Shortage of specialist teachers sends science in to a ‘cul-de-sac’

Birendra Singh, of the UCL Institute of Education, has spent the past seven years conducting detailed qualitative research into how science is being taught. Singh discovered that numerous teachers were lacking in several areas of the science curriculum. However, teachers were reluctant to request professional development sessions, for fear that senior managers would view the appeal ‘as a sign of weakness’ that could be ‘used against them’.

The research uncovered that any professional development that was offered to teachers, usually focussed on aspects that Ofsted inspectors wanted see in lessons, rather than attributes that were actually necessary to the specific staff.

Dr Singh observed three comprehensive schools during his study and each establishment placed their pupils in streams, referred to as ‘fast’, ‘upper’ and ‘middle’. The majority of specialist teachers were allocated to the top stream which was often given access to external speakers, denied to lower streams.

A teacher told Dr Singh: “The fast band gets treated differently, they are the privileged ones.”

A pupil also said: “Fast band, they get a teacher for biology, chemistry and physics – one teacher for each. In upper band, you only get one teacher … for all three subjects.”

According to the study, the allocation of resources made many teachers uncomfortable. One said: “I thought we were here for all children, and every child mattered.”

Dr Singh addressed the problems revealed by the study at the recent British Education Research Association. In his speech, he called on the government to take serious action to tackle the shortage of specialist physics and chemistry teachers.

He said: “The findings present sombre reading about the condition of science teaching in state schools, and prompt the question as to whether school science has entered a cul-de-sac from which it needs to be turned around.”

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