A class of year 7 pupils stare blankly at a teacher who has asked a question they could all answer … More
Category: Literacy
Entitled to Know
I’ve been arguing about the content of the primary science curriculum; not so much with primary teachers, but with secondary … More
England’s Primary Science Performance (2018).
This post is my response to reading the STAs 2018 Key Stage Two science monitoring report (here). We were due … More
The Problem Solving Methods Learners Use – and How to Develop Them
Solving problems, especially in physics, has been well studied (e.g. Larkin, McDermott, Simon and Simon 1980: here and Chi, Glaser … More
How Much Enquiry In My Primary Science Curriculum?
I started writing a series of posts on inquiry learning vs explicit instruction earlier in the summer. Over this period … More
Three Questions to Ask about Your Science Enquiry Activity
I am an enquiry sceptic. Evidence shows that when inquiry-learning techniques are used in science, the outcomes are generally worse … More
A Short Blog About the Quality of Short Written Responses.
A chemistry GCSE question CO(g) + 2 H2 ⇌ CH3OH(g) The reaction is carried out at a temperature of 250oC … More
Bring Back Inquiry-Based Learning
Is there a place for inquiry based learning? The answer is “yes” but only under specific conditions. An analysis of … More
When Might You Start Teaching the Idea of Surface Area?
Last week Adam Boxer tweeted this: Surface area is a powerful concept – students need to have a very well … More
Classroom Intuition
“Whenever we can replace human judgement by a formula, we should at least consider it.” Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow … More
Reading for Learning 