How is science taught in Y7 in your DC’s school?

[Magnoliainbloom]

DC is in Y7 at an independent. I’m aghast at the shite quality of resources - cobbled together cut and paste job on electronic notebook. There are no clear notes - mix of You, fill in the blanks, a few diagrams but no coherent or complete notes. DC has processing issues and can’t everything down and so loads of unfinished work and poor test marks. From the volume of stuff I’ve seen, looks like they are expected to teach teach themselves. Everything is on laptops and so no writing or labeling diagrams in books. Please can you share what your DC’s science teaching is like and wha resources they have.

I don't have DC in Y7 but I do teach science in secondary school.

We use a range of resources- our scheme of work is specific to the school, we don't follow a pre-made one like activate. In Y7 and 8 we try to do as much practical work as possible, and try to instill a love of science.

We aren't aiming for notes to be taken as such. We do provide students with knowledge organisers at the start of each term, so they can learn relevant key words etc. I don't think my student's exercise books would look like complete "notes" - they're used for practice and answering questions and recording practical results and similar.

Most lessons will have a powerpoint to go with them, there may be worksheets, there may not depending on the ability of the group, and the topic.

For me, at KS3, it's more about skills than knowledge, to an extent. E.g. can he write a hypothesis? Can he identify a variable? Can he identify a risk and explain how he'd avoid it? Can he calculate a mean average? Can he draw a results table, Can he draw a graph? And so on. (This is not an exhaustive list, just examples).

Ours are Y10 and Y6, but in both cases their science material includes printed handouts which can be annotated and highlighted during a lesson, as well as worksheets (including space for diagrams and writing up experiments in a structured way, guided by questions). The annotated handouts and completed and marked worksheets are then glued into their exercise books to form notes. Any points which their teachers think they have missed are then written in so that the notes are as complete and reliable as possible. They both (somewhat to my surprise!) seem to maintain neat and tidy exercise books which are pretty easy to revise from.

Thank you both! This is very insightful. Looks like the teacher hasn’t the foggiest about the completeness of my child’s work.

We are overseas (but DD's science lessons are in English). They use textbooks and workbooks - Cambridge curriculum, "Lower Secondary Science." I'm really surprised your private school doesn't use textbooks. Perhaps you should get some for home use? I think it's helpful and confidence-inspiring to have proper assigned textbooks where everything is set out.

Has anyone (primary school, current school or you) gone through with him about note taking and got him to do some practice? It definitely does not come naturally to kids. I ended up doing a lot of practice with DD before she started secondary. I think note taking in a book with a pen or pencil is best - there is evidence that retention is better when you take notes the old fashioned way, and laptops are very distracting for kids. It might be a good idea to talk to the school about what he's actually doing in lessons.

It is some time since I had a y7, youngest is now y13, but both mine had processing & note taking issues.
I bought the KS3 science guide (and then later obviously the GCSE guide), used the random notes in exercise books to gauge topics / details covered, and then used the revision guides for revision.
Broadly speaking this was the best approach at GCSE - ignore school notes and use revision guides. Worked better for some subjects than others (Geog & History were challenging which is partly why they were dropped mid GCSE course (one by each DD))

My DD's school (state) has subject specialist teachers, so in all years there are separate lessons for biology, chemistry and physics. Teaching is a mixture of PowerPoints, work on Chrome books, printed sheets that they stick into their books. They're tested on their learning every two weeks in what are called 'interventions'. The year group is split into 3 streams, and set within the stream. All science classes in a stream are held at the same time, so children can move up or down sets without fuss.

I have a DD year 11 in a girls independent and a DS in year 8 in a mixed independent and I’ve been very surprised at the difference in approach to teaching science; DD has work all on laptop and it sounds as you describe, lots of ‘fill in the blanks’ and lots of copy and paste from a text book. DS has is work all in an exercise book and is as Postapocalypticcowgirl describes, lots of experiments, graphs, results, conclusions, very active learning. My daughter is finding it really hard to revise for GCSE from her notes , but I think my son could probably have a good stab and sitting his now, so I know which approach I think seems to work better for my kids !🤣

I’m not coming at this from a parent’s perspectives, but a teacher’s, and I agree with the PP’s comments about exercise books vs laptops. I just cannot see how a child could work effectively and efficiently in lessons using a computer rather than an exercise book. And copying and pasting from a textbook is ridiculous, that’s not a worthwhile learning activity at all! There’s nothing wrong with old fashioned pen (or pencil for lots of science) and paper, this thread has made me quite relieved to work in a comp, where the idea of a laptop for everyone is about as likely as a pony for every child. I didn’t even realise some schools were using laptops for everything, but it sounds awful.