Calderstones hosted the LEA Science meeting on Tuesday 25th March. The LEA subject officer gave some input on Progress8 and how it would impact on science curriculum planning. I was asked to lead on KS4 practical work in light of the speculated changes to practical assessment with changes to GCSE.
There was some philosophical debate on what practical work is actually for. The SCORE survey highlighted a marked discrepancy between the relative importance of ‘inquiry’ at KS2 vs KS3/4. It’s interesting that all great scientific discovery comes from ‘the unexpected outcome’ yet in most KS3/4 curricula we are looking for the ‘correct’ outcome or the ‘correct’ observation when driving students to the expected phenomena. There was much debate on this point and the differentiation of ‘technical’ and ‘analytical’ assessment, and the need to encourage enquiry based learning at KS3 and 4.
The highlighted reports from The Gatsby Foundation and The Wellcome Trust were interesting in that they, and also reports from QCA and subject briefings from AQA, seem to be converging on the viewpoint that ISA assessment is fundamentally flawed and that in the short term, questions on practical skills ‘should’ be set in GCSE papers along with a practical assessment component.
The powerpoint below may be of interest
Caldies Chem 