Ofsted has today published the first review in a new
series looking at what makes for a high-quality education in
different subjects across the curriculum.
Today’s review focuses on science. It explores a
range of research and evidence to identify factors that can
influence the quality of science education in schools in England.
It also highlights some of the barriers that prevent their
implementation.
The review recognises that there is no one way of achieving a
high-quality science education. Rather, it considers a number of
key principles that can play a central role in shaping the
quality of school science.
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman said:
I’m really pleased to publish our science subject review today.
This is the first in a series of subject reviews we will
publish over the coming months, which will inform our thinking
about what makes a high-quality subject education in schools.
The science research review was planned before the COVID-19
pandemic began, but its publication is timely. As part of
education recovery, schools will need to think carefully about
what content to prioritise and how best to teach it.
We hope that the principles identified in this review will be
helpful as science subject leaders plan and adapt their
curriculums.
In the review, we identified a number of principles that
literature suggests can contribute to high-quality science
education. These principles include the importance of:
- planning the science curriculum so that pupils build
knowledge of key concepts and the relationships between them over
many years; this prevents pupils from seeing science as a list of
isolated facts
- pupils remembering long-term the content that has been
taught; this is because building domain-specific knowledge leads
to expertise
- explicitly teaching pupils the concepts and procedures needed
to work scientifically
- starting curriculum planning right from the early years by
introducing pupils to wide-ranging vocabulary to describe the
natural world (these words should not be overly technical)
- teachers giving clear explanations that build on what pupils
already know and explicitly focus pupils’ attention on the
content being learned
- making sure practical work has a clear purpose, forms part of
a wider teaching sequence and takes place only when pupils have
enough prior knowledge to learn from the activity
- science teachers and technicians having access to regular,
high-quality subject-specific continuous professional development
(CPD);
this is especially important given that many science teachers are
teaching outside of their subject specialism
Our next step in this project will be to look at how science is
being taught in schools. On inspection, we will use our subject
deep-dive methodology to gather rich evidence on the quality of
science education. We will publish a report in spring 2022 to
share what we have learned with schools, parents and
policymakers.
To find out more about Ofsted’s curriculum work, read the
principles behind the
research reviews and subject reports.
