My Ideal Scheme of Work (1) Giving it Purpose

It is not a secret that I love the Segue schemes of work. My ideal schemes of work would be built on the some of the same principles from the Cracking Science manifesto of Tony Sherborne.

Please see: http://www.upd8.org.uk/wikid-tick.php

Through experience I agree with the idea of having big ideas as themes through schemes of work; adding to the ideas of the students, nudging and supporting them in building their ideas about science. I want to go back to the 'Principles and Big Ideas of Science Education' document on the ASE website to work out what those big ideas are. I was not always confident that the 5 big ideas of the old key stage 3 strategy are the best choices. However, I did always use them in my teaching, e.g. student study particles in Year 7, develop this in the Solutions topic, recover the basics again in the sound and heating topics in Year 8 and again in the pressure topic of Year 9. This only scratches the surface, the ideas interweave throughout science and this revisiting of the ideas can only help students to remember and understand ideas about science.

Using these key ideas it is possible to help students make links between the concrete knowledge of the student to abstract ideas, allowing them to use what they know to explain things they don't. As real scientists do.

In the cracking science manifesto, Tony Sherbone mentions the term 'backwards design'. It is something that I am familiar with. When working with a team in London in February we outlined what we want from key stage 3. We need to work back from this to ensure that the opportunities for students to develop the skills (knowledge was only a small proportion) are part of the schemes.

Following this starting point, Ed Walsh (leaning heavily on the work of Robin Millar) has convinced me that having a 'working scientifically' objective alongside the content objective is the best way to teach the skills and knowledge that students need from science education. This is what the upd8 schemes have.

I also agree that the teacher has to motivate the learners. In science this is important to inspire the next generation of scientists.

• We have achieved Motivation To Learn when students find meaning and purpose in science. Unfortunately, it is clear from research into students' attitudes (as well as low uptake of science subjects) that too many view science as 'important, but not for me'.

Emotionally engaging the student in the learning journey, either by helping them overcome a challenge or through relevant activities and contexts. I like the question asked 'why should I care?' Actually, "because it will help you get GCSEs in the future and this is a compulsory subject" isn't helpful, because we have to do more, we have to help students to see that science is an important part of their lives, because it is!

I like the 5/7E lesson cycle, I believe that it has the potential to engage students both intellectually and emotionally in their work. The idea of engaging students with a question in context helps students to engage in the lesson and give it purpose. Starting with an engaging problem also helps to give the end of the lesson clarity. The elaborate section is my favourite bit, the plenary of the lesson and it usually gives the chance to assess the student formatively and build their literacy skills.

I have written about it before. In my ideal world all my lessons would be structured this way, but it takes time to think about it especially when it also needs to be fitted to the GCSE curriculum. However, I don't see why my KS3 lessons can't have this structure, upd8 wikid and segue prove that it is possible.

The criticism of the wikid schemes was that the students got too wrapped up in the stories. In my ideal scheme of work I would try to make the 'story' more real. It may curb the excitement, but hopefully it will help students find out more about real science discoveries.

I also want to think about how new technology can change the way that students will learn. Our students will have an iPad each. (Or should have). Watching videos, researching using the web, working on collaborative documents, answering online quizzes, writing blogs, creating graphics, auras and videos should all be possible. Alongside developing future scientists and scientifically literate young people I have the added responsibility of helping students get to grips with ICT, and using it to help them learn. I want to develop a scheme of work that also makes the most of this new technology.

I want to develop a scheme of work that

a) starts with the end in mind,
b) interweaves the big ideas of science throughout, building a progression in understanding from concrete to abstract models in these areas
c) has learning objectives that reference working scientifically and knowledge for each lesson
d) is emotionally engaging for students by including a context and/or story for lessons or sets of lessons
e) is made up of lessons that are structured using the 5E lesson cycle
f) makes use of new technologies to support the learning of students and helps them develop ICT skills
g) most importantly helps students to see that science is relevant to their every day lives and is a subject worth following as it is for everyone. 

Bought Schemes of Work: I expect more

So, I am currently reviewing key stage 3 schemes of work. I have to say that I am not that impressed.

I am in a very fortunate position of not having to worry as much as someone who works in a state school about progress, evidence and monitoring. There isn't a half termly email demanding a progress report. My SLT use the grades we give in the reports we write as that evidence. (Which we do October, December, March and June).

This means that I am looking for a scheme of work with an engaging book, good support materials for the technicians and creative activities. I am really struggling to find it.

Making a poster, answering a 6 mark question (which I could have made up myself), closed question sheets, make a model, fill in the labels on the diagrams, create a presentation with ideas about X on slide 1 and Y on slide 2 etc. Questions like 'write down the names of 10 elements'. Worksheets that require students to write in boxes with no lines, (especially when they could be writing in their books and using the worksheet as a reference and saving paper).

I want more.

I want activities that inspire the students, I want contexts, I want a lesson where the activities tie together, I want lessons that build on the one before, I want something I could not do myself. Apart from the typesetting, I haven't seen this. I want links to real scientists, I want every day applications, I want data, I want examples of good and bad investigations and modelling of good practice when drawing graphs.

I don't want the students to know what onion cells look like before they look at them down the microscope, I don't want them to know acid and bicarbonate is going to fizz before they add them together. I don't want them to know a spring is going to obey Hooke's Law before they stretch it.

But I want something that a) needs more than a few months to put together and b) costs more than I am willing and able to pay.

The cheapest available course it is then.

Curriculum for the future

My science faculty is small - 6 teachers - so I don't have the man-power to bring in a lot of change. I also know that the resources produced by the publishing companies will be rushed due to the short time scale. I dont think that the quality of exploring science will be the same! Instead I want to adapt what we have ready for the new national curriculum.

Add to the mix that as an independent school we don't have to follow the national curriculum. But, we do use GCSEs and this is ultimately what we will aim for at the end of key stage 4.

Without a firm idea of what will be in the GCSE science of the future we all have to do a best guess at the focus for the key stage 3 of the future.

At present we follow the qca units. But there are problems with this. Firstly that we don't really have time to go into depth in the units because we teach four weeks less than maintained school. We also miss lessons for trips and other extra curricular commitments. Secondly the teaching of these units could be better.

I want to ensure that the things we do teach our students are secure and they have a good grasp of the big ideas underpinning science, like cells and particles.

My aim is to teach less topics, to allow a greater depth of understanding. Teaching less topics means that we can also do less testing.

Year 7:
Cells; Reproduction; Environment; Particles; Acids and Alkalis; Simple Chemical Reactions; Forces; Energy (types and transfers); Magnetism
Year 8:
Digestion; Respiration; Photosynthesis; Solutions; Atoms and Elements; Compounds and Mixtures; Sound; Light; Electricity.

This leaves health and disease, and inheritance for biology, the reactions of metals and/or acids for chemistry and the more in depth energy (resources) and forces topics in physics.

What I am noticing at the moment is that students are not remembering their work from previous years, I want to ensure that each year we build on what went before.

There is work ahead of me this week to get a model that will work for everyone, staff, students and parents.