The insightful work of the ASPIRES team has shown how deeply damaging double science can be. What remains to be done is to figure out how to ditch it. There’s a simple short-term solution for academies and free schools: replace double science with two sciences. Here’s the reasoning why…
There are two routes through science GCSEs open to the majority of children in England: they may take “triple science” (also called “separate sciences”), which consists of three GCSEs (in biology, chemistry and physics) or they may take “double science” (or “combined science”), during which they study two-thirds of each GCSE course in biology, chemistry and physics and so end up with two GCSEs. In the majority of state schools across the country, the children do not choose which route they will take. Teachers determine who will do triple science and who will do double. Even in cases of apparent choice, it most usually reserved for children who have attained a particular level in a test. You may only choose to do triple science if the school says you are good enough to.
Teachers are so used to this system they have lost sight of how bizarre it is. You can choose your other subjects, but how much science you take depends on how good are (or how good your teachers think you are) at science. The resulting message? Science is only for the top set. Science is for the clever ones. Science isn’t for people like me. On a personal level, we alienate children from science, discouraging almost three-quarters of the population from taking up A-levels in science by a decision made (most often not by the child) at 13 or 14. On a societal level, these processes strengthen the brainy, white-coated stereotype of what it is to be a scientist. Even children in the triple sets suffer from this image, doubting whether science really is for them. The way we push children through science pathways at GCSE feeds the miserable, underwater currents of privilege of our society. It’s horrendous.
The ASPIRES team, then based at King’s College, London, evidenced this brilliantly back in 2016. One of the particularly insightful aspects of their work is that they took note of how much children enjoy science. On the whole, children like science lessons in the early years of secondary school. That means we’ve been going wrong thinking we can improve our post-16 uptake of science by making science more fun lower down the school. Lack of enjoyment is not the primary driver behind the post-GCSE exodus from science. Science just IS fun, according to kids. A bigger problem is that young people don’t see themselves as scientists. And the complicated processes of science setting are encouraging these negative attitudes.
What is worrying now, however, is that since the original evidence was published in 2016, there hasn’t been any change in the way schools push children through science pathways. The current system monopolises the minds and machinery of secondary science departments, despite the fact that there are relatively simple steps that can be taken by schools to increase inclusivity in science.
Exam boards provide higher and foundation papers for the single science subjects. It is therefore possible to allow students to decide for themselves whether they want to take triple or double science. In many schools, adopting such a scheme will require a fair bit of determination, in order to overcome timetabling challenges. It also requires some thought to ensure that the implementation really does what it is supposed to. The science staff could get together to reflect upon their own attitudes, for example, about the purpose of doing of science for lower-attaining children. As science teachers, we perhaps too often assume that the best we can do for our students is to help then on their (non-scientific) way with a decent qualification. We don’t explicitly recognise that plumbers, chefs, electricians, road-work engineers, and builders use scientific thinking and scientific knowledge: science is an everyday thing as much as a Nobel-prize-winning thing.
The stigma of double science is perhaps best broken, however, by simply giving all children a choice between two or three science subjects. This way, those who are less inclined to take science will study, say, one GCSE in biology and one in chemistry (or even astronomy or geology!), instead of two-thirds of each of biology, chemistry and physics. There would be no selection-by-ability process of any kind along the pathway to science GCSEs, not even a self-determined one.
The standard objection to a scheme of this kind is that it is just too important for children to do a little bit of each of the sciences. It widens their later choices to have some knowledge of all three. The national curriculum in England, in fact, requires schools under local authority control to cover the three sciences until 16. Thus, this forward-thinking option is only available, at least for the present, for academies and free schools. And there is a certain fear to be faced in implementing this scheme. Cutting a child’s curriculum is hard.
I agree that it sounds like a good idea for children to do a bit of each of the sciences, but my experience teaching double science tells me the opposite: it’s not so important at all. More important that they should choose, more important that they have control over their learning, more important that they should continue to enjoy science, more important that they should understand the science they are doing, more important that we should deflate the notion that science is only for the clever. Let’s face it: double science isn’t bringing children to scientific careers, so we shouldn’t hold on to it for the single reason that we think it is good for us to do a bit of everything. Yes, I hope that some children will come to regret only taking two sciences (in the same way that some of us regret dropping French or history or music or art) because that will mean the change will have worked: it would have encouraged children that science is for them. Under the current system, children are more likely to leave double science with a sigh of relief or to feel anger at a system that prevented them studying more. It is not a good way to avoid regret!
Another difficulty to the two-science approach, and in some ways more challenging, is the widely-held belief by science teachers that it is harder to achieve the same grades when taking single-science GSCE exams in comparison to double. “I don’t care what anyone says”, a head of science once said to me, “double science is just easier!” Last year’s AQA papers for physics contained more challenging questions than the physics questions on the double higher paper. It is true that if you are spending more time learning physics, you should perhaps manage a higher order of questions. But, at least for the first schools to move to such an approach, it will take a leap of faith that the added enthusiasm and lesson time on the part of students will compensate for the apparent hike in difficulty of the exam. There’s an issue here or the exam board to address. They work hard to align foundation and higher papers, but could do more to communicate how the grades in single science compare to those in the double sciences. Schools are conservative when it comes to taking care of their position in the league tables, so moving to two-sciences will be difficult to implement without a senior leadership which has a long-term vision for doing the right thing and working out how to make the right thing work. The difficulty can be softened perhaps by the fact that under the two-science scheme, there will be less chemistry and physics to be taught. It will therefore be easier to timetable teachers within their specialisms. That’s a seriously important point in schools today: the benefits of a biology teacher teaching biology GCSE, instead of double science, can’t be understated.
It’s a timetabling challenge and the head of science is going to be scared to mess with the way things have been done as long as we can remember. But schools are taking kids who like science and find it fun, setting and testing them, presenting science as something in a far-off place, again and again, until they are well and truly turned off the thought of a scientific career. To channel the enthusiasm, the easiest step we can take is to simply to allow children to study their favourite sciences at GCSE.
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