clevedon School. It was a very positive evening with a wide variety of ideas shared by the presenters. I wouldn't say my world was set alight, but it was great to be in a room with so many positive people and that is something different.

So how do you get the idea of how a teachmeet runs and how to market it across?

In my case badly, firstly my colleague didn't use the teachmeet section on the wiki website to create the pages, he made his own wiki. Secondly we all struggled to make a logo naff enough to go on the teachmeet wiki and make it into a link to our pages. Thirdly advertising seems to have been forgotten and even our own committee members haven't signed up for the event yet!

Luckily, one of the other Field Officers has come to my rescue and sent a "how-to" document. It has included things that I haven't even thought about, like who to contact at the ASE to get the email around to members that it is happening, and to make sure there are signs directing visitors.

I have to take my hat off to everyone who manages to organise a successful teachmeet: It isn't straightforward or easy.


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Location:Rudgleigh Ave,,United Kingdom

Physics education vs Science Education

I am a member of the Institute of Physics, have a physics degree and I mainly teach physics, however I consider myself a science teacher. I would say that my love of teaching is greater than my love of physics. Although I find that science principles and laws just work intriguing and that physics underpins everything interests me greatly. My students look at me strangely when I get excited by physics when principles "just work".

On Saturday I heard the President of the Institute of Physics ask for members to investigate the state of physics teaching in their local school. He indicated that he would like all members of the IoP support physics education.

During the talk we were shown facts about how there is an ever increasing number of students doing physics and a record number of physics trainee teachers, but these numbers are not enough. The upshot is that the IoP believe that there is still work needed to improve the headline figures like the number of schools with physics graduates working as teachers and ensuring all schools offer physics A-level as quite a few don't.

Sir Peter Knight would like to know:
How many students at your school sat As and A-level physics last year?
How many of the students sitting A-level physics are girls?
How do you encourage students to think about choosing A-level physics?
How many specialist physics teachers does your school have?

Once members have answered these question we are to email the answers to physicsforall@iop.org

The message behind these questions, or at least the one I heard, is that we need more physicists in the UK and the way to achieve this is to have more physicists teaching in school.

I think that it is absolutely vital that we have well trained, knowledgable teachers. However, I am not convinced that using physics graduates is the only way, and I am certainly not convinced that a good grounding in university physics makes for a good teacher.

As a teacher of science I see physics in the context of science. I want my students to see science in everyday lives. I don't teach physics because I passionately believe that everyone should love it and want to study it. Do I owe it to physics in the UK to shift my views?

When I consider the ASE presidential address and Robin Millar's points on "science for all" I am conflicted between teaching and encouraging the physics graduates of the future and teaching scientific literacy for the masses. Are the two possible and/or compatible? Maybe they should be, but I don't believe we have achieved it yet in the English education system.

Having said all of this I really appreciate all the work that the IoP are doing to support physics education. I never regret paying my £100 per year membership fee because I know they are doing good work. And since I started teaching in my school we have had 3 students apply to do physics at university, so maybe I am already doing what the IoP would like.

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What do I need what I start a new job?

I have been asked by the Head's PA at my new school to compile a list of the things that I would like for the day that I will go and visit. I will be starting as Head of Faculty.

Before I compile that list I want to think carefully about why I will need the information I ask for. My major worry is that I won't hit the ground running and put the faculty back while I learn the ropes of the new school. I know that I am capable of being a good head of faculty if I have a strategy and a good understanding of how things need to move forward. So I need to find out what is working well in the faculty and what needs to be improved.

How do I do that? More importantly how do I do it while inspiring confidence from my new colleagues and not irritating them.

The list in the ASE/SEP resource pack for Heads of Faculty involves

• School development plan 
• School handbook  
• Departmental handbook, including health and safety policies and name of radiation protection officer (if necessary) 
• 2010-11 and 2011-12 department development plans
• Exam results and any analysis student data/tracking within science department 
• Copies of any internal/external reviews on the department 
• Whole department timetable 
• Schemes of work 
• Access to class lists 
• Information on current budget information on how to bid for capitation 
• Another head of faculty to buddy up with 
• Performance management procedure 
• Observation cycles
• Copies of minutes of departmental meetings if available
• Job descriptions of the post holders I line manage

My main question though is what is expected of me. Will I be able to get that information from paperwork? 

Numeracy Across the Curriculum (ASE conference session)

Can you name all the different types of graphs and charts? I will freely admit that can't do it without support.




Do all the different types of graphs and charts have the same names in maths and science? Are the geographers and other subject teachers using the same terminology? Is it only in graphs and charts that the terminology is different?

I have well and truly had my eyes opened regarding the importance on liaising with the maths department regarding the use of maths in science. Particularly as a physics teacher. The main issues are that ofsted are now looking for consistent teaching of numeracy across the curriculum and that maths and English grades are becoming more important so we need to all be teachers of those subjects within our own.

The ofsted framework says:
Outstanding: ‘Time is used well and every opportunity is taken to successfully develop crucial skills, including being able to use their literacy and numeracy skills in other subjects’
Good: ‘Teaching consistently deepens pupils’ knowledge and understanding and teaches them a range of skills including communication, reading and writing, and mathematics across the curriculum’
Satisfactory: ‘Communication skills including reading and writing, and mathematics may be taught inconsistently across the curriculum’

The session at the ASE conference focused on the barriers to teaching numeracy in science and the way that Worcestershire LA are trying to over come them. The barriers are below:






They are working on supporting schools in aligning their maths and science curricula so that skills are taught in maths lessons before being used in science. The presenter of the course did not describe how successful this was. I imagine it is very difficult to, but still a good idea.

Better than that though, the LA advisors a putting together a resource that contains presentations of how the numeracy used in science lessons is presented in maths lessons anyhow it might be different. These resources can be used in different ways, some rooms have a display on the wall that is added to as the concepts are encountered in science lessons and/or PowerPoint slides are displayed to students during the lesson when a specific skill is required. So far Worcestershire have created about 2/3 of the resources needed to cover the numeracy required in the science curriculum.

I think that this is a really nice idea. It helps to ensure consistency, helps students to make links between their lessons, and helps to boost the numeracy of the students in general.

I really enjoyed the session, thank you to Worcestershire LA for showing the work they have done.

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ASE conference

This year's ASE conference was the first I had attended, and I can easily say it was the best CPD I have ever experienced. This was for a variety of reasons.

The highlight of the conference for me was meeting Sir Steve Redgrave. it was definitely a great draw for me. Although I had already booked to go before I knew he would be at one of the events.








He was taking part in the Wellcome Trust Lecture promoting their sport science packs that will be delivered to schools. The lecture was a good balance between interactivity, information and fun.







The science level was high because Professor Hugh Montgomery was there to explain each experiment in detail. This meant there was plenty learn even for the accomplished biology teacher, so as a physics teacher there was a lot for me to pick up on. I wish I had recorded it.

Another major highlight of the conference was being able to meet the people who contribute to #asechat. On Saturday we had an interesting conversation about the positives and negatives of using Twitter. I still believe the positives outweigh any possible negatives and find twitter and incredibly useful in keeping up to date with resources.

The inclusion of the frontiers lectures in the ASE conference is an inspired idea. There was a variety of subjects and each lecture was given by the staff of the University of Liverpool. I went to the lecture on the Large Hadron Collider, which helped to update my knowledge. (For example I now know that neutrinos have mass but that was unsure didn't when I was at university).







It is useful to know that finding the Higgs Boson isn't the end of the work particle physicists have to do, and it helped my ability to answer questions by my students. The search for the Higgs Boson is a hot topic in my classroom.  It was even better having a lecture that was at just the right pace and pitch for the audience to follow. There is a question of whether science teachers try to keep up with current developments in their subject; this lecture was such a positive way of doing that.

Apart from the entertaining aspects of the ASE Conference it was also useful to talk to the exhibiters and gain useful information. I was able to talk to OCR about the Gateway Science course. It is taking some getting used to so a few tips from the OCR team was very useful.

I attended two sessions during my time at the conference. One about numeracy in science and one about literacy. They were fantastic on many levels.

The main thing that I took away from the numeracy session is that we need a consistent approach to numeracy across the school to be "outstanding" according to Ofsted. Worcestershire LA are working on this using their advisors and several schools to build up a pack of resources that can easily be used to compare terminology and procedures in maths and science. This can only help to boost results. (Although there is no numeric data to show the impact yet, the advisors are working on this). I was intrigued by the idea of a collaborative project such as this, and feel that the federation I work in has missed a trick by not working collaboratively like this.

The literacy session was a revelation to me. There was so many techniques brought to my attention, such as speaking frames; point evidence, explanation; nominalisation (turning processes and actions into nouns); using cards to develop continuums to support the students' development of informal talk to formal writing. I have never learned so much as I did in the two hours in that session and it was worth the whole conference to me. Well done Camden and Enfield LAs.

However, the real congratulations goes to the ASE, who organised a fantastic conference. I can't wait for 2013.

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Location:Liverpool University, UK