KS3 Science

female students in science classroom wearing goggles and holding a test tube

Ideas for re-engaging students with science this term

It’s always a risk when committing thoughts to paper (or cloud) on education policy and practice; what might seem adventurous or at least perceptive at the time of writing can look predictable or even downright out of date by the time it’s circulated.  Moving from hard print to digital communication… Read More

Hot topics from the ASE Science conference

The morning after the night before. This year’s ASE Conference was held in Birmingham in January. Always a good cure for New Year’s blues, it was a lively mix of ideas, projects and sharing of experiences.  A key topic of conversation for many people involved with the secondary phase was… Read More

Planning KS3 and KS4 Science

With the new school year on the horizon, we asked Science consultant Ed Walsh for his advice on effective planning for both KS3 and KS4 Science. Q: I have been asked to come up with a skeleton, ‘knowledge based’ scheme of work for KS3 (which, for us, includes Years… Read More

5-year Science course teaching: what’s the big picture?

A couple of years ago I was at a science education conference and ended up in the same workshop group as (Lord) Jim Knight, who had previously been a Schools Minister. At the time the new GCSE Science specifications were in the process of development. I offered the opinion that… Read More

We’re in here for the long haul

One of the issues that’s exercising quite a few minds in science education at the moment is how to cover the content in the new GCSE specifications in the time available. Many people are, very understandably, flipping through not only the amount but thinking about the depth of the material… Read More

Ed Walsh: Name the Prequel

One of the games I used to play with my children was suggesting the (imaginary) movie prequel. As they got older, and better, we had to give points and you got more for being less obvious.  ‘Prince Kong’ wouldn’t do well, for example but ‘Reservoir Puppies’ was better and ‘Humming… Read More

Teaching Ebola – pt 1. Pandemics throughout history

The Ebola outbreak in western Africa has been making headlines for the last few months. Help your secondary science students understand the science and history behind the spread of disease with this great article on pandemic diseases throughout history. Plus there are ideas for classwork, links for reading around the subject and examples of relevant syllabus content. Read More