I realise I am not bothered (much)

I was initially upset that there would be no national curriculum at secondary level and one exam board for science gcse.

But I can put a positive spin on it: no national curriculum is better than what they are getting in primary, and will effectively mean no change. The most popular key stage 3 science scheme is exploring science so this is what England will effectively continue to use. How Science Works was never fully embedded so losing it won't make a difference to the teachers who didn't understand it anyway.

I hate the new science controlled assessments, and won't be sad to see them go. I will still do practical work when it helps students to learn.

The exam boards are probably much better placed to write a specification than the government and ofqual. Competition may make the whole qualification well thought through.

I suppose what I am saying is "it can't get any worse". Can it?

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Teaching Secondary Physics

I am reading "teaching secondary physics" at the moment. (Mainly because I have ordered "teaching secondary chemistry" and I want to get an idea if it will be useful to me).

In a lot of ways how I teach, or at least the curriculum I use, is strongly influenced by the various commercially available schemes of work and the QCA schemes. Which is not necessarily bad. However, it is refreshing to read a book with ideas about how to structure the teaching order. I am interested to see that that newer GCSE specifications don't follow these suggested teaching structures. I struggle teaching the newer specifications and I wonder if this is because of the order of the introduction of the concepts. Is one way of introducing ideas better than the others?

"Teaching Secondary Physics" is a useful book for anyone thinking of writing a scheme of work.

Getting to know your class

I have to admit that I am finding it a bit harder to teach at this time of year. I don't really know my classes that well and it is affecting the communication and advice that I can give during a lesson.

I can see why ofsted would like to see a good relationship between the class and the teacher. I don't believe that good teaching is about stamping on a class at the start of the year and keeping them "down", more about building relationships and supporting the learning so that students are able to be independent learners and move upwards.

However, I have forgotten what it is like to start in September in a new school and not know the students well. It is hard for someone with my personalised teaching style, but it can only get better.

Newsletters via email and post

I stated in a previous blog post that I had felt the need to take charge of my own professional development as it was falling between the cracks at my previous school.

I joined a lot of mailing lists.

Some of them are:

Snapshot Science
National STEM centre
SAPS
National Science and Engineering Week
OCR
Edexcel
ASE
SCORE
Planet Science
Teachfind
Science Learning Centre
Nuffield Foundation
@Bristol
Sec-Ed
National College for School Leadership
RI channel



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Location:The Circus,Bristol,United Kingdom

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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Aims for the year

I have my personal aims for the year and departmental ones.

My personal aims are:

To try out some of the activities that I see in "science in school", "physics education" and "school science review". Then if I feel they are effective add them to the scheme of work.

To boost the number of literacy strategies that I use in my lessons to support my students develop their ability to write lengthy passages.

Construct a high quality themed year 6 scheme of work based on the 5E form of lesson planning.

Continue to develop my work and support of the work of the ASE on a regional and national level.


All this along side trying to teach the best lessons I can: Those that allow students to explore their own ideas and come up with their own conclusions.

Let's see how it goes!



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Planning using the 5Es (or 7Es) of lesson planning

The 5Es are engage, elicit, explore, explain, elaborate.

When planning I start with elaborate and engage. I decide what it is that I want the students to be able to say/do at the end of the lesson to show their understanding. Then I will think of how to introduce the lesson. It maybe that I want them to explain fractional distillation, so I will start the lesson with images of products made from oil.

For the elicit phase I think about how what science I need the class to have before we can move on. So for fractional distillation they need to understand boiling and condensing.

Explore and explain are the main part of the lesson. I might refer back to the engage section. The students might complete an experiment like how temperature affects the size of crystals formed, working out the efficiency of a kettle, observing a demonstration of fractional distillation, plotting the locations of earthquakes on a map. Then after the students have investigated something for themselves they explain what they found. It might be as a whole class discussion, it could be a Cloze procedure, but something that involves some degree of teacher input to ensure the students are on the right track in their thinking.

Then they need to apply what they have learned in a context in the elaborate phase. This bit is what the lesson is all about. It allows the teacher to assess that students. This is the bit of the work that I would mark.

Sometimes you can do as perfect a lesson as others.

For example F=ma. I could just tell them the formula and get them to do questions. I know ultimately I want the students to answer questions using F=ma, so that will be my elaborate. I now have to think of a context requiring F=ma that the students can answer questions about that can also engage them. Stopping distances might be one, I have a video clip of Jason Bradbury demonstrating that the stopping distance of a car is more than a motor bike. That could be the engage and the students can explain it and carry out calculations about it in the elaborate phase. Before they can explain stopping distances using F=ma students need to understand balanced and unbalanced forces, so I would question them about it in the elicit phase.

For acid/alkali indicators I would dream up a scenario where the chemist needs to know if the chemicals are acids or alkalis. In the elicit phase I might ask for a common acid and alkali. Then we would make an indicator and test it in the explore and explain phase respectively. In the elaborate phase we would use the indicator to test the unknown chemical and the students can write down what they have found in their own words.

I find using the 5Es makes the plenary of the lesson the most important part and encourages me to teach constructivist lessons.

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Location:Bristol,United Kingdom