Topics include:

• BTEC Level 1 Chemistry (periodic table and chemical change factors)
• BTEC Level 1 IT users
• Entry level biology topics
• Misc updated worksheets.

Please download and use these resources as you see fit.  Usual copyright terms apply.

I’ve always shared resources in the hope that I save someone else reinventing the wheel.  I’ve been impressed with the traffic that this has brought into my website with several hundred visitors each day, hopefully each file downloaded has saved somebody some work.  To improve availability of my resources I’ve arranged with the TES to host a copy of my resources on my profile there.  The only difference is that resources downloaded from the TES carry a small © message at the bottom of the page.

Regular visitors will have noticed that I have moved my resources onto this site from their previous home, which gave me the chance to sort through my resources and discard any that are out of date.  I also have more detailed download information which revealed some interesting trends:

Most people find out about my site through Google search (although many search by fiendishlyclever suggesting they’ve been before!)

• Most people arrive searching for BTEC Science resources
• BTEC Chemistry resources are the most downloaded resources on my site (by a wide margin)
• Literacy across the curriculum is a popular search term which is very encouraging
• Year 7 topics are more popular than year 8

Free of charge (one copy) to registered users and available on affordable subscriptions for schools.  Articles about science in real life situations, science research and experiments to try yourself.   Intended to be read by secondary students, catalyst is written in a way that is interesting and easy to read.  I’d recommend signing up with SEP and ordering the next copy when available.  The current issue has articles on DNA testing remains in mass graves from WWII, Cloud seeding, spectroscopy, ant intelligence and many more.

SEP Publications (Mixing colours)

SEP publications are free of charge to registered users of the website and give valuable information and ideas to science teachers.  The current issue appeared in my pigeon hole this week and focuses on mixing colours.  The information is clearly presented and useful (especially useful if you are reading about something outside your subject area), and there are valuable teaching ideas including practical ideas.  You can order issues of previous publications for a reasonable price and also put your name down to receive the next one free of charge.

Update: I received word today that the materials are moving to a new home at the National Stem Centre.  Register now for more info.  Resources and past issues continue to be available from Mindsets.

Collective memory

If you haven’t done one of these before you really should.  Students of all ages love them – and they are easy to prepare.  I choose a suitable image related to my topic (with text and images/diagrams) and I split the class into groups.  Each group has to recreate the diagram but they are only allowed to come and look at the image one at a time, and for a limited amount of time.  The competition between groups is an excellent motivator – and if you get the groups to plan how they are going to do the activity, and evaluate their practice at the end it makes a good thinking skills activity too!

Jigsaw

I’ve attached a jigsaw template to this post.  The premise is simple – find a suitable diagram and then overlay the jigsaw (MS Office tools are sufficient e.g. PowerPoint, Word, Publisher).  Print out the diagram and you have jigsaw lines over the top.  I’ve managed to cut out 5/6 at once or you could pass the image for a teaching assistant to cut out.  Again preparation time is minimal and it is a good way to get SEN students to think about an image – working very well for those with poor hand-eye coordination.

Link to black jigsaw (with transparency – for general printing)

Link to white jigsaw (with transparency- to overlay over photos etc)

This jigsaw was completed by one of my weakest students – he not only managed to complete the jigsaw (telling me about some of the things on it) but managed to glue it down himself too (pity he didn’t quite get the paper the right way around!).

As with the other modules, we’ve released our resources and assignments for others to use or adapt.  We’ve tried to link lessons together and put practical work in to our scheme to make it more interesting/motivating for students of all abilities but if  you have any suggestions or ideas for improving it further please take the time to let us know.  Remember that this scheme is an outline scheme written for our students, and you will/should have to personalise it to suit the needs of your students and departments.

This scheme hasn’t been trialled with students yet – it represents a work in progress.  If you use our scheme and you find any mistakes, please let us know so we can upload corrected versions for all to use.

(You can send me messages and files through the contact me form above).  Copyright information is available here.

Free plans for every lesson.  Yes, FREE PLANS FOR EVERY LESSON.  Whilst I can see that this could be a godsend for the busy teacher, I can’t help but feel that this is a bad move for the quality of science education as a whole.

When the QCA published schemes of work years ago, departments followed them for a variety of reasons.  Common reasons for following the centrally produced schemes included saving time, schemes safe from criticism from Ofsted, and having an inexperienced department.  Few schools followed them because they liked them.  Their main effect was to stifle creativity and push teachers towards delivering identical lessons regardless of area, school or setting.

My concern is that by publishing GCSE lesson plans examination companies are appealing to the same inexperienced, time pressed departments who want to play safe.  I worry that this will snuff out what little spark of creativity we have left in science education and mark a return in teaching centrally produced lesson plans (except this time they will be from the examination board rather than the QCA).

I hope that schools will take the opportunity to flick through the lesson plans and steal all the best bits for their own lessons, but will continue to embrace the opportunities for creative and individual teaching that our science education community badly needs.

I’d be interested to hear views from current science teachers, either for or against.  Please leave a comment below (no registration required) with your opinions.

One of the questions we need to answer before we look for a solution is who will be sharing?  Will it be Science ASTs as a group of Nottinghamshire employees, will it be the Science ASTs acting as a group of individuals or does the LA want a county wide solution?  I’m assuming for now that we will be sharing resources as a group of interested teachers with a common goal.

Fragmentation is common online and sharing resources/getting your message across can be extremely difficult.  I’ve not succeeded in getting more than 100 visitors a day to my blog, and 150 a day to my resources site.  Of those that do visit my site, many science teachers are looking for a quick fix – to download a resource that meets an immediate need.  They aren’t bothered in improving their practice – just in taking the easy road.  I’d rather they do this with decent resources than not, so I don’t really mind – but it does make it difficult to get your message across.

The options we are considering are listed below.

As a matter of interest I looked at where the visitors come from to find my blog.

I then looked at similar data for my resources site

My figures seem to suggest that good visibility on Google is more important than the high number of visitors coming to the TES site.  Perhaps we should consider this as we make our decision.

I’d be interested to hear from other people who share resources and ideas.  What method should the Nottinghamshire ASTs use to share their resources and advice?  What have you found that works?  What advice could you give us?

It is interesting to see that the book is quite different from the Edexcel one.  Note that I say different, not better.  How you rate the book will depend on for what you intend to use the book, and the teaching styles of the department.  The emphasis of the book is more of a teaching resource than a reference resource.  As a result there is less factual information and content in the book, but more ideas of assignments.  For those that are serious about the vocational aspect of BTEC, the book also links topics with appropriate science careers, and is probably worth keeping a single copy in the department for this reason alone.  I’d rate the quality of the assessment tasks more highly than Edexcel book (especially P1,M1,D1 of the core physics module! If you’ve got the Edexcel book you’ll know what I mean!)

As I said above, how useful this book is will depend on how you deliver BTEC within the department.  The Edexcel was more of a traditional text book matched to BTEC, almost with assessment material added as an afterthought.  The Hodder book feels much more like a teaching resources, and has more teaching sequences that you could use with students, or that students could follow independently.  Of course using the text book as the primary teaching method could mean significant investment in a resource that could be out of date as soon as the specifications change again.

Would I buy the book?  I think in my last review I made my dislike of text books obvious.  Whilst they are useful for cover lessons or occasional use, I can’t imagine a modern and forward thinking department using text books as the primary teaching method.  I’d recommend science departments to check out both of the BTEC books and buy a set that most suits the use to which they will be put (e.g. cover lessons)

I bought a copy of this text book having co-developed a scheme of work for the new BTEC specifications.  I was interested to see what the book looked like, and how it covered the BTEC assessment criteria.

The book provides a useful but not essential resource to support the teaching of BTEC Applied Science.  The book is printed in colour and the content is matched to the requirements of the course, giving it an advantage over generic text books.  Activities are matched to the content, but there tends to be very little in the way of activities apart from the assessment tasks.  The assessment materials don’t include scenarios or assignment briefs, but do provide a useful illustration of what level of work would be required for each of the assessment criteria.

Are they worth buying?  I’ve spent 15 years teaching without using text books, I passionately believe that there are many more engaging and stimulating ways to teach students than referring to text books.

I would however recommend having a copy of this on the shelf so that teachers can refer to it when they aren’t sure of the content, or when setting/marking assessments.   Teachers new to BTEC would benefit most from this resource and the security it brings.  It might also be worth having a class set of these to use for cover work, or for occasional use as a reference material.

One point I’ve not made is the unfair advantage that Pearson holds over other publishers as owner of Edexcel.  Is it right that the exam board also publishes text books and teaching materials to accompany the course? (Some might think that they already make quite enough money from getting teachers to do all their marking and work for them!)

Have a look at the samples available from Pearson and leave a comment telling me what you think of these materials.

As with the biology module, we’ve released our resources and assignments for others to use or adapt.  We’ve tried to link lessons together and put practical work in to our scheme to make it more interesting/motivating for students of all abilities but if  you have any suggestions or ideas for improving it further please take the time to let us know.

This scheme hasn’t been trialled with students yet – it represents a work in progress (more of a skeleton scheme that we hope individual teachers will adapt to personalise the leaning experience of their students).

If you use our scheme and you find any mistakes, please let us know so we can upload corrected versions for all to use.

(You can send me messages and files through the contact me form above)