Being Practical (Or Not)

Last week I attended a workshop on the future of practical science in schools at the Royal Society.  Driven in part by the findings of the 2023 Science Education Tracker, that students at secondary school were frustrated they had little opportunity to do hands-on work themselves, as opposed to watching either the teacher do an experiment, or simply a video of that experiment, the meeting explored different aspects of the issue for both primary and secondary schools. The meeting was held, as it happened, the day before the publication of the Curriculum and Assessment Review. However, when the 197 pages of the report did land (metaphorically) on desks, its remarks about school practical science were somewhat bland. Recognizing that ‘practical work is not always effective’ it recommends that:

‘practical science activity – focused on high-quality teacher demonstration and hands on work by pupils – be underpinned by clearly defined purposes in the Programmes of Study and GCSE subject content.’

One can hardly disagree with such a statement, but it could be argued that is more about prescription for the teacher than feeding curiosity in the student.

When I think about my own school science days – as I was encouraged to do when talking about my personal experiences in the opening talk of the meeting – our lessons, as far as I recall, were largely based around ‘doing’ science. Right from the beginning of secondary school we were expected to do experiments, involving things such as dilute acids (no goggles provided) and open flames from Bunsen burners with tripods and asbestos mats. It was a different world, in which health and safety was not visibly considered, although I don’t remember any significant accidents. Lessons consisted of a teacher starting off with some explanations and then we were set loose. We had plenty of opportunity to explore and get used to apparatus.

In my talk, I discussed the A Level Physics course I had done, a new course just getting underway from the Nuffield Foundation at that time. It must have been very demanding on our teacher, since – as a pilot – she only got the material to teach a few weeks beforehand. There were no textbooks, everything came in a loose-leaf file. One of the innovative ways of working was to carry out an extended investigation. Having read The New Science of Strong Materials by JE Gordon (an inspiring book, then as now, and one I wrote about back in the days when the Guardian had science blogs, because it was so influential on me) to supplement the work on materials we did, I chose to attempt to replicate one of the key experiments described there. That was on glass fibres and related to fracture mechanics. The theoretical details don’t matter, but when preparing my talk I went back to look at those teenage diaries I referred to in my last post. Of this attempt at independent experimentation, I wrote:

This time I did some work on glass fibres – and I managed to burn myself while making one – not very badly, but inconveniently.

Nobody seemed too bothered about this accident.

Let’s face it, I was then – and throughout my career – not very dexterous. I broke things repeatedly during my PhD, and my experiences with chemistry were equally unfortunate. Again, my diary tells the tale:

‘Had our first chemistry practical. We did some titration and I swallowed some sodium hydroxide when trying to pipette it, but although nasty not serious.’

By the time I went to Cambridge as an undergraduate, and finding myself needing to continue with Chemistry to my annoyance, I hadn’t got much better with my hands.  This time quoting from a letter to my mother, I described my first undergraduate practical lab:

‘I got myself well and truly stained bright yellow by a salt of picric acid all over my hands (I should have been wearing gloves but took them off to wash up some apparatus). Also on my face, since I kept touching my face when adjusting safety goggles.’

I literally lived to tell the tale, and I don’t really want to know whether the salt was cancerous or explosive or any of the other things I’ve been told.

However, amusing and embarrassing though these anecdotes may be, the reality is science in my day was full of practical work at least from secondary school on (there was nothing that was described as science at my primary). It was striking how many people in the Royal Society audience last week had also done one or more of the Nuffield courses of the day. Courses that had practical work at their heart, in stark contrast to what schools can offer now. Everything from a packed curriculum, to teachers having to teach outside their specialism and therefore comfort zone; from lack of space to lack of cash; and from school accountability measures to absence of crucial equipment, practical science just doesn’t have the same focus in science lessons today as in my own, often as not. Yet, as the most recent Science Education Tracker shows, students miss being able to do their own practical work. It was a motivating factor for students wanting to do science for more than half of those in KS3. By making that a rare treat rather than something that they can routinely expect to engage in, we are turning students off pursuing science thereafter.

What many students get regularly as part of their lessons is watching a video demonstration. It may in principle have the same learning outcomes as doing the identical experiment themselves, but in practice almost certainly it will be less memorable and not give them ‘muscle memory’ of how to do things. Or, as in my case, how not to do things. The Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) had little to say about these matters. It explicitly states it won’t be discussing the teacher workforce. Yet, a science teacher who is teaching outside their own speciality, may not have the confidence to talk around a video to help the students understand what is going on, let alone have the resources or the confidence to do the experiment themselves. The evidence the conference was presented with showed that – in terms of student learning – a well-prepared and judiciously commented on video or, even better, teacher demonstration can be very effective for learning. But passively watching a demonstration with no additional elucidation from the teacher is not.

School practicals should feed curiosity as well as learning. Finding out what doesn’t work and why and how to use key apparatus ought to be central to the science curriculum. Unless schools are enabled – through adequate funding, curriculum time and supply of teachers in each of the sciences – to deliver effective practical work, we are short-changing our students, whether or not they are going to be the scientists of the future. It is disappointing that the CAR had so little to say about this.