Science for Primary Schools

Science for Primary Schools was a series of booklets produced by the Primary Science Committee of the Association for Science Education (ASE) soon after the formation of the ASE from two separate organisations, the SMA and the AWST in 1963. The series of five booklets was published for the ASE by John Murray between 1966 and 1970. It aimed to help primary teachers meet the demands of including science in the primary curriculum, at a time when the Nuffield Junior Science Project had just been published and Science 5/13 was in progress, both urging an active child-centred approach to teaching.

Context
One of the first actions taken by the newly formed Primary Science Committee (actually a sub-committee of the Education Committee) was the preparation of a policy statement which claimed that no system of education in the primary school could be considered satisfactory if it did not include science. In order to help teachers with work consistent with this policy, the committee produced a series of five booklets:

1. Children learning through science
2. List of books
3. List of teaching aids
4. Materials and equipment
5. Using broadcasts

Approach
The ASE booklets and policy statement promoted ‘discovery’ methods, in which children perform experiments, discuss what they find, draw conclusions and record what they have discovered. It was also expected that a ‘topic’ approach would be used so that science formed part of, and emerged from, integrated studies.