Colleagues,
I'd like to start a discussion around practical work and accessibility across KS3 and GCSE Science.
One issue we've been exploring is how to remove unnecessary barriers to practical activities without reducing the level of scientific thinking expected from pupils.
We've noticed that some pupils struggle with practical work because of the number of instructions they have to process simultaneously, rather than because they lack the scientific understanding required.
Some approaches we've been trialling include:
• Using annotated diagrams alongside written instructions
• Breaking practical procedures into clearly sequenced stages
• Pre-teaching key equipment and terminology
• Modelling the first stage before pupils begin independently
• Reducing unnecessary text while retaining the important scientific vocabulary
The interesting question for us is where the balance lies.
We don't want to make practical work so heavily scaffolded that pupils become dependent on prompts. Equally, removing support too quickly can prevent some pupils from demonstrating what they actually understand.
I'd be interested to hear what colleagues are finding, particularly with transition from KS3 into GCSE.
Aisha
This is very much aligned with what we're seeing through the inclusion review.
One of the most useful distinctions has been between scaffolding the task and scaffolding the thinking.
If we're careful, we can reduce the processing demands of the practical procedure while still requiring pupils to make the scientific decisions themselves.
I'd be interested in seeing some of the annotated examples you've been using.
The terminology point is particularly interesting.
We've found that pupils can sometimes follow a procedure but struggle to explain what they've done afterwards because they don't have secure command of the relevant vocabulary.
There may be an opportunity to make the language expectations more explicit before practical work begins.
The terminology point is particularly interesting.
We've found that pupils can sometimes follow a procedure but struggle to explain what they've done afterwards because they don't have secure command of the relevant vocabulary.
There may be an opportunity to make the language expectations more explicit before practical work begins.
That's a useful distinction, Sarah.
We're going to look at our practical sheets with exactly that question in mind:
"Does this information help pupils think scientifically, or is it simply helping them navigate the worksheet?"
That should help us remove some unnecessary complexity without lowering expectations.
We've had a similar issue in Maths with multi-step problem-solving.
Sometimes the barrier isn't the mathematics — it's the amount of information pupils have to hold in working memory.
The approach you're describing sounds transferable beyond Science.