Teaching of STEM Subjects

House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee Teaching of STEM subjects Oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 3 and 10 February 2010 HC 340 Published on 25 March 2010 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Children, Schools and Families Committee The Children, Schools and Families Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Children, Schools and Families and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mr Barry Sheerman MP (Labour, Huddersfield) (Chair) Annette Brooke MP (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset & Poole North) Ms Karen Buck MP (Labour, Regents Park & Kensington North) Mr Douglas Carswell MP (Conservative, Harwich) Mr David Chaytor MP (Labour, Bury North) Mrs Sharon Hodgson MP (Labour, Gateshead East & Washington West) Paul Holmes MP (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield) Fiona Mactaggart MP (Labour, Slough) Mr Andrew Pelling MP (Independent, Croydon Central) Helen Southworth MP (Labour, Warrington South) Mr Graham Stuart MP (Conservative, Beverley & Holderness) Mr Edward Timpson MP (Conservative, Crewe & Nantwich) Derek Twigg MP (Labour, Halton) Lynda Waltho MP (Labour, Stourbridge) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/csf/ Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Kenneth Fox (Clerk), Anne-Marie Griffiths, (Second Clerk), Emma Wisby (Committee Specialist), Judith Boyce (Committee Specialist), Jenny Nelson (Senior Committee Assistant), Kathryn Smith (Committee Assistant), Sharon Silcox (Committee Support Assistant), and Brendan Greene (Office Support Assistant). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6181; the Committee’s e- mail address is [email protected] List of witnesses Wednesday 3 February 2010 Page Professor Derek Bell, Head of Education, Wellcome Trust, Professor Sir John Holman, National STEM Director, DCSF, and Director, National Science Learning Centre, Professor Peter Main, Director, Education and Science, Institute of Physics, Dr John Oversby, History and Philosophy for Science Teaching Project (Reading University), Association for Science Education, and David Perks, Head of Physics, Graveney School, Tooting Ev 4 Wednesday 10 February 2010 Professor Margaret Brown, Professor of Mathematics Education, King’s College London, Dr Tony Gardiner, Reader in Mathematics and Mathematics Education, University of Birmingham, and Jane Imrie, Deputy Director, National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics Ev 26 Professor Matthew Harrison, Director, Education Programmes, Royal Academy of Engineering, Paul Jackson, Chief Executive, Engineering UK, Chris Kirby, Head of Education, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and Professor Peter Kutnick, Professor of Psychology and Education, King’s College London Ev 41 4 List of written evidence 1 Institute of Physics Ev 1 2 Dr John Oversby Ev 2 3 Professor Margaret Brown Ev 24 4 Jane Imrie Ev 36 5 Engineering UK Ev 38 Processed: 22-03-2010 22:45:36 Page Layout: COENEW [SO] PPSysB Job: 002020 Unit: PAG1 Children, Schools and Families Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the Children, Schools and Families Committee on Wednesday 3 February 2010 Members present: Mr Barry Sheerman (Chairman) Annette Brooke Mr Andrew Pelling Ms Karen Buck Helen Southworth Mr David Chaytor Mr Edward Timpson Paul Holmes Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics Introduction This paper constitutes an addendum to the evidence we provided to the CSF Committee on 30 January 2009.1 It both oVers an update to that paper, together with some key suggestions on how the situation might be improved. Background and Recent Developments — NEFR’s 2006 school survey reported science specialist teachers in the proportions: biology 44%, chemistry 25% and physics 19%. The Government’s physics target of 22% by 2014 looks increasingly unlikely to be achieved. — Recent reports from the University of Buckingham indicate that in almost 1/5 of secondary schools, physics teaching is carried out by teachers with no post A-level experience of the subject. DCSF data show that as many as 500 schools have no pupils at all progressing to A-level physics. — The commonly agreed figure for the number of new physics ITT recruits to begin to reverse the long-term trend is 750 per annum; the long term average annual recruitment is around 400. Approximately one third of physics specialist teachers are expected to retire in the next 10 years. — The Institute welcomes the imminent School Workforce Census, which will yield vital data on attrition rates, which have been diYcult to determine historically. — In partnership with the National Science Learning Centres, the Institute has established a network of physics centres across England in the Stimulating Physics Network (SPN), funded by the DCSF. An important part of this project is the model for taking support into schools to work with whole departments of non-specialist physics teachers, which has been shown to be more successful than other approaches oVered to date. — Supported by the Gatsby Trust, the Institute has also embarked on the MITRE project, working with ITT providers and physics departments to improve the marketing of teaching to physics and physics-related graduates. This work sits alongside the work we are doing to provide mentoring support to participants on the Physics Enhancement Programme (PEP) and the Science Additional Specialism Programme (SASP). Recommendations and Suggestions Recruitment and ITT 1. The TDA should take steps to encourage HEIs to market their courses more eVectively and to increase their capacity. There should be a progressive move to setting recruitment targets for each of the sciences. 2. We support the suggestion by the Conservative Party that the Government should consider repaying the student loans for teachers in shortage subjects so long as they remain in the profession. Such a move would also improve retention. We are also sympathetic to the idea of raising the status of the profession, although we are less convinced by the blank restriction to the higher degree classes. 3. ITT tutors are generally former teachers with no training in research. However, on appointment, they enter a university environment where research is highly valued. While there are considerable benefits in having a sound research base for ITT, it is not clear that this model is best for all ITT tutors and there is evidence that many of them find the research element diYcult and time-consuming. The TDA should explore other models that do not have this requirement to carry out original research. 1 See the Fourth Report from the Children, Schools and Families Committee, Session 2009–10, Training of Teachers, HC 275- II, Ev 292 Processed: 22-03-2010 22:45:36 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 002020 Unit: PAG1 Ev 2 Children, Schools and Families Committee: Evidence 4. Placements are a major problem for many ITT providers and may inhibit recruitment in some cases. There should be an investigation of the feasibility of requiring schools, or groups of schools, to take trainee teachers. Strategic planning for increasing the capacity in the placement should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. 5. The ITT application system needs streamlining to avoid unnecessary wastage and delay. In particular, there needs to be greater accountability within ITT institutions and greater transparency within the GTTR system. It would be helpful to have an unambiguous and categorical figure for the total number of entrants in each subject area, for example. 6. A quarter of all physics graduates who enter teaching choose mathematics as their specialist subject. These teachers obviously could teach physics but usually do not simply because it is hard to do so within school management structures. With an appropriately expanded PGCE (see below) with more linkage between training and teaching, there is no reason why such arrangements should not be encouraged. Retention and staV development 7. Mentoring programmes can help retention but we have serious reservations about the current national pilot scheme operated by the TDA. We recommend a more pro-active scheme, such as the one employed within our PEP project. 8. The Institute believes that the current one-year PGCE provides neither suYcient training in subject knowledge and pedagogy nor support for NQTs on their first appointment. We suggest a extension of the PGCE to become a three or even five year programme, most of which is undertaken during the NQT years. Such an approach would give more confidence and support to the NQTs as well as providing the pedagogical support where and when it is most needed. 9. If CPD is to become a sustainable part of a science teacher’s career, there needs to be either some sort of professional requirement or an incentive. It is possible that CPD could be linked with the development of an “expert teacher” status, possibly in partnership with the relevant learned societies, which would also make a bridge to the latest developments in the subject. The science curriculum 10. To retain specialist physics teachers, it is essential to retain physics as a subject with a specific identity from at least GGSE onwards. It is often stated that the curriculum needs to stimulate pupils; in fact, it is probably more accurate that the curriculum needs to stimulate teachers. Co-ordination of initiatives that relate to STEM teaching 11. There have been several attempts to map out the various initiatives and to make them coherent, with rather limited success.

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