CPD taster - Moving into science leadership

This is a CPD taster created to give teachers a better understanding of what to expect when joining one of our secondary science leadership courses. Below you will find a video and a task for you to do in your own time. Once you have done the activity, book on to Moving into science leadership (RX017).

In a leadership position, whether that's leading an area of the curriculum or a specific initiative, you will need to put together persuasive and evidence-informed arguments in order to make changes. In this video, Tim Bradbury explains more and introduces the Improving secondary science report from the Education Endowment Foundation.

The report provides seven practical, evidence-based recommendations to improve results and address the attainment gap that sees disadvantaged students falling behind in sciences. The recommendations are:

• Preconceptions: build on the ideas that pupils bring to lessons.
• Self-regulation: help pupils direct their own learning.
• Modelling: use models to support understanding.
• Memory: support pupils to retain and retrieve knowledge.
• Practical work: use practical work purposefully and as part of a learning sequence.
• Language of science: develop scientific vocabulary and support pupils to read and write about science.
• Feedback: use structured feedback to move on pupils’ thinking.

The task for this CPD taster asks you to explore one of the recommendations and to incorporate one of the strategies into a lesson. The purpose of this task is to give you some familiarity with frameworks and recommendation documents like this, then to apply it to your own teaching context. As you move into a leadership role, being able to interrogate and consider recommendation reports will help you to develop the teaching and learning in your department. Practising this process yourself will give you a greater depth of understanding of the recommendations and experience of them in your classroom, which you can use to support your colleagues.

Task

1. Download the following documents:
   • Education Endowment Foundation Improving Secondary Science Report [PDF].
   • Improving Secondary Science Audit Tool [PDF].
2. Using the Report, read through the seven recommendations shown in the summary of recommendations (pages 8 and 9).
3. Select ONE of the recommendations to focus on and read the detailed guidance.
4. Using the Audit Tool (and the descriptions of each level of practice) evaluate the current position of your department/team for the recommendation you have chosen to focus on.
5. Refer back to the main Report and based on your audit, select one of the strategies and plan a short teaching activity.

You will be able to use that activity to exemplify using the guidance and highlight how this strategy will improve attainment/outcomes/have the desired impact.

We encourage you to make some notes now about how you will incorporate your chosen strategy into an activity, as this is a useful exercise to consolidate your thinking. 

After your lesson, record your reflections. In particular, how effective you think the strategy was in supporting your teaching and your students' learning.

Next steps

Book your place on Moving into science leadership (RX017). This is a remotely-delivered online CPD course.