STEM - striving for excellence

Charlie Penman does not sugarcoat. “Historically, STEM subjects in Aberdeen have not been a particular area of strength,” the city council’s head of education services says. Successive inspection reports had proved as much. Some primary teaching staff had not experienced science since second year of secondary school, leading them to view science and technology “with trepidation”. 

“I realised at an early stage I was never going to spend a penny on resources, I was going to invest in my staff,” says Penman.

Three years ago last week, over a dozen schools in Aberdeen became the first in Scotland to achieve a Primary Science Quality Mark. The award scheme, which has been used heavily south of the border to recognise science education standards, sets expectations both for individuals and schools more broadly to prevent expertise being lost if and when teachers were. All schools within the city catchment area are now part of the scheme while 1,800 P6/7 pupils have been recognised as ‘science champions’, allowing them to deliver science to P1/2 pupils. “It has been absolutely transformational,” Penman tells Holyrood. 

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Public schools within the city are not the only ones that have sought to strengthen their expertise in this area. Robert Gordon’s College, an independent school with almost 1,700 pupils, earlier this year opened the Wood Foundation Centre for Science and Technology, the largest school teaching facility of its kind in the UK.

“Skills of science and technology are not going out of date,” says head Simon Mills. “We’re living in an ever increasing digital world. Whether the core outcome will be careers in oil and gas or careers in smart technologies, or they might be careers in the USA rather than careers in the UK, graduates are going to need these skills.”

Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) reforms had put science at their heart. Concerns have been raised, however, about a potential narrowing of the curriculum as a result of a reduction in the number of subjects now studied at S4. Latest figures show there were 1,700 fewer entries for physics, chemistry and maths Highers in 2015, as numbers fell from 43,478 in 2014 to 41,747.

“If it is sitting at four per cent [in terms of the drop] then I think we’ve done a bit better than maybe the original fears were,” says Stuart Allison, a quality improvement manager in East Renfrewshire Council’s education department until his retirement earlier this year.

Allison was one of eight on the Science and Engineering Education Advisory Group that in 2012 made over 60 recommendations to Scottish ministers on STEM education. Their report warned that the “very narrow” STEM discipline base within Scottish secondary education – in effect relying on the three basic sciences of physics, chemistry and biology – was “ill-judged and ill-timed” as it underlined the need to develop interdisciplinary learning.

It was a tenet underpinning CfE, albeit an ambition that has been overtaken in the early stages amid pressures to implement the new National qualifications, suggests Allison. “In the future, let’s not see science as silos of just biology, chemistry and physics. For me, it would have been nice to have seen a broadening of the science curriculum into things like earth and space science and maybe some engineering applications as well.”

A “conscious effort” is also required to develop scientific literacy – an aspect that features prominently in other European countries’ curriculums – if pupils are to be better informed on some of the more controversial debates within society. Up-skilling of classroom teachers with subject-specific knowledge in areas like physics, biotechnology as well as design and technology is an area which Allison argues merits renewed attention.

The Scottish Government has funded an extension to the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre’s work after positive evaluation of their professional development programme in primary science. Ministers have faced calls to go further, though, with the Royal Society of Chemistry reiterating the need for every primary school to have access to a ‘science subject leader’ who can support local science teachers. “We have had positive discussions with MSPs and ministers on this issue and we hope that it will become government policy in future,” says head of teaching and learning Nicole Morgan.

An equally pressing challenge, however, lies in the numbers, as illustrated below. In the north-east, recruitment comes with the added difficulty of an oil and gas industry that draws in those with subject-specific qualifications.  

“It is a competitive market and teachers’ salaries are not exactly competitive in that business environment,” says Penman, whose council called for a national taskforce to address teacher shortages in September. “But I am playing the long game with this. I am expecting there to be a wash through – and I know there is already – of expectation, with parents increasing their interest. If I can stimulate interest in these young people in science, technology, engineering or mathematics and that then washes through to their parents and they have a different expectation about STEM-related subjects for careers, then we all win out of that.”