Last week (28th November 2023) the Education Endowment Foundation published its long-awaited Improving Primary Science Guidance Report. We now have six recommendations for the primary science classroom:
- develop pupils’ scientific vocabulary;
- encourage pupils to explain their thinking, whether verbally or in written form;
- guide pupils to work scientifically;
- relate new learning to relevant, real-world contexts;
- use assessment to support learning and responsive teaching and
- strengthen science teaching through effective professional development, as part of an implementation process.
So far, no pedagogy. How should we teach these things? Does the report recommend ‘how’ as well as ‘what’?
Yes it does. But before I tell you, I want to discuss what the report can’t tell us.
There is a problem in writing this sort of guidance: how do you select the research papers to inform it? There is a clear risk of bias in the selection. The solution is to specify criteria before you begin the review. This means that no one can add their favourite paper. The criteria for this project was that published research had to be recent (after 2007); relevant (the research subjects had to be primary school age etc) and a randomised control trial. This strictly limited the papers the review team could review.
This limited the conclusions the team could draw. I regret that they couldn’t write more about scientific knowledge as opposed to vocabulary. I regret that more couldn’t be said about pedagogy (though I think there is enough).
So, what have we learnt about how to teach primary science? The report is full of examples and suggestions – many of these are typically used in explicit teaching as well as enquiry methods – for example:
- model the use of the new words in context;
- use well-structured collaborative learning approaches, such as paired and small group work;
- use the explain / discuss / re-explain strategy and
- engage with science concepts, supported by models.
I’ve used all of these, and I would describe them as explicit teaching strategies. However, I can imagine colleagues who favour enquiry pedagogies using them as well.
The report is much more explicit however with vocabulary:
“Explicitly teach new vocabulary and its meaning, creating opportunities for repeated engagement and use over time.”
and teaching the scientific method:
“Explicitly teach the knowledge and skills required to work scientifically, guiding pupils to apply this in practice, with opportunities for discussion and reflection.
In total, the guidance mentions ‘explicit teaching’ fourteen times. There is only one mention of ‘inquiry’ (in the references) and none of ‘enquiry’. This is not because academics aren’t carrying out research on enquiry (there is a vast amount), but they aren’t asking the questions or using the methods required by the EEF (or by classroom teachers).
I think we have been let down by researchers into primary science. A lot of research has been done into enquiry methods of teaching – we know about a lot about teachers’ opinions for example – but very little in recent years to compare the efficacy of enquiry to explicit teaching pedagogies.
Perhaps in 10 years time we can get a new report on Improving Primary Science when researchers ask better questions. In the meantime, this is very good. Does it tell us whether to use enquiry or explicit teaching approaches? There’s no smoking gun, but explicit teaching is far in the lead.
Ben
Reading for Learning 