Background to this: I have a 13-year old DD who is academically, shall I say, no more than OK. There are no real issues in her report, she's a sociable, sensible and well-liked girl. Middle set for absolutely everything. In no danger of coming top of the school and taking a first from Oxbridge as far as I can make out at this stage. Best subjects so far, Geography and English. Also quite interested in science, but not a natural mathematician.
So I was thinking about my own (rubbish) career non-choices and dead ends, as a relatively able but general arts-oriented student (think Latin, English, couldn't do MFL effectively as have hearing impairment). And realising that actually, I was always really interested in science myself. But despite doing my level best and getting science O-levels (somehow, despite a dodgy syllabus and even more dodgy teaching) I could never take it further because, well, you need to know your stuff and if the syllabus is ropey you're gonna struggle later on. And now I look at the range of careers and see that if you drop science too early you are really, really missing out.
I'm afraid that my daughter, like me, is going to get channelled into a restricted choice of careers because she's not quite 'technical' enough to go the triple science route at GCSE (they only offer triple science to the top of the top set), which will put her on the back foot WRT further study of scientific subjects. I'm not talking about forcing her to try and become an engineer or an astrophysicist if she's not suited to it. But we're increasingly living in a world where scientific knowledge is power - think health choices, medical treatment, knowing where your electricity comes from...and I think the school syllabus is beyond inadequate when it comes to teaching kids this sort of stuff. And there are gender issues here as well.
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To think science teaching in the UK is a joke?
72 replies
wol1968 · 21/07/2015 18:02
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