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Keeping the flame alive: stoking scientific curiosity from Primary to GCSE

Chemistry teacher Marcus Patterson unpacks why initiatives at Wimbledon High School to carry through students’ sense of wonder about the world, from Primary science right through to Key Stage 4, are so important

Curiosity may have killed the proverbial cat, but for us humans, it has been, and I’m sure will continue to be, our raison d’être. From the gastronomic delights we enjoy in restaurants to the latest technological gadgets we now take for granted, curiosity and investigation have been behind them all.

In Key Stage 4, students deepen and develop their scientific knowledge and skills in preparation for their GCSE exams. Some further their education by studying science subjects at A Level. However, for others, the science they study at KS4 will be the only science education they get. So it is important that they are not only exposed to high quality teaching but that they remain enthusiastic and curious about the world around them. Because we want – no, need – our students to leave Wimbledon High School equipped to face future challenges and to come up with creative solutions to current and future problems with knowledge, reason, and zeal.

Fading fervour?

My experience, as well as the consensus more widely, suggests that students’ fervour for science start to dwindle at Key Stage 4. All children come to primary school with their own ideas and questions about science; how nature works, what energy is, what things are made of, as well as a litany of whys about everything else. During Key Stage 2 at WHS, students investigate the phenomena of living organisms, materials, Earth, space and forces. Their curiosity and eagerness is evident in their exercise books, which contain some outstanding work.

However, at Key Stage 4, that same sense of enthusiasm and wonder for science is much more difficult to see in students’ work. To be fair, students spend more time taking notes and sitting assessments than they probably did in primary school. However, the point remains: many students’ eagerness for science starts to wane, and learning science becomes a chore, based on learning content and skills simply to receive some hoped-for grade in the GCSEs.

To turn the tide in this seeming trend, Key Stage 3 has a vital role to play, as a bridge between the zestful, open, and wondrous world of primary school science and the more sophisticated, yet more sedate, world of Key Stage 4 Science. At Wimbledon High School, teachers have come up with some interesting and effective ways to help primary school students transition to science education at Key Stage 3, enabling KS3 Science to become a more effective bridge between Key Stages 2 and 4.

Wimbledon High – Year 8 Science Fair

Extending enthusiasm

One opportunity is the taster lesson. In May, Alex Farrer brought her Year 6 Science students to work alongside Year 7 Science students in the Key Stage 3 Science Lab located in the STEAM tower of the Senior School. In the past year, Year 6 students have studied electricity and have collaborated with Year 7 students to investigate electricity and cells, and to build coin-cell batteries.

In addition, Year 5 students visited the Senior School Key Stage 3 Science Lab for a taster lesson during which they explored the world of chemical and physical changes. Both Years 5 and 6 taster sessions allowed students from the Junior School not only to see and experience how science education is done at KS3 in the Senior School, but also to reinforce and buoy the learning experiences they have had so far in science, giving students a sense of continuity. What they have learned so far continues to be explored, albeit a bit more deeply, at KS3. Such continuity allows students to maintain and further develop their curiosity and enthusiasm for science.

In Key Stage 3, students’ scientific knowledge and skills grow, and their ability to communicate scientifically is starting to develop. To give students an opportunity to apply what they have learned in interesting and creative ways, Year 8 Science students put on a Science Fair. They spent the last five weeks asking questions, coming up with hypotheses, and investigating the nature of light and sound. They presented their findings in a poster session and discussed their projects with judges, parents, teachers, and each other. Students were inquisitive and worked enthusiastically on their projects, and the results were consistently creative and superb.

Cultivating curiosity

As Key Stage 3 Science teachers, we can keep students wondering eagerly about the nature of the world around them as we encourage them to reflect upon and evaluate the answers to the questions they had before: are they satisfied, and what more do they want to know? Encouraging this type of self-reflection among students, whether through class discussions or a science journal, can do much to help them maintain that zealous and inquisitive momentum for science into and throughout their Key Stage 4 Science experience.

Just as Junior School students are given an opportunity to experience science at the Senior School, Key Stage 3 students could be given an opportunity to have taster lessons in Key Stage 4 science areas. They will come to see that the topics and themes they explored in KS3 continue to be explored at KS4, but their knowledge, understanding, and communication of science will become more sophisticated. Some of their previous questions will be answered, and then they will then have new questions. Our aim is to get them to seek the answers to those questions with the same zest and wonder as they had when they were in primary school. Exciting times are ahead!

Year 7 and Year 6 working together
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Friday Gem #7 – STEAM-y Starter

This idea comes from Mari Nicholas’ Year 12 Chemistry lesson. She put an array of pictures on the board, and asked pupils to make connections between them. What I loved was how she introduced the task. She said: “The more esoteric, the more distant the link, the better. Don’t limit yourself to Chemistry.”

Here’s her slide…what links can you make? What pictures could you put up as a starter? They could be pictures representing ideas within a topic, or across different topics, encouraging students to ‘join’ up their learning and expand their thinking beyond the boundaries of the lesson they are in.

This is effective because:

  • It is a great way to introduce a topic by encouraging pupil curiosity.
  • It could be a fantastic revision task, strengthening students’ schemas, organising interrelated concepts in an efficient and powerful way that can be recalled from the long term memory.
  • The task allows for natural differentiation, with students choosing to make more complex or simpler connections.
  • It encourages a STEAM mind-set, with students exploring how broad and seemingly different ideas are interrelated.
  • It’s also a quick and easy task for the teacher to prepare.

 

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The importance of collaborative learning

How can we encourage collaborative learning? Alex Farrer, STEAM Co-ordinator at Wimbledon High, looks at strategies to encourage creative collaboration in the classroom.

Pupils’ ability to work collaboratively in the classroom cannot just be assumed. Pupils develop high levels of teamwork skills in many areas of school life such as being part of a rowing squad or playing in an ensemble. These strengths are also being harnessed in a variety of subject areas but need to be taught and developed within a coherent framework.  Last week we were very pleased to learn that Wimbledon High was shortlisted for the TES Independent Schools Creativity Award 2019. This recognises the development of STEAM skills such as teamwork, problem solving, creativity and curiosity across the curriculum. Wimbledon High pupils are enjoying tackling intriguing STEAM activities in a variety of subject areas. One important question to ask is what sort of progression should we expect as pupils develop these skills?

The Science National Curriculum for England (D of E gov.uk 2015) outlines the “working scientifically” skills expected of pupils from year 1 upwards. Pupils are expected to answer scientific questions in a range of different ways such as in an investigation where variables can be identified and controlled and a fair test type of enquiry is possible.

However, this is not the only way of “working scientifically”. Pupils also need to use different approaches such as identifying and classifying, pattern seeking, researching and observing over time to answer scientific questions. In the excellent resource “It’s not Fair -or is it?” (Turner, Keogh, Naylor and Lawrence) useful progression grids are provided to help teachers identify the progression that might be expected as pupils develop these skills. For example, when using research skills younger pupils use books and electronic media to find things out and talk about whether an information source is useful. Older pupils can use relevant information from a range of secondary sources and evaluate how well their research has answered their questions.

The skills that are used in our STEAM lessons at Wimbledon High in both the Senior and Junior Schools utilise many of these “working scientifically” skills and skill progression grids can be very useful when planning and pitching lessons. However, our STEAM lessons happen in all subject areas and develop a range of other skills including:

  • problem solving
  • teamwork
  • creativity
  • curiosity

Carefully planned cross-curricular links allow subjects that might at first glance be considered to be very different from each other to complement each other. An example of this is a recent year 10 art lesson where STEAM was injected into the lesson in the form of chemistry knowledge and skills. Pupils greatly benefited from the opportunity to put some chemistry into art and some art into chemistry as they studied the colour blue. Curiosity was piqued and many links were made. Many questions were asked and answered as pupils worked together to learn about Egyptian Blue through the ages and recent developments in the use of the pigment for biomedical imaging.

There are many other examples of how subjects are being combined to enhance both. The physiological responses to listening to different types of music made for an interesting investigation with groups of year 7. In this STEAM Music lesson pupils with emerging teamwork skills simply shared tasks between members of the group. Pupils with more developed teamwork skills organised and negotiated different roles in the group depending on identified skills. They also checked progress and adjusted how the group was working in a supportive manner. A skill that often takes considerable practise for many of us!

Professor Roger Kneebone from Imperial College promotes the benefits of collaborating outside of your own discipline. He recently made the headlines when he discussed the dexterity skills of medical students. He talks about the ways students taking part in an artistic pursuit, playing a musical instrument or a sport develop these skills. He believes that surgeons are better at their job if they have learned those skills that being in an orchestra or a team demand.  High levels of teamwork and communication are essential to success in all of those fields, including surgery!

Ensuring that we give pupils many opportunities to develop these collaborative skills both inside and outside of lessons is key. We must have high expectations of progression in the way that pupils are developing these skills. Regular opportunities to extend and consolidate these important skills is also important. It is essential to make it clear to pupils at the start of the activity what the skill objective is and what the skill success criteria is. It is hard to develop a skill if it is not taught explicitly, so modelling key steps is helpful as is highlighting the following to pupils:

  • Why are we doing this activity?
  • Why is it important?
  • How does it link to the subject area?
  • How does it link to the real life applications?
  • What skills are we building?
  • Why are these skills important?
  • What sort of problems might be encountered?
  • How might we deal with these problems?

Teacher support during the lesson is formative and needs to turn a spotlight on successes, hitches, failures, resilience, problems and solutions. For example, the teacher might interrupt learning briefly to point out that some groups have had a problem but after some frustrations, one pupil’s bright idea changed their fortunes. The other groups are then encouraged to refocus and to try to also find a good way to solve a specific problem. There might be a reason why problems are happening. Some groups may need some scaffolding or targeted questioning to help them think their way through hitches.

STEAM lessons at Wimbledon High are providing extra opportunities for pupils to build their confidence, and to be flexible, creative and collaborative when faced with novel contexts. These skills need to be modelled and developed and progression needs to be planned carefully. STEAM is great fun, but serious fun, as the concentration seen on faces in the STEAM space show!

Twitter: @STEAM_WHS
Blog: http://www.whs-blogs.co.uk/steam-blog/

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The importance of belonging

Jane Lunnon

By Head, Jane Lunnon.

Earlier this year, research published by the Girl Guides suggested that girls as young as 8 years old are feeling the pressure of gender stereotyping. Amidst much commentary around the ‘mental health crisis’ besetting our young people, girls in particular, alarming headlines accompanied the publication of The Millennium Cohort Study (research by Liverpool University). As a Head teacher, I am often asked why there is such a worrying decline in the mental health of young people and I do my best to answer. I talk about the impact of commercialised childhoods, of exam pressure enhanced by league tables and economic gloom and the perceived impossibility of ever being able to realise adult aspirations, of the omnipresent digital landscape with its relentless messaging about various forms of unattainable perfection, of crazily late nights and reduced sleep poring over snapchat and of the over-protective adult generation which has worked so hard to contain the recklessness of youth that it has unwittingly taught children to be fearful and timid rather than independent and self-assured.

All of these things and probably a whole lot more feed into the problem and there are many people much better qualified than me to speculate on them. What I can do though, is talk with great certainty and with my whole heart, about the things we can (and do) do, in our schools, to enhance wellbeing and to keep our girls engaged and truly grounded in their work and play. And things which don’t necessarily cost a penny.

There are two key ideas which seem to matter most in helping to develop the happiness and confident achievement of our young people.  Firstly, it’s about belonging. And I don’t mean this as a weak sentimental cliché. More than ever perhaps, our teens need to feel that they belong to something bigger than themselves and their social media echo chambers. They need to feel that they are part of something that matters and has a sense of continuity, value and resonance far beyond the latest baby that Kim Kardashian is paying someone to have for her. In the past, that need might have been filled by the Church or by the local community, by the family, or even by an accepted collective sense of nationhood. And I know that many young people of whatever faith are lucky enough to still find solace and identity through some or all of these things. But this is not invariably or universally the case now. And that is where schools come in. They can fill a vacuum where and if there is one. No matter what or where the school, every child in it belongs to something larger than themselves. They are part of a joint, collective enterprise full of the energy, industry, imagination, beliefs and expertise of large numbers of people who broadly care about stuff that really matters: learning, their subjects, the development and wellbeing of other people.  And that is hugely powerful and inspiring. Their school connects children to the past – to the generations who have come through the school gates before them – and to the future – all those who will follow after them. And every school has its own story, which it will be telling in its own way. This matters and is one important ingredient in our bid to help our children make sense of the world and their part in it. They will find themselves by looking beyond themselves. And that’s an important skill for teenagers to learn.

The second key thing is about wonder. One of our school aims (perhaps the one that resonates most strongly with me), is our bid to nurture scholarship, curiosity and a sense of wonder in our girls. That idea – which is about the delight and satisfaction and joy that can come from the process of questioning, exploring, discovering…feels absolutely central. Of course, the wonder can be in many forms. It may be from finally unpicking a torturously challenging maths question, or from suddenly spotting something beautiful in a line of poetry, or from asking something crazy in a science lesson and finding out the astonishing answer. It could be from playing your violin in the third row of the school orchestra and finding that collectively you are making an incredible sound. Or from finally nailing a move on the football pitch. Or from finding that you had a powerful voice in a debate or as an actor or as a stand-up comedian. It could even be from simply looking afresh at the playground with your mates and being glad that the sun is shining briefly on your school! It doesn’t much matter what it is but it does matter that we work hard to develop it. Not least because that is what makes working in schools such enormous fun for us all. So, schools as a place full of collective wondering…that’s what we need to be offering, that’s where power is. As Edgar Allen Poe pointed out: ‘it is a happiness to wonder; — it is a happiness to dream’.

Perhaps that’s as good a response as any to the malaise of our times.

@Head_WHS

This article first appeared in TES on 26th January 2018.