Science Teaching In The UK

Global science levels are measured using the PISA science scale. This is an exam taken by a sample of 15 year olds once every 3 years. The PISA science scale is scored on a scale which has an OECD mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. As can be seen in the table below the UK comes in at 515. Whilst this is above average, it is behind many other economically developed countries including Chinese Taipei and Liechtenstein. Finland comes top with a score of 563.

There are many potential reasons for Finland dominating the PISA scale, including a very high level of spending (% GDP) on education, the schooling system (many students are still in their first school at 15 when the test is taken) and the importance placed on education in Finnish society. Science teaching is dominated by an ‘experimental orientation’; a hands on way of understanding the basics of science. A further consequence of having first schools which go up to the age of 16 is that specialist science teachers are available to even the youngest children; something which is rarely the case in the UK.

The graph below shows the percentage of students in each country that are classed as ‘top performers. These students attained a score of at least 633 score points on the PISA science scale. (The numbers at the bottom are the mean scores listed in the table above)


This is where Explosive Science comes in. As chemistry graduates we are able to expose students as young as 4 or 5 to stimulating science. Primary schools in the UK have neither the facilities nor the qualified science teachers to provide children with exciting science. This combined with more emphasis on virtual learning means that many children in the UK are managing to go until 13 or 14 without actually doing an exciting science experiment, by which time they are uninterested and bored.

At the end of every primary school workshop we ask the question ‘hands up who wants to do science when they grow up’, and we have yet to leave a school without every child present putting both their hands in the air.

The public/private school divide in science is difficult to estimate – many private schools do not take SATs. However students from private schools occupy many of the science courses at university (49% of the science places are occupied by privately educated students despite only 9% of the population being educated privately) implying that even if they are not better at science, they are pushed harder to follow it. The article in the Guardian below is about this divide. By showing students in public schools how exciting science can be we hope to close this gap.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/06/private-school-universities-strategic-subjects