There is Too Much to Learn in GCSE Science

In 1976, then-Prime Minister James Callaghan launched the “Great Debate” on education at Ruskin College in Oxford. The debate was an attempt to set the standard for the UK education system by answering the question “What do we want for the education of our children and young people?”

Callaghan’s speech was a watershed moment in British education. It marked a shift away from the traditional view of education and towards a belief that education can have a marked benefit on social mobility and lead to large-scale economic benefits. 

He recognised that to maximise the potential of individuals from working-class backgrounds, they needed to be equipped with the same essential skills provided to their more privileged peers. Regardless of your socioeconomic background, the fundamental pillars of education remain consistent. 

The National Curriculum (NC) came shortly after Callaghan’s speech from the Education Reform Act 1988 and has undergone many revisions in the 35 years since its creation, most notably in 1999 by Tony Blair’s New Labour and most recently in 2014 by the Conservative Coalition. 

Taking a more focused view on the Science NC for KS4 a significant concern emerges. It is just too big!

Looking at the NC for KS4 Science it appears to only span a mere 18 pages, of which only 10 pages are actually of prescribed content. However, looking at the AQA Combined Science Trilogy specification, it translates into almost 200 pages with nearly 150 pages dedicated to content mandated for teaching. 

This excessive volume poses two distinct issues:

• The amount of time needed to cover the breadth of the content
• Whether it aligns to the objectives of a good education system

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One of the key responsibilities of a Head of Department is the meticulous sequencing and strategic planning of the curriculum, ensuring a cohesive and well-structured series of lessons can be delivered within the two or three year time frame. In the case of science, unlike other subjects, each lesson primarily focuses on one, two or three specific specification points. 

For example, with my Year 9 Combined Science students a few weeks ago, I spent one lesson teaching specification point 2.1 of Edexcel Chemistry: Describe the arrangement, movement and relative energy of particles in each of the three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. 

In the next lesson, I moved on to 2.2: Recall the names used for the interconversions between the three states of matter, recognising that these are physical changes: contrasted with chemical reactions that result in chemical changes and so on. 

In that one topic, there are 12 individual specification points. Even this is one of the smallest in the whole spec, with Topic 6 in Physics have 32 different criteria we must teach! The role of the HoD is to merge these specification points together and squeeze them into the little time they have to ensure the whole curriculum is taught. 

Nevertheless, there are two significant challenges with the specification:

• It is often vague
• Not all points are created equally

In 2.29 in Edexcel Physics, pupils must understand the factors affecting stopping distance. It requires students to grasp the interplay between various elements such as the mass of the vehicle, its velocity, the condition of the brakes, the driver’s reaction time, road conditions, and the frictional interaction between the tires and the road surface.

The breadth of knowledge necessary to address this is extensive. It entails incorporating concepts such as the application of Newton’s Second Law, measuring reaction time, comprehending the impact of tire treads and friction levels, as well as the effects of environmental factors like water, heat, and ice on road conditions. While the specification point itself may not explicitly outline this breadth of knowledge, it becomes evident from the numerous questions posed in past examination papers that students are expected to possess this level of understanding.

But, the following spec point focuses solely on the impact of drugs and distractions on a driver’s reaction time, which can often be done in a single lesson…

Consequently, the need to condense certain specification points due to time constraints means that teachers often find it difficult to accommodate practical experiments, integrate broader contextual knowledge, manage behavioural issues, and lead catch-up sessions due to staff or student absences. 

As a result, the original intent behind the establishment of the NC seems to be falling short when placed in practice across schools. The varying timeframes allocated to teachers, directly impact their ability to delve into specific content. For those teachers who have more challenging classes, it leads to them powering through the curriculum because they have to teach it all as that final deadline approaches. This eventually leads to ‘teaching to the exam’ (something everyone says they try to avoid) as there is no time to genuinely dive into the science

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Now, this does not mean that I believe the NC should prioritise vague objectives such as oracy, writing or ‘scientific proficiency’ at the expense of essential knowledge acquisition. Whilst communication is an undoubtedly valuable skill, it should be regarded as supplementary to the core knowledge. In the context of science, their primary focus should be on acquiring a solid foundation of knowledge first and foremost. A student can only be an effective communicator of science if they have a solid knowledge base.

This leads to my final point of contention from the NC and exam board specifications. Certain components within the curriculum are redundant or lack actual purpose whilst others seemingly only appear to exist solely for the sake of difficulty, rather than any meaningful education objective. The best example of this is the, now thankfully removed, expectation that pupils memorise a multitude of equations in physics. This serves absolutely no discernible purpose beyond making science hard. 

Personally, I have a huge list of things we teach in science that I see no overall benefit in teaching. Whilst I acknowledge that this is purely my opinion, science teachers across the country will have a list of various specification points that they too see little purpose in. These could be debated for hours so I will refrain from discussing my personal list here.

All of this raises a pertinent question about the nature of the NC itself. If the aim of the curriculum is to ensure equal access to knowledge for all students across the country then why is there so much variation? Differing exam boards, higher tier only content, Triple only content. All of this seems massively contradictory. Why should some students be considered more deserving of comprehending the intricacies of the universe or the internal structure of the brain than others?

Regrettably, the NC has deviated from its original purpose and has instead transformed into a somewhat disjointed compilation of scientific concepts that only a few deem necessary for pupils to learn. Rather than serving as a fundamental framework of knowledge for everyday life, it has developed into a limited cacophony of ‘science’. 

In order to foster a genuine understanding of science among pupils, we must adopt a strategy of content reduction. Whilst this may seem counterintuitive to remove elements from the curriculum, what it does do is provide teachers with more time and space to dive deeply into scientific concepts. 

By streamlining the curriculum, we can create a more concise and purposeful framework that focuses on the fundamental knowledge our society deems imperative. This intentional selection of concepts can help restore confidence and trust in the field of science which has seen much of a decline in recent years. 

By reducing the curriculum and honing it in, the outcomes for the future of our students, teachers and society as a whole can only be a positive one.