Education Endowment Foundation:New EEF guidance report published: Improving Secondary Science

Seven practical recommendations focused on improving science teaching, particularly for disadvantaged pupils

Almost all pupils develop their own explanations for science concepts before they learn about them in lessons

But their ideas about things like ​‘how plants grow’ or ​‘how we see things’ don’t always align with scientific understanding, according to new guidance for improving science teaching published today by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)

However, the report suggests that teachers can harness these common misconceptions to improve pupils’ learning.

According to the ​‘Improving Secondary Science’ report, put together by a panel of teachers and leading experts, teachers should have a clear understanding of the common misconceptions in the area they’re teaching so that they know the issues that are likely to be problematic for their pupils. Teachers should also work to uncover the specific misconceptions their pupils hold through class and group discussion, before moving on to challenge these.

While these preconceptions can be hard to shift, presenting pupils with compelling evidence that contradicts them can be a good way to move thinking on. For example, many pupils find it hard to understand that the space between gas particles is empty and will often say it is filled with ​‘air’, ​‘dust’, or ​‘bacteria’. However, showing that it is possible to compress a gas, for example by pushing down a syringe, is a good way of opening a discussion about what this means about the spaces between gas particles.

Building on pupils’ preconceptions is one of seven recommendations in today’s report designed to support secondary schools to provide every pupil – but particularly those from disadvantaged homes – with a high-quality and well-rounded grounding in science and an interest that may lead them to further study. Improving Secondary Science reviews the best available research to offer science teachers practical classroom suggestions.

Previous research by the EEF and the Royal Society found that there is a gap in science outcomes between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates at every stage in the education system. The gap first becomes apparent at Key Stage 1 (ages 5 – 7) and only gets wider throughout primary and secondary school and on to A‑level.

This earlier research found that it is not lack of motivation to learn science that is contributing to the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better-off classmates. Analysis of attainment data found that the biggest predictors of pupils’ attainment in science are their levels of literacy and their scientific reasoning ability.

A second recommendation in today’s report focuses on developing pupils’ scientific vocabulary to support them to read and write about science. According to the report, ​“learning science involves learning a whole new language and it is important that you develop pupils’ fluency in that language.”

While pupils need to learn scientific words like photosynthesis or carbon dioxide, they struggle most with familiar words that have a different meaning in science. The report recommends that pupils are explicitly taught words that have a different meaning in science – like valid, random or spontaneous – so that they can understand and interpret scientific texts.

The other five recommendations focus on:

• Using models to develop understanding
• Developing children’s abilities to self-regulate aspects of their learning.
• Supporting pupils’ memory skills, so that they can retain and retrieve knowledge.
• Using experiments purposefully.
• Using structured feedback to move on pupils’ thinking.

Sir Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: