Science Teaching

I agree that there is a continuing need to redress the gender gap, particularly in respect of girls studying physics. There has been a slight narrowing of it, but it is not sufficient and we certainly need to do more. As ever, there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation with such issues. If we could get more girls to study physics to A-level, there would be more chance of their going on to study it in higher education and then going into teaching, but which comes first is something that we have to address. I will say more about that as I go on. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) made an interesting contribution as well and asked all the right questions. Beyond what I already said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East on the programme for international student assessment, it is worth noting that only seven countries had mean scores that were significantly higher than England's, and that England has the third highest proportion of students at the highest level of attainment in the world. There are some cultural as well as substantive issues—for example, gender was just mentioned—that we need to address. Only 38 per cent. of students said that they like reading about science, and only 55 per cent. said that they generally have fun when they are learning science. Those are the sorts of things that we have been talking about and that we want to deal with in our reforms. However, 61 per cent. of students—higher than the international average—agreed that when they leave school there will be many opportunities for them to use science. Some of the messages are starting to get through. I agree that science should be exciting and engaging. I well remember my experience in school of lighting the magnesium, of wrestling with the ticker tape timer, and, in the days when I had hair, of static electricity having the necessary effect. I was delighted when I went back to my school last year that Paul McCartney, who taught me chemistry, and Jan Pringle, who taught me physics, were still there and still doing the great job that they did when I was a pupil. I share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East to make science a more attractive option for young people to study and for schools and teachers to teach—almost as much as I share my enthusiasm for KT Tunstall's latest album, ““Drastic Fantastic””, with my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North, who is an enthusiast. Perhaps it describes how we want science teaching to change: drastically and fantastically. We want more students to continue to study science, to make it their career and to engage with scientific issues as citizens. I want to explain today how we will achieve that by inspiring young people with science throughout their journey through the various stages of school. The key to good learning is, of course, good teaching. We know that to help students enjoy and achieve success in science we need more specialist teachers, as has been pointed out—specialists who can communicate their love for and depth of knowledge of their subject. We are encouraging people to train and to qualify as science teachers, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said, by offering a teacher training bursary and a golden hello in the subjects that we need. That is working: the number of trainee science teachers recruited in a year has just reached more than 3,000 for the first time for conventional initial teacher training. Add to that the employment-based routes, and we are now recruiting well in terms of science specialists. There is not an overall crisis in terms of the future numbers of science teachers, because the numbers entering training has risen by almost a third in seven years, but the hon. Member for Basingstoke is right to say that there are still not enough specialist physics and chemistry teachers. We are doing more so that teachers in other subjects can gain the specialisms that they need in science, through funding the development of the new accredited training courses that were mentioned. To ensure that those courses deliver the quality that is needed, the Training and Development Agency for Schools has worked with the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and together they have developed courses that allow science teachers—normally biologists—without a physics or chemistry specialism to gain the knowledge and teaching skills that they need to teach these science subjects well. In gender terms, that is significant, because many of those biologists are female, and we are now, through the use of this qualification, engaging them to become specialists, especially in physics, so that we can then address the gender imbalance in the physics teaching profession, which I hope will encourage more girls to stay on doing A-level physics and go on to study it in higher education. In the children's plan, we announced a further new programme, ““Transition to teaching””, which will be a partnership between employers and the TDA intended to attract staff with science, mathematics or technology backgrounds who may wish to take up teaching to come out of industry and take on a second career in teaching. That programme is being developed under the leadership of Larry Hirst from IBM. We do not just need more specialist teachers, we need to ensure that science teachers get the continuing support and development that they need to remain inspirational teachers. Continuing personal development is important, as all hon. Members have said. We fund schools to provide CPD for staff. Today is the fifth anniversary of the social partnership that the Department for Education and Skills developed with teaching unions, one of the main outputs of which has been the work force agreement, giving more planning preparation and assessment time for the teaching staff, and using Baker days—the in-service training or INSET days—that were developed by the previous Government. The combination of funding and time ought to be able to improve CPD, but we do not prescribe nationally how that should be developed. In partnership with the Wellcome Trust we have set up a national network of science learning centres, as hon. Members have mentioned, to provide professional development for science teachers and technicians. Those centres focus on high-quality, innovative and inspiring courses, ranging from ““Putting the wow into year 2””, through to ““Creative brain warmers”” for 14 to 19-year-olds, to ones using cartoons and puppets to encourage pupils to discuss scientific issues. However, I am not sure that those courses extend to blowing holes in the garden. The take-up of CPD at science learning centres has been strong, and although it is not quite up to half of science teachers attending the equivalent of a day at the centre last year, it is not far off. However, the best measure of the success of science teaching is beyond that, in the classroom. The journey into science begins in primary school. We agree that it is really important, across the whole range of subjects in the curriculum, that young people have a mastery of reading and mathematics. That is where we put the priority throughout the past 10 years and why 100,000 more pupils every year are now leaving primary school with the national competency that they need in English and maths. That is 100,000 more than in 1997, when we took over as a Government, but we accept that we need to go further. That is why we are introducing the synthetic phonics, developed by Sir Jim Rose, in the ““Letters and sounds”” programme and why we are developing ““Every child counts”” to further improve mathematics and extending the use of one-to-one classes for catch-up for those that need it. We have seen the enthusiasm of young children enjoying the hands-on science or looking in awe at the rockets on display in the Science museum. Teachers have been harnessing such enthusiasm with increasing success. In 1997, seven out of 10 pupils were achieving level 4 at the end of key stage 2, and now it is almost nine out of 10. Again, that is a good improvement. Building on these excellent results, we look forward to teachers having more opportunities to inspire children. Hon. Members asked about Sir Jim Rose's review of the primary curriculum, which he began last week. That will have a strong focus on scientific understanding, as well as literacy, numeracy and the effective use of information and communication technology. We have to ensure that the enthusiasm of primary children, who are doing so well, survives the transition to the next stage of their journey through education to secondary school. That is why the secondary national strategy is working with schools to promote high-quality interactive teaching, including imaginative use of practical work. At the moment, almost three quarters of pupils achieve level 5 at the end of key stage 3, and 41 per cent. achieve level 6. Those figures are much better than 10 years ago, but they are still not good enough—I am confident that the hon. Member for Basingstoke will agree.