Asking for your help
I’m asking for your help, dear reader.
I’ve been teaching physics for the past three years, and in those three years I’ve seen a new secondary school physics course come in and ruin physics. Ruin physics and the other sciences so badly that I have despaired for months.
A few weeks ago, I called the board with complaints about the course and they essentially told me they weren’t taking complaints and to write them a letter. This I’ve done, but I’ve put it online as an article: An Open Letter to the UK Department of Education and the AQA Board: A Physics Teacher Begs for His Subject Back.
I’m trying my best to build some momentum behind this issue, as all the official channels are refusing to acknowledge there is a problem. So, if you know any science teachers in the UK, would you forward the article to them? (Assuming you think they’d find it useful).
Also, I’ve put the article on Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. If you use those services, I would deeply appreciate you voting for it.
Thank you for your help,
-Wellington Grey
I’ve been teaching physics for the past three years, and in those three years I’ve seen a new secondary school physics course come in and ruin physics. Ruin physics and the other sciences so badly that I have despaired for months.
A few weeks ago, I called the board with complaints about the course and they essentially told me they weren’t taking complaints and to write them a letter. This I’ve done, but I’ve put it online as an article: An Open Letter to the UK Department of Education and the AQA Board: A Physics Teacher Begs for His Subject Back.
I’m trying my best to build some momentum behind this issue, as all the official channels are refusing to acknowledge there is a problem. So, if you know any science teachers in the UK, would you forward the article to them? (Assuming you think they’d find it useful).
Also, I’ve put the article on Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit. If you use those services, I would deeply appreciate you voting for it.
Thank you for your help,
-Wellington Grey
posted by Grey | 7:29:00 PM
346 Comments:
Wow, I had no idea GCSE physics had changed so much. What I enjoyed about the subject was the way everything was boiled down into simple calculations - 'this is the world, this is how it works' - and the inherent logic of it all (though for me that all fell apart at A-level). The examples you gave seem more like a fairly basic mix of English, biology and political/economic discussion, lots of abstracts that really don't fall under the physics umbrella.
It certainly doesn't seem to be any kind of basis for a life in physics, which is shocking for what should be one of the primary goals of a GCSE.
Here in America we've been watering down science for years, exchanging the factual and empirical for the experiential - "How does the Sodium and H20 reaction make you feel?" It's deplorable.
I think the course of events can be turned but only with vigilant exponents like yourself standing up for what they believe is right. I commend you for taking a stand and speaking out.
On Monday next I will sit my Leaving Certificate Physics exam (Irish exam whose closest UK equivalent would be A Level) and I'm shocked by the ambiguity of those questions, which seem to undermine the very meaning of the word 'Science'.
That digital/analogue question is an absurd display of stupidity. Both types of signal can be processed by any device designed to receive them. Many MP3 players contain FM tuners capable of receiving analogue signals (and accessories are available for iPods that do), though none I'm aware of are capable of receiving digital radio signals (if I'm not misunderstanding this use of 'digital' and 'analogue')
I'm supporting this as even though I'm not resident in the UK, I'm worried that the Irish system will in future emulate the UK one (as happens with so many things).
To see what a real Physics paper looks like, go here and select 'Exam Papers'; a year; Leaving Certificate; Physics. Then click on one of the papers with (EV) after it (unless you speak Irish). Marking Schemes are available from the 'Type' menu.
GCSE equivalent paper is Junior Certificate, but Physics isn't available at JC, just a general Science course.
You need to pull out of the government education system. They're wrecking it, but it's entirely predictable. Government is political. Everything they touch becomes a political football.
I suggest you get into private tutoring, where you can set the curriculum according to reason, not democracy.
Well, you're number one on reddit, at least.
"The person with the better evidence, not the better rhetoric or talking points, wins." I had a vision of Tony Blair smiling when I read this sentence. As long as you smile when you say it, it doesn't really matter what you say. As an American who gets my news from BBC online, I'm constantly hearing about how Britain is a world leader in the sciences. Apparently you've decayed to our level. My condolences, and welcome aboard the idiot train.
I took the trouble to read the whole AQA document. I didn't think it was possible to politicise the teaching of science, but they've done it. It's not just the Physics, the Chemistry and Biology also contain what can only be described as propaganda.
Furthermore, the standard of the non-politicised material is uniformly weak. I'm gobsmacked. I hope this gets picked up properly by the mainstream media and, for once, the government actually held to account. It's appalling that we're short-changing our children like this.
My mum marks Chemistry GCSEs from time to time. I remember once when checking her marks that a kid got a mark for answering "a football" when shown a diagram of the buckminsterfullerene allotrope and asked to identify it... she often had examples of other weird answers that had to be allowed because of the marking scheme. It really defies logic.
This sounds like a sociology course on science I took out of curiousity as an arts option. This is certainly not physics. Sadly though, it is not suprising that education is moving in this direction.
So the land of Newton has come to this. I read over the AQA specification. It is obviously written by a committee of the uninformed. It appears that students are learning about science, rather than learning science. I teach Physics in the US. My students are a year or two older, and I can assure you, we hit straight-up physics everyday. Plenty of equations and challenging math, but by the end of the year, they can tell you where the cannonball would land. So come on over to the US, we'd love to have....Oh wait, you do speak Spanish, don't you? That's the only way you'd get to stay.
Well, it could be worse. Here in the States some school boards try to prevent the teaching of evolution.
Wow, that's just disgusting. Not only are the students not learning anything, but the whole thing is counter-productive to their education.
I submitted the story to Slashdot... Let's see if anything comes of it.
Hard to believe they could take physics a class of all math, calculations and understanding the principles of movement and the world and turn it into a Social studies part class. Looks like some one is giving America a run for the worst education money can buy.
Thanks for the article. That is sad and disgusting. Where's the math? Where's the science? How could a country with such a rich and mighty history of science, discipline, and discovery devolve to such a low standard? Unbelievable!
I have been teaching chemistry and physics in Ontario for nigh on twenty years, and I too watch in anguish as my school hurtles headlong into mediocrity. I am too old and tired to keep up the King Canute act for very long. In a "professional development" session I was told by a local guru on student evaluation that if I had a student whose strength was creative writing, then he/she should be permitted the equally valid option of answering a question about acids and their conjugate bases in the form of a love poem. This same guru bragged that if she needs to know anything about math she asks her 12 year old daughter. The best way to conclude this jeremiad would be with a quote from Betrand Russel.
"No one would consent in our day to subject the medical men to the control of non-medical authorities as to how they should treat their patients... The teacher is a kind of medical man who cures the patient of childishness, but he is not allowed to decide for himself on the basis of experience what methods are most suitable to this end... The immense majority of educational institutions are hampered and controlled by men who do not understand the work with which they are interfering." It's true then and it's true today.
Wellington,
Thanks for this letter. I'm a physics teacher in the US, and although my state (New York) still has some fairly strong standards the national trend here is leading students away from physics as an art and towards physics as recipes.
In a nation (and I believe to a lesser extent, world) that tries to give students self-esteem without achievement, a "difficult" subject like physics is being neutered so that the layman can understand it.
The particular difficulty that some of us is having is breadth of material at the expense of depth. Blind application of formulas is being stressed over physical intuition and problem analysis. While certainly, the situation in New York State isn't in the same league as your GCSE course, it will eventually lead to the same place: a course that leads students towards mediocrity and tenuous understanding of basic concepts (if any understanding at all), rather than a course that enlightens most students but is inappropriate for lesser-prepared students.
I'm going to have some kind of blog post in the next day or two linking to this letter. I'll post back here once I've made my remarks.
Thanks again.
A quibble: in the section "The Political," I didn't understand the relationship between the first two paragraphs and the third.
Otherwise, a great piece.
Sad to hear. I did the equivalent level of physics in Melbourne, Australia about 9 years ago, and it wasn't like that. It was all about measuring, heating and cooling, sound waves, kinetics - it was great. Some of the most useful stuff I've ever learnt. Whenever I'm making coffee, drying clothes, cooling beer, moving furniture etc, I'm directly applying useful knowledge I learnt. Newton's law of cooling - could anything be more useful?
I don't understand how the political and/or English comprehension questions could pass as physics. In fact I don't understand why any physics exam question would begin "Consider the following newspaper report." unless it was asking the student to evaluate some claims made by using physics.
Best of luck in your challenge.
Steve
alfred kaethler, while its nice to believe that no one subject medical men to the control of non-medical authorities, it's increasingly becoming less true, at least in the US. More and more often medical students and doctors are being forced to learn about and respect 'alternative' methods which have absolutely no proof behind them other than the feelings of those administering them. It's not widespread yet, but it's becoming more and more so.
Of course, if we can't even keep this kind of stuff out of medicine, which has an immediate effect on the health of the people, it doesn't really give you a good outlook for the future of education, does it?
Your now in BoingBoing
While, I acknowledge that this comment will most likely disappear into the aether (Michelson would've been proud :) I have to ask, almost dumb-founded (as is my normal reaction to the British governments lack of common-sense in so many things), WHO is writing the exams? WHY is the scientific community excluded on such an important topic as education? WHY does the government get it wrong in so many arenas?
I question the individuals in the middle-management roles. Those who decide the detailed policies that govern this country. We know there are grand schemes that sound like they have a good heart, and we know there are individuals on the ground (such as your good self) that WANT to do things right - but somewhere along the line political correctness (fear of alienating those that "can't do it"), apathy and darn right plain old ignorance get in the way. People who think it's okay that no one excels, rather than giving everyone the BEST they can.
In the west, it's an unconscious disease. A deplorable unintentional conspiracy (i.e. one that no one has consciously concocted, but nevertheless pervades our civilisations). I would dearly love to see the tide turn.
I'm 25 and studied physics at university. My GCSE and A-Level teachers inspired me.
Having read the open letter it appears to me that what you now have to teach was a large part of what I was taught in my GCSE geography. I dread to think what's become of the geography syllabus!
Just another observation - when I was a physics teacher in London I found that the strong calculation element enabled children whose first language was not English to excel. Many of these went on to study physics at A level and to physics related degrees. This included many whose families had been given refugee status. Removing the element of precision will harm such children's educational and career aspirations as well as my old school's league table standing that were regularly buoyed by their results.
This is genuinely astounding. I last did school physics in the late '80s in Australia and what you describe bears no resemblance whatsoever. If I'd had that course at school I sincerely dread to think of my reaction to physics at university...the term shock and awe might have been appropriate.
Is Mathematics any better? "Under which circumstances could 2+2 equal 5? Discuss with reference to modern political science."
I think the process has been more gradual than you make it seem - some of those awful questions seem familiar from my 1998 Dual Award Science GCSE (though there weren't as far as I recall any that were as plain wrong as the 'digital signal' one). But generally I agree totally with you. I've only recently come back to science, via popular science reading and then an OU course (You can find the course materials on the OpenLearn site, course S103 - it was introductory, so taking you from nothing to more complex science, but there was real science in it).
For a number of years now I've had the feeling that education of all subjects has been dumbed down. This just confirms it. Whilst a part of me wants to go and sit a dozen exams just to see how many I can pass cold, the part of me which sat exams in the early 80's is shocked and horrified by what I've just read.
Whatever happened to learning formulas and performing experiments which proved principles?
As I said, science is being dumbed down (and probably every other subject too), in favour of spin and rhetoric. More and more employers are finding school-leavers lack basic numeracy skills. Whilst working in a cinema, I had two kids buy popcorn from me. They were both about ten years old. When I told them the total price was £1.60 they shuffled their change nervously, exchanged glances, then asked me "How much is that each?".
Whilst we might find it deplorable, the real damage will be when that generation matures to become the teachers of tomorrow. How can they then teach a subject they have no real knowledge of. It's quite frighteneing to think about really.
Dear Wellington,
One thing you can do to inspire your students is to introduce them to Richard Feynman's work (obviously not diving straight into the QED stuff) and get them to read "Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman!".
Come to think of it, his books/lectures should really be essential reading if one is serious about doing physics.
Best regards,
Ricky
see http://photo2text.com/
Dear Wellington,
I just wanted to write and say I totally agree with what you have to say about the situation.
I hope the right people take notice of your plea and do make a change, for the better.
This kind of perversion of education is really depressing to me, and I worry a lot about future children I may have and what they will have to grow up with.
Thank you for standing up against this kind of noneducational rubbish.
Regards,
Anon
I remember seeing a comparison of a UK v Chinese physics exam for students in the same year. The UK one was hopelessly easy and the Chinese one looked impossible. It doesn't bode well for the future of the UK if you keep dumbing down your curriculum so that politicians look good and students feel good about themselves without having to work very hard.
I wish you the best of luck.
I did GCSE physics 9 years ago, it was nothing like that. They look like geography questions.
I am 51, female and first encountered Physics at the age of 12 in an English grammar school. It became the love of my life and the memories of that first lesson on observing a candle still fill me with wonder. I now teach Physics in Australia at university and seeing my students work with the physics problems, come to grips with the concepts and walk out of exams with a smile on their face in the knowledge that they understand the subject makes me happy. But even here Outcomes Based Assessment in high schools may undermine this. The high school teachers are fighting against it but the problem is the policy makers were all the ones who couldn't see the magic in Physics when they were at school. Don't give up, even if you have to move to another system.
This is crazy. As a child I loved physics. When answering questions you were either right or wrong. I fail to see how structuring the exams in this way is better for the pupils.
You should contact the media, for example the BBC for the Today programme and The Learning Curve, on Radio 4, in fact any of the news programmes - Also Channel 4 News. You might be interviewed and this would start a debate.
You should write to your MP, and you could also start a petition on No 10 website
Good luck with this. I still have my daughter's O level papers and the standard was much higher then.
excellent article. But you should definitely spellcheck it one more time.
Mr Grey,
Thank you for a very well written piece that eloquently highlights not just what's wrong with science these days, but what's wrong with the state of education in the UK.
I took my Physics GCSE 3 years ago, just before the new syllabus came into effect. Like most GCSEs it wasn't too difficult as they were based around learning facts, rather than understanding concepts. If you did actually understand the concepts behind the work, it was child's play.
I am quite frankly shocked that the bar has been lowered further. I suppose the only thing I can take some comfort in, is that at University level, whilst they are now having to spend time bringing people up to speed, the overall standard doesn't appear to have dropped, yet at least.
Your article made me nostalgic for the physics lessons I had at school and miserable to think that children today, perhaps my children in the future, will be denied the pleasure of finding things out and instead be fed a diet of ambiguity and political correctness. I hope people start to take notice of this issue and wish you the best of luck!
Having not long ago finished an AQA board Physics A-Level I find what your saying amazing.
It wasn't until I left school I realised what a shambles the specification made of the subject. Now the government is using the subject as a brain washing tool to push their global warming ideas upon impressionable young minds.
To gain a qualification in Physics and not have to calculate a single thing is laughable.
Health and safety ruined science in schools long before I took my GCSEs. This just goes that extra step in killing the subject.
Keep fighting Mr Grey.
Apparently it's not just your website that rock, it's you too. Well done, I hope they pay attention.
This letter has already made the rounds on university email lists and at others. You have made waves!
I sat the OCR As level physics paper about 3 hours ago, the general conclusion was that it was:
a) Too easy, and so therefore there is no way of defining people who can think, from those who can simply eat the textbook.
b) Contained very little Phyiscs, we had some basic Physics, but the examiners seemed to love getting you to write miles of english.
As one of my friends asked our teacher upon looking at a practice paper: "Sir, I signed up to do Physics, when will the course start?"
I completely agree. You aren't alone my a-level physics teachers are always complaining about how the course has strayed away from real science. I honestly can't believe how some of these questions made it into the exam...
Good luck with your complaint. I hope something gets done.
Good luck with your cause. Hope they make the necessary changes! I had always thought that teaching physics might end up a possibility if jobs became sparse but now reconsidering that option!
Jimbo
Have you considered moving to Scotland? The standard grade and higher syllabus still teach actual physics. You would be appreciated up here.
This might be overly naive, not working in education- but can't you just petition the school, your employer, to change exam boards? If no-one used the AQA exam, then they'd have to change it, wouldn't they? Surely the physics teacher has some say on what examn is taken? Or am I being simplistic?
I'll agree with anonymous. I've done the Edexcel separate sciences physics GCSE (I'm taking my exams this month), and it's been quite good, with us having to learn two pages of formulae, and many of the questions about calculation. There is the odd question about "how did these scientists communicate their discoveries to others", and other such rubbish, but on the whole, the Edexcel syllabus seems to be physics. You may want to persuade your school to change to it, and then explain to AQA why you did so.
I'm an American myself, but I think that what they are doing is horrible.
I will help you in any way I can and I will stand behind you all the way. Way to stand up for the common good!
I agree 100% with you, having completed Alevel physics last summer with Edexcel whose course always got sidetracked. My teacher hated it too.
I'm sure the government would love to replace real subjects like Physics with Citizenship and other rubbish that noone learns from
Computers don't process analogue signals (apart from Analogue computers), they processed digitised versions of same ;-)
When I did Physics O Level it seemed to be about things like Ohm's Law, Specific Heat, Refracting light and all those sort of things.
From the sounds of it they don't do any of that sort of stuff any more ? Am I right ?
It *sounds* like a waffly social science version of Physics.
Still, at least you only have to teach it. Can't imagine how dull it must be to be taught it !
Dreadful.
How exactly is this nonsense supposed to prepare students for the of a university degree? When performance targets become the measure of eduction rather than learning this is what happens.
I have an O and A level (earned in the 80s) and to be honest found the transition to my University Electronic Engineering degree a tough enough jump then. But at least I understood a) Some actual physics and b) scientific method - neither of which, by the sound of it, is taught anymore.
Tony Blair is a war criminal and now, a child abuser - as he denies children a proper education.
Three words: Education, education, schmeducation.
I'm so old I took O Level Physics, but ... yuck! :-(
I'm going to home educate my daughter BUT at some point she's probably going to want to take some exams. Unless there are serious changes for the better maybe I'd better have her skip GCSE physics and go straight to A-levels (if it still exists by then).
Hmm, my daughter is only 3 but I guess I'd better buy up some old GCSE science text books now, before they become collectors items.
BTW, is this the only board doing GCSE physics and if not, are the others any better?
Speaking as a post-graduate physicist I fully support you.
Sir Isaac will be turning in his grave.
That said, when I took A-level Physics in 2001 I think everything was taught from the ground up and although it relies a lot on equation recollection I thought it was very thorough and quantative. I hope that has not changed too...
Whatever happened to Ohms, Watts and other fun physics experiements with electricity and low grade radioactive substances? I used to enjoy that. Oh what fun we had with a Van de Graff generator!
How utterly dissapointing, I took physics GCSE / Alevel a couple of years ago, and it was by far my favourite subject. Most of that was due to being inspired by my teacher as many others have pointed out in here. The subject then was mainly calculations, though they did squeeze a fair amount of so-called political questions which I always hated. If I wanted to write, or debate I would have taken English or hell even politics.
Unfortunately I think I may be making the same mistake you did, I've moved into finance / management for my degree and it just doesn't entertain or challenge me the way Physics and science did.
After all, the economic success of this country of recent is largely down to the technological breakthroughs made around the world which were conceptually developed by scientists, something I would much rather be involved with than simply marketing and moving money around.
So - please keep pushing this, I see you have 2200 diggs, thats a huge audience from one site alone and I would not be suprised if you could get an interview from some media sort, if not the BBC as someone above mentioned.
Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
I heard Richard Feynman turn in his grave...
This is absolutely appalling.
You should not leave teaching. You should not give in. You should instead find a different textbook and teach science.
If the AOA, or whomever is going to throw a hissyfit over it complains, tell them that you are a physics teacher and that kindergarten was some time ago.
NEVER give up on physics is it a FANTASTIC subject and it will always be a challenge to learn for most people. That does not mean it should be dumbed down at all, it should be an incentive for people to increase their efforts to understand this subject.
Science is not about politics. Science can be quantified and defined in real, understandable terms.
Don't let the politicians rob us of science.
That's not a good sign. I studied under the Indian system of CBSE, which, I would haphazard a guess, is modelled after the imperial British education system. It may not be practical, it may not prepare me for non-theoretical physics, but it taught me all the theory I needed to know for my engineering degeree. I never had to take a physics class while in university, and I did my bachelor's in the U.S. CBSE Physics was theory and maths intensive, but it served the purpose of making you understand the subject.
Perhaps it is time GCSE went back to its roots?
You are correct. However I do not agree with some of the comments in a singular aspect. People associate that these are political or english questions. This confusion is not only inexact but seems to be the essential problem here. What seems to being put forth is uneducated thought rather than just the wrong focus on the subject matter. To state that this is confusion of politics with physics is inexact, since even to a political scientist and an american lawyer these seem like absurdly idiotic questions which do not teach analytical thought or logic irrespective to the subject matter they are supposedly brought to bear on.
Perhaps it is the uneducating of young minds which is sought, where people do not think critically. Considering people's opinions of what constitutes political science as compared to reality, I would hate to think that physics is suffering the same ignoble fate.
I live in the Caribbean, and we follow the Commonwealth system. I'm to take A-level physics next year, and I confess I'm also frustrated with the way a mathematically rigorous course like physics is being dumbed down so that it appears more balanced.
Physics isn't supposed to be easy, nor is it supposed to be "balanced out" by silly qualitative debates that skirt the real meaning of physics as an experimental science.
Yes, it's important to be aware of world affairs, especially as they relate to energy consumption and so forth. But these discussions are NOT what physics is. To say so is a disservice to capable students, teachers, and scientists who appreciate the rigor of the science.
Wow....I'm a 3rd Year University student in Physics and frankly, that is disgusting. None of that is remotely close to the study of physics. It's social science. Even if they wanted to change the course material to take out most of the math, at least change it to include the concepts of science, like explaining WHY Global warming is effecting us (which is actually more earth science then Physics), or how radiation from the sun reacts with skin, which could lead into talking about the electromagnetic spectrum.
I don't know much about the English teaching System but doesn't the student pick the courses they take their exams in for the purpose of maybe seeking further study in them?
No student taking that Physics course would want to continue in it. And they did, it would be a complete blow to them in university when they had to use simple physics functions like derivates. Or even to know basic concepts.
I really hope your article takes off, and someone changes that system before it's too late.
I too have concerns about tha lack of detailed Physics in The AQA core science. Things do get better in the additional and separate science course. Try the multiple-guess exam it at least gives students some idea of what the possible answers are.
If you think the Physis GCSE is bad have a look at AQA Evironmental science AS. We gave the unit one paper to our GCSE Physics students today (year 9) and they would have achieved a grade C/D in the AS paper. Many of the questions cover work in the AQA core science Physics.
If it is any comfort the OCR 21St Century Science GCSE is just as bad. I teach a Year 10 top set, and they can see through all the bunkum about Global Warming, Social issues to do with Science, etc. They ike me burst out with laughter at a question (admitedly in a Foundation level test), which asked students to label the part of a microwave oven which controls how long the oven is on for!
The EM Spectrum is now known as the 'Space Rainbow' (Jesus Christ!)
There is very little opportunity for practical work, and this is something my students are beginning to resent.
Part of this is due to a MASSIVE failure on the goverment's part to make Physics teching an attractive career, if you have a GCSE with next to no Physics content in it then any idiot can teach it.
We are going to create a generation of Physicists and Engineers who won't know what Ohm's Law is, but will know how it makes them feel!
As 'The Gumby's' on Monty Python used to say, well shout really, "My Brain hurts!"
i just glad i did my gcse physics in 2006 before this happened.
turns out i am doing it for as aswel and did my exam today...
but hasnt physics changed loads already?
this old man who used to do said about 30 od years ago ther was no computer stuff with binary and ther was far more maths... he was really puzzled i did physics but not maths you see..
Yet another example of the sheer incompetence and irresponsibility of this government. It really does prove the saying that there is nothing so dire that government action cannot make it worse.
Old Codger
See "The Graves of Academe" R Mitchell
See also "The Conspiracy of Ignorance" M L Gross
Many saw this coming long ago.
The Government has little to gain by producing a wise/knowledgable population. They'd rather fill us with "Right Emotions" and "Right Thoughts" so they can get away with anything they wish.
We are the Remnant of Reason in Unreasonable Times.
Don't Give Up, Don't Stop Fighting.
-Just Jason
I am stunned that this dross passes for science...
I don't mean to be a grammar nazi, but since your article/letter is good and important, I would recommend reading it again to solve some of the spelling and grammar errors. These things detract from the impact of the writing, at least to some of us. It is unfortunate, but true.
There are a couple, or maybe 3 errors before this one, but didn't write them down as I was reading. At the end there is however:
"The rigorous of physics been torn down..."
Shouldn't it be "The rigors of physics have been..."?
Again, good stuff. I took the IGCSEs myself in 1999 and I thought the mix of mathematical/physical rigor combined with the common sense of supplying the formulas (so we could focus on learning and not memorizing) was great in making the subject interesting while still being challenging and stimulating.
I hope somebody up top listens to you. Good luck.
Although the iGCSE is not ideal, it is MUCH better. There are many problems which have driven us to this over the last few decades. The solutions are actually very easy (for GCSE and A-Level) but the problem is that it would mean a reasonably large number of U-turns and no government is going to do this - so it will not happen. The changes are now being fed through to A-Level with somewhere (depending on who you believe) between 40-60% of content being removed from the specs!! It was clear this would happen because the feedback to teachers who were concerned about students who would take the GCSEs and then want to do A-Levels was "don't worry, the new A-Level specs are based on the students doing the new GCSE specs".
I was told by an OCR representative to not worry about the reduced content in the GCSE specs - under the new specs, more of my students would get higher grades!
With the present 'lot' looking after the subject, there is unfortunately, very little hope- which is a great shame for all the hard working physics teachers out there but also, and more importantly, for the many young people who could be physicists but will probably never see the true beauty of the subject.
I did my GCSE about 5 years ago with the NEAB/AQA exam board. It touched on renewable energy etc. but it was still mostly problem solving, equations etc. in the Physics bits of it. I had a look at a revision book for the OCR 21st Century Science GCSE my younger brother is taking this year and was shocked at how everything practically is related to global warming in some way. I'd hate to jump on the 'Exams are getting easier' bandwagon, but I do feel that the Physics taught at the moment just isn't Physics and appear to be frustrating both teachers and pupils alike.
I'm a former physics teacher. My suggestion: go do something productive with your life. Students will have to wait to university for their first exposure to real physics.
Hi, since my (UK) Physics PhD I've spent 10 years working in computer graphics but was recently thinking it might be nice to return to physics to teach. Unfortunately your letter confirms some of my fears about the current state of the GCSE syllabus and I doubt if I will go ahead.
In particular, the over emphasis on the politics of global warming or misplaced fears about microwave radiation is telling. For example, in the latter case, it would be fun to consider the photon energies of microwaves to illustrate why they are considered safe but I fear such a treatment might be considered off-message?
Also, I would expect that digital radio question to appear in a Computer Science exam not a physics question. Physics should have questions about the carrier wave modulation!
I thought your letter was excellent and it was good to hear someone voice such opinions from a position of authority and experience. I really, hope someone takes note.
[As an aside, I have recently been tutoring A'level maths and was astonished that complex numbers weren't included in the syllabus. I can't imagine having to start a Physics degree without knowing a little about complex numbers!]
You have a typo in your last paragraph:
"The rigorous of physics been torn down and replaced with impotent science media studies."
I think you meant "rigors" rather than "rigorous".
Great letter too-- it's dismaying to hear what is being taught these days.
I decided to go into teaching and am just about to finish my PGCE.
I've been teaching OCR's 21st C science for the last 6 months and I've hated it since day one. P2 and 3 have little oppertunity for practical work and tend to be more along the lines of "lets sit down and have a chat about xxxxx" instead of learning PHYSICS.
A biologist in background I'm far from happy about the biology units either:(
Oh and I discoved when taking a group of year 10's that they hadn't been taught the structure of an atom yet. This is after a year of so called chemistry.
The sad thing is that due to the low pay of science based jobs in this country, I'm suck teaching something that makes my blood boil.
Well I get to try AQA next year at my new school. I can't wait to dump OCR.
oh and we have the new dumbed down A-levels comming soon!
The whole wireless phone thing should be instantly recognized as nonsense by anyone in the correct field of physics; microwave radiation is wave radition, not particle. Wave/particle debates aside (photons may simply be virtual particles, for example), there is no question that the thing normally considered "bad radiation", that causes cancer and such, CANNOT be coming from a microwave transmitter. Not even a powerful one, which wireless phones are not.
One of the junk science aspects of that test, as this implies, is that they treat as fact things that have not been proven fact by hard science. This is an ironic reversal of the still-correct complaint that they are not being taught to recognize when science is valid...they are, conversely, being shown unproven science as though it were fact.
I am appalled that, a lifetime after the defeat of Nazism, politics and superstition should have again displaced science in the curriculum of a once-civilised nation.
Alan Calverd
I have felt for some time that I get insufficient credit for my 1973 vintage O levels. Judging by the sample questions from the GCSE paper my O levels must be almost degree level!
Like many people who are no longer directly involved in education I had assumed that the "hard" subjects were more or less safe from dumbing down as they deal solely with matters of fact. It comes as something of a shock to realise that this assumption is so far from the truth.
One can only hope that your protest gains sufficient publicity to force at least some comment from the politicians although expecting action is of course ridiculous.
I did not enjoy science at school (GCSE: 1989-94). Due to boredom I switched off during most of my time at school. I was lucky though, I lived in a house full of books and was able to learn at home. I came out alright (very well, actually), despite the expectations of my teachers.
With GCSEs dropping to even greater depths I feel for others like myself who don't feel stretched or inspired by education. Not everyone has the resources (or inclination) to learn out of school.
How many potential scientists will we lose through this dumbing down?
Meantime, in the developing nations kids are being taught proper science.
You don't need a crystal ball to see where the western world is heading.
I work as a lab technician in a school in east London. We started teaching the new AQA 'science' course this year. I've complained about it having very little science in it. It seems to be teaching about science instead of science. Complaints fall on deaf ears in our department. You're treated as some sort of reactionary if you even mention it. To suggest that the Royal Society and the Institutes of Biology, Chemistry and Physics are unhappy with it (which they are) is to get the response that they simply haven't looked at the syllabus properly. I find it amazing that the teachers, especially the younger ones, have gone along with this nonsense masquerading as science.
I am currently taking a GCSE and I personally think the system is ridiculous. Apart from half my class receiving an A* with a horrifically low 60% threshold, I too thought that the How Science Works would be an interesting addition.
Recently, we did a mock exam involving the melanin question which my teacher was tempted to discard for utter stupidity.
Our Biology teacher is also constantly laughing at the moronic and pedantic meanings of the vocabulary and picking the indistinct differences in meaning.
I took my O and A-Level Physics exams in the 70's.
Its just terribly sad that the sciences and mathematics in schools are now so dumbed down. All because our professional politicians want to claim the pass-rate is ever climbing. Why can't these parasites (who have never actually had a real job in their lives) get off our backs.
Earlier in the year in one of the newspapers there was a comparison between Chinese and UK mathematics exams. The Chinese was many orders of magnitude more difficult than the UK one. But I daresay it was a damned sight more useful to pass the Chinese one.
The UK has been very badly served by its government of both parties over the last 25 years. They seem to be hell-bent on making us into a third-world country. God help my children and grand-children when they try to compete for jobs against China or India
Come teach in Australia. I graduated my final year in 2006, taking Physics. It was easily the most interesting subject I studied, because it gave us bona-fide real world contexts in which to carry out calculations. While theory was a large part of our syllabus, it laid out specific areas to familiarise ourselves with, like "Describe qualitatively the motion of a projectile in a
uniform gravitational field.", with a semi-standardised definition in our text- and study-books. Calculations take up the bulk of the course though. One problem that gave me immense satisfaction in completing was a system in which a transparent cube was suspended in a liquid who's refractive index was relative to temperature. We had to calculate the temperature of the liquid required for a ray of fixed angle to hit a target after passing in and out of the cube, given the angle of the ray, the RI of the cube and a formula for the RI with respect to temperature for the liquid. Best question ever. Then you have dark people and skin cancer...
In summary, Australian education system for the win, Brittish for the lose. I hope you find a way to continue doing what you love without compromising your values.
I consider myself incredibly lucky to be in the last year to do a proper GCSE physics exam. Ive done Dual Award Science which meant I've done a little bit of each subject and none of it in great depth, but it's been alright and actually been proper science.
I'm in y11 and am in the middle of taking my GCSEs, next year's y11 will be doing the new syllabus which is the political rubbish described in the letter. I pity them.
Personally, I'm more into maths, at least they can't politicise pythagoras' theorum.
I have fowarded your letter to The Register. I hope you don't mind
It will never change back to the way it was. Simply due to the fact that no government will take the hit for the dramatic fall in results that would ensue. Every year we trumpet how many more people get A* to C at GCSE and passes at A level, but that's hardly surprising considering the ridiculous content of the courses.
Dear Mr. Wellington Grey,
I cannot agree with your frustration more. In the United States, I was taught physics, as a pure empirical science, and still use the lessons every day in my normal daily life. We have decided to remove our children from the government school system, and home school them with a dedicated syllabus.
We get no benefit from the government for doing so, however, we do know that our children's future will be bright, as we're providing them with something their peers will not have, an Intellect.
I applaud your efforts, and hope that not only the UK education system takes notice, but also that those of the rest of the world who are destroying the education standards.
Dear Wellington,
I now teach Physics at a private international school in Italy after teaching GCSE and A level then AS and A2 Physics in England for 10 years. The decrease in real physics into what you have explained, so well from your observations, is almost criminal!
I would like to suggest that you encourage schools in England to sign up to the IB and abandon GCSE. At GCSE level, we now teach the MYP (middle years prog) in which we write the course and justify our reasons for it all when we send off our samples. It's not perfect but it does allow proper physics to be tried and tested in preparation for IB diploma physics. The IB diploma Physics is very similar to the physics I first taught in England over 10 years ago.
Good luck with it all. I will be keeping a check on your progress with all of this.
Follow the logic ->
Cancer is bad -> White people get more Cancer -> whites are therefore inferior.
Debate everything -> authority succumbs to populism -> Creationism "science" becomes valid -> Islamization of Britain rises
Turn-off students to science with obviously bogus test AND/OR don't permit them to learn properly -> a generation of White children falls behind the third-world -> historical economic advantage of White people successsfully broken!
That article made my blood run cold. I have just completed the first module of an Open University science course and, in researching some of the work, I happened upon the BBC's Bitesize AS-level revision site. It appears that for AS-level biology, you no longer need to know anything about photosynthesis.
Any computing people should also check out the GCSE Computing syllabus and requirements, which includes a sizeable module on copyright and gems like:
"Pupils should know that some software cannot be copied."
...which isn't strictly the case. It can all be *copied*, just not always *legally*.
The exam in question was for the CORE GCSE content, P1, so did not examine Additional Science (P2) nor the 'extra' P3 paper for those taking separate GCSE Physics. So the exam about which you complain is designed to be done by all students - not just those wanting to do full GCSE Physics. So you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I'll help you make a mountain if the P2 paper is as weak, however!
I have taught the material in question and did not stick to the specification - who the hell does?!
I would suggest that you read some of it again, actually. e.g. "Different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation have different effects on living cells. Some radiations mostly pass through soft tissue without being absorbed, some produce heat, some may cause cancerous changes and some may kill cells. These effects depend on the type of radiation and the size of the dose."
That implies, to me, that I should teach about the effect of UV on skin. Which I did. Why didn't you?!
When I went into teaching, over 30 years ago, it was as a geology teacher. Having read Limits to Growth while a geology undergraduate, I realised that working for a mining or oil company would not help humanity but I thought geology was something it would be good if more folk knew about. Then the education system decided that geology was not a subject worth teaching. After dallying about with geography, which turned out to be utterly unscientific and remarkably similar to what we read from Wellington Grey's description of the 'new physics' I moved to maths. I thought that logic and truth would at least be at the core of that subject. Wrong again. Now I do woodwork. Low energy, sustainable maunfacturing and my customers say 'Thank you'.
Change like the educational one you and our children are suffering from is symptomatic of the need to meddle. The Education department's managers must do something to justify their salaries, so they change stuff. Such changes can impact well beyond the scope of their jobs - particularly in the way that they have a residual effect over time. Quick market forces tend to right any wrongs in changes we make in the private sector, but in government, it takes much much longer.
I'm no Luddite, nor do I only want evolution and not revolution, but I just wish there were sufficient guards against meddling gone wrong (such as you have described) in areas where the impact is so far reaching.
Who has the right to change what physics is? Why the managers of 2007?
Mr Grey, I'm emailing you with responses from a professor of geology & a physics teacher, both in the US. Thsy have specific suggestions.
That's utterly ridiculous.
I'm a student in Australia, having just acquired my high school certificate and entered university. I knew already that education was going down the dumbed-down and politically correct path, but I had no idea it had come to that.
My study of physics certainly had a significant mathematical component. An earlier commenter noted that it's about too much breadth and not enough depth, leading to not understanding the true physical concepts. This was definitely the case in my course, the difficulty in understanding concepts aided by my teacher being unskilled at both physics and teaching.
We get told how we can use Kepler's and Newton's laws, but no one is made to wonder why a π^2 appears in a formula.
One of the the ten criteria only is based on real world applications of physics, which works out to one fifth of the exam, and two fifteenths of the overall course mark. I think that this section is important so that students can see how the physical concepts apply to the real world. This is especially because the answers need to be backed up by physical concepts, which are clearly specified in the course outline.
As for the cause of this madness, I think the people who define the curricula are running away from the scary old days of difficult exams, significant amounts of rote learning and an assessment régime that would result in a certain proportion of students failing in a grade, no matter how good they all were.
Sure, we have made progress in education, but now we see the ability to learn anything sacrificed for the sake of what some mistakenly believe is improvement.
I am an American. I have seen politics ruin our education system, but I had hoped that the insanity hadn't spread to other countries in the western world. I think it is horrible how those in power are so desperate to leave a legacy that they will strive, with all they possess, to rewrite the rules upon which our society is based.
It is time we said something… The education systems of the world are NOT there for politicians to leave their mark on the world, but rather to give our children a chance to leave their own marks.
Science does not advance without well trained scientists. If we are no longer teaching kids what science is; no longer sparking the curiosity inside of them.
Sadly I find myself not at all surprised to read this. As a former lecturer (I got fed up with short-term contracts and dumbing-down) in Electronics at a red-brick University, I've seen this coming for years.
I had no idea the curriculum had becme so bad. 15 years ago it concentrated on Physics, and we had to be able to quantify our answers. We spent a lot of time understanding units, dimensions, basic mechanics and many other basic issues. I loved it. I do research in astronomy, but don't teach - I am beginning to understand my colleagues despair at each new intake of undergraduate students. They won't have much time at A-level to pick up basic physics, let alone more complex topics
Keep fighting the good fight. We support you.
I sat a Physics AS (edexcel) paper on Friday, and had to learn what several people here have said: pages of formulae and relationships between them, as well as being able to analyse the nature of the question.
It seems absurd that anyone can think that physics should be dumbed down, let alone have anyone do it.
Of course, the serious problem here is with the students that this will produce. Those who do well at the exam will find either A-level or University physics to be entirely different, and those who would have talent at 'proper' physics would be put off.
Hopefully this frankly disturbing trend can be put right before science is destroyed in the UK.
I didn;t really enjoy the calculation side of pysics when i was doing it at A level (i'm a biology person) but i did enjoy the subject. I don't know how you can even debate the subject if yo udon't know the principles.
I will be a medical Dr next year and it like me trying to tell a patient why they should have a certain treatment based on "feeling" rather than explaining how it works and why its the best option.
I wish we had more teachers like yourself, my friends are all leaving the profession unles they get jobs in private schools.
Think about it, you have have objections to private schools but even all those years ago when i was there the subjects seemed to have more rigour.
hi
I read with growing alarm your comments about what is happening to Physics. No wonder you are not happy. As you rightly quote, Physics is/was a science where students were able to show by experiment an exact answer to fit with their teaching.
Is it any wonder, assuming Chemistry and Mathematics along with the English language, all being 'dumbed down' or whatever phrase is approropriate, that more and more youngsters leaving scool, and those trying to enter Uni are not sufficiently able enough in them to pass a Uni entry exam or satisfy an emplyer that they can read and write legibly and cohently. That is aside from understanding mattematics.
heaven help this country over the next few decades.
John Holmes
ex senior weather forecaster.
You seems to be under the impression that your task as a physics teacher is to teach children about physics. But your task is no such thing. You are where you are for one thing, and one thing only; to make our children obedient to the central government and as impressionable as possible to their rethoric. If you can't see this after this experience, then you will never understand.
ah, so the dumbing down of america has crossed the atlantic...welcome to the epidemic...
I wholeheartedly sympathise with your problems and see the knock on effects in my school growing year on year (I teach in a Sixth Form College in which Physics is essentially a compulsory subject).
I am very worried about how these students who have not really been taught any Physics will cope when they reach A level and beyond - already many who have been brought up on a diet of modularised dual award science often pass into our hands with precious little Physics knowledge and skills base to speak of.
I used to think that the lack of a calculus approach within the A level was hampering our subject and leading to deterioration but this new twisting of what is meant by Physics is even more worrying.
You are right to fight this nonsense, and I only hope that somebody out there with the political clout to effect some action may take up this cause.
Without any action we may be facing the end of the truly physics-literate student at GCSE, without which the trawl for future engineers and other technically minded professionals will be an ever more difficult one to contend with.
Mr Grey,
My name is Dimitris P. and I am from Greece. There I attended a good public school which has a tradition of sending about 10 students a year to Oxbridge. I got 3 A's in my A levels (Maths, Physics, Further Maths) as well as studying for the Greek school leaving exam and matriculated to Oxbridge where I studied Engineering. I now work in an IB earning a great salary. I would like to say that the even at the time we found the A-Level material much easier than the corresponding Greek exam papers (which insist on such things as "formulae" and "proofs", not to mention "memorising") and I was far ahead of my peers during the first year in Maths. Paradoxically your country chooses to lower its academic standards at school thus creating ample opportunity for my people to outperform the native English and secure a place in the prestigious academic institutions that a shitty little country like Greece could never have developed. Further thanks to the EU we get a free ride with tuition fees paid by the English taxpayer. Currently there are over 40,000 Greeks studying in Britan every year and thanks to AQA that number will increase. With the addition of new countries in the EU (Poland etc) the competition for the limited places in GB Universities will mean that at some point the institutions you fund with your taxes will serve foreign students in the majority. We will then be better positioned to secure the best jobs in the market, leaving the dross to the native British, cementing their position as the new underclass of Britain.
My question then Mr Grey is this:
ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING SUICIDAL OR WHAT?
Hi Mr Grey,
Thank you for your article. It is no wonder that many independent schools are opting for IGCSE syllabi that are still offering science for science's sake rather than for entertainment.
In an article about the too-easy nature of new science GCSEs in the Daily Mail in January 2006 (entitled 'It's not rocket science')a spokesman for OCR was quoted as saying 'In a class of 30 only six may want to be scientists and the rest won't care. There has to be something that allows the six to progress while giving some form of science to the others. This is all about relevance to attract them'.
This is precisely the problem. The attempt to entertain the 24 out of 30 who don't care is doomed to failure. They will no more be entertained by politics masquerading as science than they will be by science. The six who might want to continue will be so put off by what they experience that they are likely to abandon the idea in disgust. They certainly will not 'progress' in any real sense.
There will be no winners, least of all the scientific community which is in danger of being fed by 'scientists' who believe that argument and opinion define reality.
I recall the Greeks were pretty good at that.
I too am a Physics teacher in the UK and graduated from a prestigious university, but I disagree with a lot of what you say. I also teach a different exam board, but all GCSEs being offered have to meet the same statutory requirements.
Having been teaching for 5 years, I do not believe pupils are attracted to Physics by its precision. Where is the precision in quantum mechanics?
How can calculations be the soul of Physics? While calculations are in inherent part of understanding how Physics works, I have never heard of one decribed has being soulful.
It is true that one of the two Science GCSEs will not prepare students for further study. It is not designed to. It is instead designed to give students an understanding of how Science applies to society, and how to cast a critical eye over news and government reports. We cannot avoid the politicisation of Science. Decisions are being made that rely on scientific understanding by politicians whether we like it or not.
The second GCSE that many students will move on to does prepare them for further study, be it A Levels or degrees. This does contain the ideas and concepts that many will find familiar.
Just wanted to let people know that some teachers do support the changes, and can see that they have been made with the pupils' needs at their heart.
Thanks,
Jon Gray
Your frustration is completely understandable. I am training to teach at the moment, but it is issues like these that make me very wary. I think the Government really needs to consider taking real teachers opinions into account.
I sincerely hope your voice is heard, however, I am gutted to admit that I do not have that much faith in the system.
I have twin daughters doing their GCSEs now. I have been doing AQA past papers with them and I have been appalled at the standard of the questions. There seems to be a lot of ambiguity in the phrasing of the questions too, you would expect a far more professional level than this. The questions are woolly and the expected answers are the same.
One of the attractions of Physics and Maths is the certainty of it. If you prefer facts rather than opinions these were subjects that pleased. Now they seem to have been art-ified and politicised to the point that they cease to be!
I was less than impressed when Physics, Chemistry and Biology went from being 3 separate subjects and became combined double science. This in itself discriminates against the science oriented child.
Education has certainly been dumbed down and paradoxically the poor kids have to spend far longer studying and producing reams of coursework to attain less. Only this stupid controlling government could have achieved this.
Frustrated Mum
You have my complete support and full sympathy in this.
I must say that I reached the conclusion that the teaching of physics had gone to hell in a handcart some time ago, on discovering from a conversation with my son that he'd been taught basic Newtonian mechanics without the teacher ever once referring to Sir Issac - an omission I very quickly corrected.
There is nothing cited in your open letter I consider to be recognisable as physics, most appears to be what I studied (many years ago) under the subject 'environment science'.
As to you reference to physics being about far grander things, absolutely. My time studying for a physics 'O' level coincided with the BBC's first showing of Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos', which had nothing less than an inspirational effect on myself and my classmates. Sagan became an instant and oft-imitated cult figure. much to the irritation (one suspects) of our teacher - there are only so many occasions one can put up with smartarse 15 year olds solemnly intoning that 'the ooh-niverse is a wundiful place' - but the series had an impact. It left us wanting to learn more - maybe not quite what we were supposed to be learning according to syllabus as we were full of questions about gravitation, orbital mechanics, relativity and quantum mechanics, when we should have studying electricity, but what the hell, it was all physics and our teacher was wise enough to make a few changes to the planned running order of the course to accommodate our thirst for more.
Take away the grand issues and the 'big science' and you take away all the enjoyment from the subject - on one occasion we got stuck with a non-specialist supply teacher for a lesson, which meant the usual, and deeply tedious, 'open this book to page xx and start reading' exercise. so we skim read the chapter and spent the rest of the lesson trying to calculate the amount of nuclear energy in a biro from Einstein's mass-energy equation.
That, for me, is physics, not the half-baked nonsense you appear to be expected to teach these days.
Check at your local state school how many of the teachers pay for their children to be privately educated - it's educational ;-)
Private schools frequently have more opportunity and resources to teach 'real science' that prepares children to progress as a specialist subject to 'A' level and beyond. They can choose to avoid SATS, which are pointless and meaningless examinations designed solely for government league tables.
I am a scientist married to a physics teacher. My daughter was first subjected to ridiculous teaching methods in maths, which confused her and lost her confidence despite having a good ability at this subject. The class teacher was patronising and gave me a booklet to 'explain' the methods, which she clearly did not.
Shortly afterwards we moved our daughter to a private school and I was delighted to see they taught standard, traditional maths and english, with an emphasis on accuracy and competition.
Needless to say our daughter responded to the challenge and we saw a huge improvement in attitude and confidence.
As a UK tax payer it saddens me that state schools now seem happy to produce bored, disinterested children. Just as long as they can show 'added value' in SATS and an A-C grade in GCSE that's alright then isn't it...
Whatever happened to inspiration , creativity and innovation?
Why let those who can't teach tell teachers what to do? Get back in the classroom and work on a syllabus to excite the next generation of scientists!
Well written! I am a student of this new "super science" course (OCR not AQA), and must agree with you on all counts. I myself did a GCSE in science in Year Nine because of my aptitude for the subject, and the differences between the old course and the new are staggering - and are in fact turning me off physics and science generally.
I must cite example from my Physics mock test: the only question which required scientific knowledge in the slightest was "label this diagram of the earth's core". Three were three different bits to label. Every single other question revolved around ticking boxes, filling in gaps etc. Many of which the actual answers are remarked on places such as www.badscience.net.
The 21st century science marks the change from:
"What is nine times eight?" [three marks]
To:
"If you were a nine, and seven more nines came along; how would you feel? Would you make friends with the new nines or just ignore them? Select one of the answers below." [twenty five marks]
-JW
I've been teaching 10 years now and I qualified as a physics teacher and I share Wellington's dismay at the polluting of physics in this way.
Over the last 10 years I have seen the physics content of the key stage 3 and 4 national curriculum eroded into bits and pieces of disjointed facts and opinions to argue about. Where has the real science gone?
I've moved into teaching GCSE and A level electronics as a way of preserving the skills I learnt at University and during my teacher training. I've also been given the chance of going back to teaching A level physics again which I have jumped at. The alternative was to teach the AQA Science scheme. I still shudder when I think of the course content!
I feel your pain Wellington, the stupidity of "Outcomes based education" is currently destroying education in Western Australia with the same subjective / politically correct nonsense that has obviously corrupted education in the UK.
Science used to be about understanding a body of knowledge, it is now about repeating the empty bleatings of the body politic.
What horrifies me is that now matter how good the teachers is or how prepared the school or how much a kid wants to learn they will be dragged down to the lowest common denominator by a system based more on worrying about polical trends than the knowledge that makes up the subject.
What will the universities make of the imbiciles that high schools are producing?
The fact that the government are now peddling their propaganda in the guise of physics is deeply disturbing. "Why must we develop renewable energy sources?" -- unbelievable, unless the correct answer is "To cripple western economies, keep the third world impoverished and enable central government control of freedom"
I did my GCSE Physics in '86 and fondly remember my almost stereotypical teacher: beard, tweed jacket, bad taste in ties, etc. He'd accidentally electrocute himself, trap himself in electro-magnets, have everyone giving shocks to each other with the Van der Graaf generator - it was endless fun and we understood how these basic physical phenomena worked. Chris Gear, if you're out there, I salute you.
I'm really terrible at Physics. I can't handle the maths. I find it interesting and will happily gawp at the latest findings in New Scientist but I'll never pretend to understand how it really, actually works.
Which is why I did an English degree and work in marketing.
I was more than a little disturbed to see the sample question on the miscellanea section of your site. It's not even a good question for an English exam!
Science isn't the only loser in this equation: My hard-won skills have been devalued because they are seen as 'soft' and as a substitute for other 'harder' skills.
I hope you get your subject back.
Hell, I hope we all get our subjects back. Then I might consider that career in teaching I'm putting on hold until there's a sanity check on the National Curriculum.
I have to agree, i only completed my own GCSEs in 2000, and physics was my favourite subject, absolutely loved it do death, even did CREST awards on acoustics and electronics. It was the equations i loved!!! I even did an A Level project for my GCSE coursework, testing the resistivity of wires (an A Level topic). I went on to complete an A Level in physics, and still loved it. Granted the content became much harder, but i still ended up with a D, and i was overjoyed! I then went on to Uni studying genetics, but took up as many physics (or atleast biomed physics) electives as i could.
I am due to start my GTP in September, teaching all three science to GCSE, but with most of the teachers at my lead school specialising in Biology and lacking knowledge to teach Physics, I have been told to expect a high proportion of physics lessons, and do you know what? i was exstatic!!!! Well, i was, atleast until i reviewed the syllabus for KS3 and KS4, and i have to admit, my heart sank! Gone are the equation triangles, the daft experiments with single cup emersion heaters, ticker tapes ..... all the good stuff has been replaced! When i did my GCSE we had a one week eco-blip called Joule island (clever name) and it was to draw attention to the need for renewable energy, basically you are dumped on an island, with as much funding as you like but only for renewable energy, and your given a picture of the island, it has a waterfall, some hot springs, open desert, high winds on cliff tops ... basically all the sources you need for renewable energy. And it was always done by Year 9s in the run up Open Day, so the department would have something pretty to put on the walls, and that was it, subject covered, box ticked!
Looking through the frameworks i will be expected to teach i actually felt really let down. Physics isn't what it was, it has become a vehicle for peddling government propaganda, and its a real shame! But i am determined to get to the roots of the subject. My lead school is lucky if kids turn up for their GCSEs, let alone take A Levels, and it is my aim for the year, to get atleast 1 kid to sign-up for A Level physics!
Luckily there have been whispers of the disappointment at the new syllabus being so pants that the school is considering swapping exam boards. So maybe there is hope yet.....
Wellington, have you tried sending this to the Institute of Physics? They are always concerned about the state of physics education in the UK.
I knew AQA were rubbish at setting exams but now it looks like they've given up and just gone with wishy washy questions.
But what percentage of the exam is these non-physics questions?
I believe that there needs to be a little bit of relating the proper physics the pupils learn to real life situations (not that them questions even seemed to be asking about that!), however this should only be a tiny part of a physics course as the course is actually a PHYSICS course.
That's not physics - it's crap!
No wonder why China and India pupils continue to excel at physics and mathematics while we continue to lag behind. That won't change until we and out attitudes toward science do.
I am dismayed, to say the least, to see what is becoming of the education system in the UK. I worry about my own children's schooling, they aren't even out of infants where they don't correct their spelling "in case it upsets them". All we are doing is producing a generation of lazy under achievers. I have always loved science as it is an explanation of why things are. The science I learned at school was unambiguous and in the true scientific way unbiased towards any social/political leanings. Good luck with this, I hope this gains momentum and real changes can be made to save our children from a system gone mad.
I am dismayed, to say the least, to see what is becoming of the education system in the UK. I worry about my own children's schooling, they aren't even out of infants where they don't correct their spelling "in case it upsets them". All we are doing is producing a generation of lazy under achievers. I have always loved science as it is an explanation of why things are. The science I learned at school was unambiguous and in the true scientific way unbiased towards any social/political leanings. Good luck with this, I hope this gains momentum and real changes can be made to save our children from a system gone mad.
I agree with Phil - send this to the Institute of Physics and also write to their magazine 'Physics World' as many University students who consider teaching after their degree read it.
As a student myself I am shocked and how watered down the syllabus has become. Physics is such a beautiful and fundamental subject, equations and calculations are an integral part of its study.
Send your letter to Physics World - see what the students have to say. Physics is a no-nonsense discipline so don't stand for any!
I have never read such emotive, ill informed garbage as this open letter. I have been in science education for 12 years and I do not recognise a word of these criticisms.
Firstly you are utterly ignorant of how education and curriculum policy is determined for schools. The changes were created by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), not the DfES, nor AQA. The exam boards (e.g. AQA) have interpreted the programme of study in different ways and it is up to schools to choose that which is best for their children. If you feel that the AQA specification is poor then I suggest you explore other options.
Secondly, you claim that physics no longer has any calculations and therefore is devoid of the precision that makes it so wonderful (in your view). Without knowing which GCSE you are referring to (core science, additional science, additional applied, separate physics GCSE) it is hard for me to assess the validity of those statements. However I suspect that you are referring to the core science GCSE; a course which is aimed not at future scientists, but at ‘normal citizens’. I therefore challenge your implicit assertion that these pupils need grounding in the ‘precision’ of physics. What they need is a good understanding of the science that is relevant to their lives; hence a more ‘sociological’ outlook. If it is the education of future scientists that concern you then I suggest that you explore the triple science option that is aimed at those pupils. Indeed all above average pupils at 14 (level 6+ in Key Stage 3) will be expected to be able to follow this course if they wish form 2008.
Thirdly you disparage the notion of debate around issues such as nuclear power, global warming etc. as if this is somehow of less merit to science as a whole. You go on to say, “But my pupils now discuss the benefits and drawbacks of nuclear power plants, without any real understanding of how they work or what radiation is.” May I suggest that this is what your job is? Perhaps you should go ahead and teach them this if it is relevant to the debate? The removal of statutory content from the programme of study by QCA is designed so that you, the teacher, can have the flexibility to teach such things as and when they arise. After all those pupils who are less enthused than you about radiation are more likely to want to learn if they can see the relevance to their lives. Hence the debate comes first. I am astounded at your lack of understanding of such a basic pedagogical principle as this.
Then we reach your complaints: the vague, the stupid and the political:
The Vague
The course you are criticising is not physics GCSE but a ‘core’ science GCSE, designed, as I said earlier, for normal citizens who will not ‘do’ science beyond aged 16. To them the boundaries between biology, physics and chemistry are irrelevant, and unhelpful. So when you are teaching them about UV rays I suggest you include discussion on skin cells too as it is the interaction between these two that is of importance, not a detailed knowledge of the EM spectrum. Again it is your job as a teacher to teach the knowledge that is required to understand the specification. Use your professional judgment - assuming that is, that you have one. It is also worth noting that much of what you complain of being missing is located in the Additional Science GCSE course that is supposed to run in parallel (or series) with the core science of which you are so disparaging.
The Stupid
It is interesting that in this paragraph both yourself and the question is stupid. Yes, iPods don’t receive digital signals, but no, mention of MP3’s in general will obviously get the mark (assuming that you reading of the mark scheme is correct). The fact that you even consider not awarding a mark to a pupil who mentions MP3 players and not iPods in this case is yet another poor reflection of your professional judgement. Yes, the mark scheme is stupid, but then so is your interpretation of it. Even if your complaint were true this is a reflection of your examination board (something that your school can change if it desires) not the new science programme of study.
Your criticism of the comprehension exercise is sound, but a little naive. Most exams have easier questions, mainly because some pupils are not very bright and therefore the assessment needs to start at a level that they can access. I assume that this question was not part of the higher tier? I assume also that there were other, harder questions that followed. Would you rather that the least able pupils were unable to answer any of the questions? Pupils deserve the right to be able to show what they can do, as well as what they can’t. This applies to the least able as well as everyone else.
The Political
Since when is the fact that we MUST develop renewable energy spruce a political statement? I assume that you are aware the non renewable sources will one day disappear? This is not political, it is common sense, and very relevant to science. Pupils need to explore this as it will affect them, and their children.
You also say, “...never are the pupils given ways to determine when an experiment is reliable, to know when an experiment yields information about the world that we can trust.” Where have you been for the last 5 years? This is patent nonsense, and again it says more about your lessons than anything else. Reliability and accuracy are central to the science enquiry parts of the curriculum and will remain so. I do not recognise this criticism. Any notion that quantitative data is unreliable and untrustworthy is likely to reside in the heads of pupils who are taught badly. This has nothing to do with the recent curriculum changes. If anything the new changes seek to reinforce the notions that you are worried are eroded. QCA have been explicit in wanting to enhance pupils understanding of concepts like reliability/accuracy, if AQA have approached this poorly it is again their issue not the ‘governments’. Change your exam board.
Your conclusions
Your pupils “complained that the exam did not test the material they were given to study”. That is probably because they had a teacher who was utterly unaware of the nature of the new course and who taught them poorly. It seems to me that you do not understand the nature of the curriculum changes (focusing as you have on only the core science). May I also suggest that with ever declining numbers of pupils taking physics that the old course, of which you seem to approve, was not delivering the enthusiastic scientists of tomorrow? Indeed it was not even delivering a scientifically literate population. Given that any school science course has these two aims in mind it is reasonable to assume that we must fix these issues. The QCA-led changes are a brave attempt to add flexibility to school science. Allowing both an academic course for the scientifically gifted (the triple award GCSE), or a multitude of other options for other students (e.g. applied science courses, or just a basic core etc.).
Believe it or not I could have written much more on what you do not know/understand about the new course, but this post is far too long as it is. For the record I do not work for QCA, AQA or the DFES. But I do understand the needs of modern children and the science that they will require in the future. You evidently don’t.
Whoever it was that forwarded the open letter to the Register managed to get it onto the main site, and they even spoke to AQA about it. It's quite heartening to see how fast these things can spread.
I was in the first group of students who took GCSE's over 18 years ago, I always remember the teachers forcing us to do an O'Level exam just to see the difference... We we're all shocked to see how much harder the old O'Level exam was over the new GCSE.
Very sad to see it has now GCSE is just become an idiot filter, I thought it could not get any worse!
I hope your letter gets the attention it deserves, my wife (who also has a physics degree) is considering teaching, I wonder if she will still consider teaching after your letter?
Bets regards,
Christian
More power to you sir.
I also left industry to be a physics teacher - although I returned to industry as I wasn't a particularly good one.
Your 'reading comprehension' point is entirely valid - and these sort of questions sadly, still occur at A level.
I loved physics for many reasons. High amongst them was I didn't have to learn anything. I only needed to understand it. It doesn't seem to be that way anymore.
Wow, when I did my Physics GCSE (1996) it was full of equations and things like the conservation of energy. I also remember a demonstration of a Van der Graf generator and working out the estimated voltage of a lightning strike. I can't believe what the subject has turned into. I would happily register my dismay about this on any kind of official forum such as the PM's e-surveys. Newton would turn in his grave.
I believe that I was the last year to sit GCE O levels (1986 perhaps?). We also sat a GCSE as part of the preparation for the change over (in a classroom, not an exam hall, probably so the comparison could be dismissed, if not what was required by the powers that be).
Having just sat my real exam, I was shocked by how easy the new exam was going to be. At that time it was justified by saying that part of the overall grade would be awarded for course work; even as they said it I don’t believe that the teachers believed it.
So we were eventually told the result, out of about 20 boys in each class, only one got a B grade for Chemistry and the rest straight A’s.
For the record, this was a state school. Also for the record, the government at the time was Conservative, so it just goes to show that dumbing down is political, not party political.
I'm a physics teacher in Cumbria, having gone into teaching after a career in the city. I have to agree 100% with your comments - I teach GCSE AQA physics and the profusion of vague, opinion-based questions is appaling.
The sad thing is that they are dumbing-down the A-level syllabus also, which just puts more pressure on universities to get students up to speed on the real content.
Shameful, if you ask me.
I am amazed at how many people are falling for this nonsense. it is simply rubbish. the open letter is full of rubbish and displays no understanding of education today.
I'm a students taking these exams. As someone who is actually interested in proper physics these exams contain stupid questions that could be answered by anyone with basic common-sense and without the need for intelligent thinking and an understanding of physics.
When my Physics teacher read your post to the class, Wellington and his views were applauded!!! For homework he has set us some questions based on AQA style ones, for example:
2.) Timothy fires a pretty heavy cannon ball at a low angle.
a.) Where will the cannon ball land?
b.) What do you think are Timothy's motives for shooting cannon balls?
How long will it be before I see this kind of thing on my exam paper? Unfortunately this kind of thing is already there!!!
Help!!! Someone sort this out please....................
Unfortunately, this is only another step down a road that Britain has been walking for some time. I remember sitting my A-level maths in 91. The teacher used to carefully pick out past questions for us to work on, and it was always questions from the late eighties. Because I was considerably better at maths than the rest of the class I used to finish these questions too early, and the teacher used to then set me questions from the early eighties or seventies. Without exception, the older the question the harder it was. A friend of mine is teaching GCSE and A-Level maths now, and looking at questions, they have become even easier than the early 90s.
The problem now is that for universities (especially the best universities) to maintain standards is much harder. They have more difficulty selecting the best students because far more people are getting the top grade. And then they end up teaching remedial courses in the 4th year. At Oxford, the tutors were already complaining about standards going down in the 90s. Now they have simply got worse.
Of course, the problem with this physics paper is even worse. Not only has it been dumbed down, but it isn't even teaching physics any more. Despite the fact that I went to a comprehensive school, you can be sure that my kids will go to a school that does not teach standard GCSEs or A-Levels. A private school that uses the international version of the qualification, or even the International Baccalaureate.
You should try OCR Gateway, not a perfect syllabus, but better than the AQA version. It will (just) prepare students for A level.
This is the third major revion of physics I have worked through. I sometimes use old 'O'Level questions for 'A'Level students. They struggle with the language and complexity of the questions. The change to GCSE was a drop in standards. The later change to "science" was also a watering down of the curriculum. Sadly this has been going on for years and must be linked to changes in the expectations of society as a whole. Children are still prepared to work hard for what they want, but perhaps in a different way to those of us with more grey hair than we should like!
I would agree that this change is the most drastic yet. the only consolation I have for you is that in my experience the brightest students will still rise to the top. I teach in a girls school where we have increased the numbers of students taking A level to well over double the national average (not that the national average is anything to shout about at 3.7%).
Don't despair, just remember that gravity will win in the end (probably)!!
I studied GCSE physics and got a fairly respectable B, in 1989. I wouldn't say I was a enamoured of any school subject at the time (that came later), but I had some interest in physics and did what I needed to do.
The examples you've given bear absolutely no relation to what I studied 18 years ago. I'm thoroughly shocked, and utterly puzzled how anyone has been allowed to get away with this.
It makes me wonder who is involved that has such a political and anti-academic bias.
Oh, how I agree with Hoddlwood. I think the writer is being manipulative, and playing on a belief that his readers do not know the difference between Foundation level Core Science and the separate Physics course. If you read the Specification, then the separate Physics course most certainly requires calculations.
Helen
In principle, a physics minded high school kid can do some googling and eventually figure out that Halliday & Resnick is a better reference to learn from.
(Even better are the 1960's editions of Halliday & Resnick).
Wellington, I have linked to your article, and here and will also link to your blog.
As a physicist this really makes me angry. My children should be OK because I can teach them.
The curriculum just is not physics.
As a Brit who is now a physics prof in Canada I have to ask: have you considered emigrating? The schools here in Alberta are crying out for physics teachers and, while the syllabus is broader based and does not really get above O'level physics even in the last year it is, at least, physics.
Since my understanding (possibly out of date by now) is the the exam boards are run by the universities have you considered talking to the those involved and explaining the problem? Even if the University admin does not want to listen the local physics department certainly will!
thank you Helen, i was beginning to think i was the only one who understood the truth.
How many children interested by defining structure to their world around them and who love learning by experiment will ditch Physics on the basis of such a syllabus.
Worse is how many will waste precious time after passing this exam taking up further education without the necessary basic grounding they need to study and succeed at A-Level and beyond.
The world and the UK does not need mindless drones educated in political quotes, we urgently need to train the best scientists in the world to replace outmoded technologies and to fuel the UK economy in the future years. We will not be world leaders in Nanotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Medicine, Telephony and so on without well trained and well grounded scientists who have the the grounding to push scientific discovery forward.
If we don't provide this quality in our education then our future against a back drop of well educated and highly motivated Asian scientists looks bleak. We have always been a knowledge economy, it this that enables the UK to move on from economic and technological paradigms and be a leading edge economy.
Matt - A scientist
Anybody know of a good textbook of what the physics curriculum "use to be" like in the British system back in the days of O levels?
Of the books I inherited over the years, I have a few really old physics ones from the 1960's which were allegedly used in the British and colonial British school systems like:
"Principles of Physics" by M. Nelkon (published 1964)
"Scholarship Physics" by M. Nelkon (published 1966)
"Certificate Physics " by C.W. Kearsey (published 1965)
I have no idea if these particular books are O level or not.
the sheer credulousness of the posters here is beginning to piss me off. seeing as you all profess to like science may i suggest the following? don't take Wellington's word for it, go and do some research on the new programme of study and see if what he says is true. make sure you look at the separate science physics specification (see the AQA website) and compare it with the one that wellington linked to (the one he claims is a physics GCSE). remember this: the course that wellington is disparaging is NOT designed for those doing A level in science. it is for the general population. Future A level scientists should be doing separate sciences (ie separate bio, phy, chem gcse). think like scientists, and look at the evidence yourself. you'll see that wellingtons letter is utter bollox.
"There is much, much more to physics than precision and numbers, we would be doing young people no service to undersell it to them by focusing solely on these aspects..."
I'm a Christ follower.
Try viewing this as a religious and philosophical issue. (I.e. Implication: differences in religion and philosophy cast a shadow on science.)
Consider it a plumb line.
Variances quickly result foundational issues.
Implementing relativistic teaching (i.e. the course is what you make it...) is a disservice to hardworking educators.
Thank you for speaking out.
Sir,
I can only offer my sincerest condolences. This is a truly tragic demise and makes me sick to the core, and given that I'm a Physics dropout (from university) I can only imagine how a teacher of the subject must feel.
I'm so sorry.
Jack
remember this: the course that wellington is disparaging is NOT designed for those doing A level in science. it is for the general population.
I'm having trouble understanding this argument: do you think that the general population should not learn any physics when doing a physics course? Although the specification linked has several physics errors in it and has some sections which have little to nothing to do with physics (e.g. environmental impact of power generation) the complaint is about the exam questions asked which are supposed to cover the specification. In that regard I completely agree with the complaint: there is no physics knowledge required to answer those questions and they are not consistent with the specification.
Jon Gray said...I too am a Physics teacher in the UK and graduated from a prestigious university...Where is the precision in quantum mechanics?
I'm guessing that you have not heard of Quantum Electrodymaics (QED)? The predictions of this have been tested to better than one part in a trillion using the g-2 measurement of the electron. The only theorem which has been tested to a higher precision is special relativity.
Comments like the above just go to show that there really is a problem with physics education in the UK.
The question about analogue / digital radio broadcasts: my goodness! What a horrifically bad question. So called "Digital Radio Stations" broadcast an analogue signal! The radio transmitter sends out analogue radio waves. You cannot broadcast digital signals. Digits (numbers) only exist in the human mind. They cannot be sent through the air because they don't exist.
The purpose of the modern A Level is to drag pupils up to the O Level standard of 25 years ago. Very soon, a modern degree will only educate people to the A Level standard of 25 years ago.
I feel so sad, so angry.
Ben, at 10:30 PM (12th of June)
I have read the AQA specification and studied physics all the way to University.
I am fully aware that you can't at GCSE level teach how Newton was wrong because of relativistic effects, but I do recall Newton from O level, and the plumb pudding model, Rutherford's experiment and indeed Milikan's into the weight and charge of an electron.
None of this physics is in the curriculum, nor in fact is there any physics at all in any sense of the word. It is all to woolly.
The section on renewable energy and energy production is just plain wrong. For example it states that the way fossil fuel power plants generate electricity is by raising steam, and driving a turbine. This is true, but not always for gas as that can drive a turbine directly. what is more the reason why gas powered plants generate less CO2 is that they drive a gas turbine directly and then use waste heat to raise steam to drive another power plant.
The syllabus is not only daft but wrong.
Re Jon Gray "It is true that one of the two Science GCSEs will not prepare students for further study. It is not designed to. It is instead designed to give students an understanding of how Science applies to society, and how to cast a critical eye over news and government reports. We cannot avoid the politicisation of Science. Decisions are being made that rely on scientific understanding by politicians whether we like it or not."
Sorry the former is surely humanities? What is more it is not founded in any sort of fact or core understanding and has therefore no use for the purpose you allege it has. You can only cast a critical eye over what some one says about science if you understand it, have been taught its principles and how it works, much the same is true of history. You can't expect a person to cast their eye over what this government is trying to do with a critical eye in terms of the constitution without understanding what it actually is, how it actually works and why it is as it is.
The same is true of physics.
I have to assume you are an astroturfer.
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)
The English AQA exam paper contained a full page colour advert for Carphone warehouse.
I rather think that AQA has totally lost the plot Mind the ICT papers have been full of inaccuracies for at least 5 years.
Dear Mr Grey,
Thank you for publishing this letter: I have just fired a letter off to my MP asking him to look at it.
I read with interest the comments of Mr Hoddlwood:
"... I have been in science education for 12 years and I do not recognise a word of these criticisms...."
All I can say is that I feel very sorry for the students of Mr Hoddlwood. Perhaps he would have made an excellent teacher in one of the "social sciences" but it might be better if he left physics to be taught by those who have some affection for the subject.
Anyone that can make a statement like:
"...What they need is a good understanding of the science that is relevant to their lives; hence a more ‘sociological’ outlook..."
Has entirely missed the point of science education, in my view.
A mathematical proof is the closest thing to certainty that two thousand years of philosophy has devised. "A sociological outlook" is somebody's fashionable opinion.
My daughters received no discernable education from their years of being taught by a succession of Mr Hoddlwoods. All they got was a load of political indoctrination of the most trivial kind, which thankfully left very little long term impression on them.
It's twenty years since I did the first ever GCSE in physics, but I remember it well - the hardest questions were as hard as the O-level papers we practised on, but they did introduced some much easier questions to the paper, many requiring no calculation at all.
However, even the easiest question ("how high is a door" - multiple choice) tested something useful to the understanding of physics.
Some of the teachers (I guess) posting comments seem to have been brainwashed into a spirit of "engagement at any cost". If a child is not interested in, or not capable of understanding a science, getting rid of that science to tempt them into concentrating Does Not Help At All. You may as well have not bothered. It is a waste of both your time and theirs.
Some specific comments:
"Where is the precision in quantum mechanics" - well, it's only the most precisely tested part of science ever done Jon. Is a degree in a subject no longer required for teachers of it, or did you sleep through that part of the course?
"...do not know the difference between Foundation level Core Science and the separate Physics course" - obviously not, but even a foundation course in physics ought to contain physics, rather than politics / economics / plain old nonsense.
"is NOT designed for those doing A level in science. it is for the general population" - I think even the 'general population' deserve to at least get a physics exam with physics in it, otherwise why not call it 'general studies' and be done?
"The letter is full of rubbish" - top marks for evidence based argument there Ben, perhaps even social sciences might be a little to demanding for you.
I am a physics teacher at the opposite end of my career to you, Wellington. I agree totally with all you say as I find myself loathing what I now have to teach. In fact I don't teach it, instead I continue teaching physics relevant to the topics but which the pupils enjoy and are intereseted in. This I admit is taking a bit of a risk with their exam grades but, actually, an intelligent child with a grounding in real science can easily make mincemeat of the silly sociological questions they get asked.
I began teaching with the Nuffield Physics Revoloution and what a joy that was, naff equipment but great science which challenged at all levels and for the less academic a really good CSE syllabus which was popular with my pupils. Now all this!
We should recognise why this has come to pass. For years the Institute of Physics and The Royal Society has been warning of the shortage of specialist physics teachers in schools. Survey after survey has shown the ever increasing proportion of physics lessons being taught by non-specialists; something had to be done. It soon became evident that the pay was insufficient to compete with the earning potential of physics graduates in the world of industry and finance and that only a few mavericks were prepared to teach so out came plan B. If the government can't get teachers, then change what is taught so that it can be delivered by non-specialists. Very much the same was done to GCSE modern language; not enough teachers? Solution -Remove the requirement to teach a modern language to GCSE.
Thank goodness my son has finished school and I will soon retire.
Rod Smith
I'm assuming you've contacted the Insitute of Ideas about this?
www.instituteofideas.com
Their main story today is linking to a new book "corruption of the curriculum"
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prcsCorruption.php
I think it's horrific that what should be a somewhat maths-intensive course like physics has been dumbed down to such an extent. The question about melanin I would expect to see on a GCSE biology paper, and the questions about global warming on a GCSE geography paper. Admittedly, physics was never my strongest science, but I appreciate that my physics teacher actually taught real physics, not some watered-down hash of biology, geography, IT and social studies. Glossing over the harder maths component of physics (or indeed, any subject) is only going to give secondary school children a false expectation of what to expect from higher education. And if what a previous commenter said is true, about the new A-levels being based around GCSE specifications, I sympathise with college students too.
Please put the science back in science.
Mr ML,
You have missed the point entirely. I was trying to make a distinction between the science that all people need to learn and that which is useful only to future scientists. Grey’s letter is attacking the ‘science for all’ course as not being suitable for future scientists. He has attacked a pear for not being an apple. Interestingly, which he seemed to have ignored (or not realised) the Institute of Physics played a key role in developing the new curriculum with QCA. It seems the real experts in the subject do not agree with him.
He even provided a link to the core GCSE which, on its own, is not enough to gain access to A-level science. Also all bright science students in year 9 will be encouraged to take three separate GCSE’s in science from 2008 and therefore gain exactly the grounding in ‘precision’ that he desires. He seemed to have ignored the quite deliberate differentiation that has been designed in the curriculum. With some GCSE’s for those that are going to be scientists and others for those that are not.
Apologies for not making this clearer but his letter angered me so much, based as it was on a false prospectus. Depressingly most readers of this blog have taken his views on face value without doing the research themselves. Not very scientific, really.
Regards,
Hoddlwood
Anonymous said: “...even a foundation course in physics ought to contain physics, rather than politics / economics / plain old nonsense.”
I’ll put this is as simple terms as possible so that you all understand. Most children will do this core course plus one other GCSE in science which is usually the Additional Science GCSE. This contains plenty of ‘real’ science that should keep the dinosaurs happy plus some newer stuff to maintain interest.
The least able (around 10 to 20% of pupils) will do the core only, this is the course that Wellington is so angry about. These children are not going to be scientists and therefore is it unnecessary for them to know Ohms/Hook’s law etc. It is, however important for them to understand the implications of science on the wider world and their lives. They will, after all be voters one day, and will need to make informed decisions. Incidentally these pupils do get plenty of physics in their schooling up to age 14, so it is disingenuous to say that they have not done any real science at all.
The final group, which is likely to be around 30 to 40% of pupils will do the three separate science GCSEs which contains all of the above plus more of the real science that Wellington loves. Virtually all future scientists will be doing this course.
There are many other options including applied science courses and electronics or astronomy, but these three curriculum models are the main ones for now (hopefully that will all change as schools get more flexible and offer more variety to students).
Wellington is attacking a GCSE that is designed to be either part of a greater whole (in which case the children get the real science later) or done on its own (in which case the children would not have been interested anyway). Wellington did not even know that it was QCA that was responsible for the changes and not AQA or the Dept. of Education. If he can’t get this basic fact straight then why should we believe anything else?
I just wish everyone here did some bloody research on the real picture in real schools, and not take the ill-informed rantings of an idiot as gospel. We are all scientists after all aren’t we?
Mallorn – “I'm having trouble understanding this argument: do you think that the general population should not learn any physics when doing a physics course?”
The do plenty of physics up to age 14 (energy transfer, electricity, pressure, forces, moments, earth and space etc.). Children above that age have the right to choose the course that they want to do, and not have it shoved down their throats because we think we know what is best for them. No one on this blog seems to have bothered comparing the AQA specification with the other specifications on offer by other exam boards. Nor have they seen what science most children will actually be doing by looking at the separate science courses, or the additional science courses. Frankly, none of you seem to have a good understanding of modern curriculum models. Not that I would expect it, but at least do the bleeding research before parroting the consensus. How scientific is that?
I've been fighting this battle ever since 1982 when the Secondary Science Curriculum Review effectively tried to kill off the separate sciences.So more strength to your arm. Have you seen the article in the current(?) issue of the Journal of Curriculum Studies arguing that science isn't a subject at all? The tide is turning!
Hoddlwood seems to think:
"May I also suggest that with ever declining numbers of pupils taking physics that the old course, of which you seem to approve, was not delivering the enthusiastic scientists of tomorrow? Indeed it was not even delivering a scientifically literate population. Given that any school science course has these two aims in mind it is reasonable to assume that we must fix these issues.. "
It wasn't delivering scientists not because of the content of the course but because it's relatively difficult compared to easy social science subjects.
So the solution is ...... to make it into an easy social science subject ?
This is going to deliver a scientifically literate population how, exactly ? They won't be able to debate things intelligently because they don't understand the science ; so they'll believe crap like Wifi causing cancer. Even on your (optimistic) figures 30-40% will only do proper science.
I don't think he's a teacher either ; he says "in Science Education" ; a teacher would just say "I'm a teacher" and then he writes:
"Also all bright science students in year 9 will be encouraged to take three separate GCSE’s in science from 2008 and therefore gain exactly the grounding in ‘precision’ that he desires. "
No they won't. Schools and LEAs are only interested in the magic 5 A-C results and don't actually care about the future prospects of pupils. They will see this as a gimme ; many won't even offer it, many won't have anyone who can teach it. 3 Sciences is often dumped once the watered down "Science" came into being. It's easier, and it's cheaper.
"The removal of statutory content from the programme of study by QCA is designed so that you, the teacher, can have the flexibility to teach such things as and when they arise."
The removal of statutory content is to make the exam easier. Many teachers will not teach things that aren't on the listed content.
In this example (nuclear power) the focus will be on politics or "socialogical" stuff, not on alpha, beta and gamma rays, neutron decay, chain reactions etc.
This isn't just an extension of the top ; it's something entirely different.
Do you teach politics/environmentalism/social sciences, or do you teach science ?
All this has two consequences. It's easier to teach and it's easier to learn. This has happened with "ICT" ; the shortage of people who know what they're doing has led to the subject being designed to be taught by the ignorant to the ignorant. Yes, you can teach the more difficult stuff ; in practice almost no-one does.
"Thirdly you disparage the notion of debate around issues such as nuclear power, global warming etc. as if this is somehow of less merit to science as a whole."
It's not science.
The facts behind it are science (how a nuclear power station works) ; the politics and sociology of it are not.
"Since when is the fact that we MUST develop renewable energy spruce a political statement? "
The emphasis put on certain viewpoints is propaganda IMO. It doesn't mean it's not true, but it shouldn't be presented as scientific fact.
So much is missed out. People talk about the melting of the polar cap ; any historian of Polar exploration will tell you that in the early 1800s large areas of the Arctic icecap melted, allowing ships to penetrate an extra 2 or 3 degrees north. This started the age of Arctic exploration led by the likes of the Rosses and Edward Parry.
Either way, it isn't Science. I don't think Hoddlwood actually knows what Science is any more, if he (she?) ever did.
Wow. I've only come across this because my fiance asked if I could help her sister out for her physics gcse next week. I did A level physics less than 10 years ago and did pretty well. Although I'm not a teacher, i thought i may be able to help a little. That was before i saw the syllabus and example papers.
There's no proper physics in these. No precision, no facts just more wool than a welsh sheep farmer.
I don't understand how children are meant to develop an understanding of the theory when the questions are so fluffy. I'm sure it wont be long until the questions are reduced down to " do you think global warming is bad? yes or no?".
One of the things that first appealed about physics to me was the LACK of long drawn out discussions. Things were either right or wrong- and you could prove it. No essays, no propaganda juts a good grounding in first principles and how to prove it.
I feel sorry for the kids doing these exams. They may get a gcse, but they wont have learnt anything remotely worth remembering.
I learnt physics (A level) under the Nuffield syllabus which was great. No emphasis on rote learning (equations were supplied in exam) but lots of emphasis on working out physical principles for yourself rather than being spoon-fed.
eg We would explore the relationship between tension, length and vibration frequency of a wire by playing with actual wires and adjusting the tension/length to discover the relationship for ourselves before getting the 'answer' from the teacher.
This was a great insight into the scientific method and I think that teaching the scientific method should be part of everyones education regardless of whether they intend to persue sciense as a career or not.
I do think there is value in teaching "science and society" to those who are not going to be scientists, BUT this does not mean teaching meaningless guff.
Anonymous (@11:49),
Firstly I was a teacher of science for many years and I am now a curriculum advisor in an LA. I work with science departments assisting them with curriculum development, amongst other things.
Secondly, you are ill informed on many things and I am too busy to correct you on all your points of ignorance. However I will address a couple of your points in order to illustrate to the casual reader how removed you are form reality.
1. The entitlement for the brightest 14 year olds to do three separate science GCSEs will be statutory form 2008. LA’s and schools HAVE to offer it to students. There is no backing out of this and you are incorrect to think that it will be ignored. It can’t, by law.
2. You are quite rude to say that all LA’s care about is the 5 grades A to C. Virtually all of my colleagues care deeply about providing a good education to children, and it is insulting of you to say otherwise. The A to C agenda is one of the unfortunate aspects of modern education that we have to work around. Parents like leagues tables and they are unfortunately here to stay; so we must try our best for the pupils within this restrictive environment. Schools, by and large, do this very well through good will and hard work.
3. The removal of statutory content is not to make the exams easier. This is Daily Mail nonsense. You can’t have it both ways, either we have flexibility built into the curriculum to allow schools to tailor their provision or we have a proscriptive one-size-fits-all approach. It is this sort of baseless, un-researched cynicism that will drag this country down, and belittles the hard work done by students and teachers across the country.
The rest of your post is equally ignorant but frankly that is all I can be bothered to address. Like Wellington, you have not got even your most basic facts right. Do the research before shouting your mouth off.
Increasing awareness of environmental and social issues is very important, and there should be an appropriate place for their inclusion in the school curriculum. The attempt to place these issues at the centre of the Physics GCSE syllabus (or their Chemistry or Biology counterpart) at the expense of traditional scientific method and process is the height of educational folly. It seems typical of the muddle-headed instant-fix flavour of the month approachwhich has passed as educational policy from successive government ministers over the last 20 years.
Since taking the opportunity of early retirement several years ago after becoming increasingly frustrated by the dumbing down of Science in new Combined Science syllabuses, I have been marking KS3 Science, Cambridge International, and, until 2005, AQA GCSE. I declined to continue marking with the new AQA syllabus. The kind of Physics GCSE questions which Wellington Grey mentions seem far more suited to the level of KS3 test. Only in the International papers do I see anything like the rigour of traditional science courses, and I am generally impressed by the candidates not only by their level of knowledge, but by the high standard of their written English. Considering that for most of the students, English would not be their first language, their performance raises serious concerns about education in the U.K.
Good luck to your campaign - but there's none so deaf as those who don't want to hear !
"there's none so deaf as those who don't want to hear"
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king
"Firstly I was a teacher of science for many years and I am now a curriculum advisor in an LA."
Yep, I guessed that one right. I thought that's what you were. I knew you weren't a teacher, anyway.
"1. The entitlement for the brightest 14 year olds to do three separate science GCSEs will be statutory form 2008. LA’s and schools HAVE to offer it to students. There is no backing out of this and you are incorrect to think that it will be ignored. It can’t, by law."
Thanks for correcting me. I'll believe it when it happens. I'd be interested to know how it's going to be staffed, for example, either there's gonna be a lot of new Physics teachers or it's going to be taught by generalists.
"2. You are quite rude to say that all LA’s care about is the 5 grades A to C."
True, they care about money, back covering and promotion as well.
"Virtually all of my colleagues care deeply about providing a good education to children, and it is insulting of you to say otherwise."
No, it's accurate. I've been working with LEAs for 15 years, and I can count on the fingers of one hand those people (excluding those who work directly with the children such as EPs) who give a toss about the children. Sometimes it's quite jaw dropping, in fact. Their aims are the same as any other bureaucracy. However, I do agree that they wail endlessly about how they care about the little kiddies.
"3. The removal of statutory content is not to make the exams easier. This is Daily Mail nonsense. You can’t have it both ways, either we have flexibility built into the curriculum to allow schools to tailor their provision or we have a proscriptive one-size-fits-all approach."
This doesn't actually mean anything. When you are doing GCSE you are being tested on a body of knowledge, understanding and experience. That is defined by the examining body. Yes, schools have the option to teach other things, but in practice they don't.
"It is this sort of baseless, un-researched cynicism that will drag this country down, and belittles the hard work done by students and teachers across the country."
This is the standard bullsh!t dragged out when the half wits try and claim exam results are up again, so everything is improving, and has about the same amount of value, i.e. none.
"The rest of your post is equally ignorant but frankly that is all I can be bothered to address. Like Wellington, you have not got even your most basic facts right. Do the research before shouting your mouth off."
Oh, I don't need to. I come from ICT, which is ahead of the game here, or behind it, depending on your point of view.
Exactly the same arguments have been used, LEA bullsh***ers saying about how relevant and modern and essential it all is, and the curriculum reduced to simplistic presentational nonsense designed to be taught by anyone with a free period, and useful skills drowned out by irrelevant verbiosity.
Same stuff, curriculum whittled away to be taught by el cheapo teachers.
Anonymous (@1:09),
LEA bullshitters, eh?
Frankly, if all you can do is resort to ad hominem attacks (e.g. “they care about money, back covering and promotion as well.”) then I’m not going to bother trying to ‘debate’ with you. Your prejudice says it all. You don’t know me, you don’t know my work and yet you have a made judgements based on nothing but your own ‘experience’. Like Wellington you don’t even understand the basics of the science curriculum changes (being an ICT teacher) and therefore it is fruitless continuing with you.
But I do have one point to make:
“When you are doing GCSE you are being tested on a body of knowledge, understanding and experience. That is defined by the examining body. Yes, schools have the option to teach other things, but in practice they don't.”
In my authority they do. They have embraced the changes and made full use of the flexibility to offer a wide range of stimulating courses for all their children; from the basic core science, to vocational science and on to separate ‘academic’ sciences. For example, a local girl’s school has adopted the new Astronomy GCSE, and the girls have taken to it with great enthusiasm (and numbers unheard of under the old curriculum). The interest in physics from the girls has increased massively as a consequence. This could not have happened without the changes that you and Wellington deride. This is what we mean by a flexible curriculum.
You see, most of us don’t let cynicism stop is form teaching what the children need (and want) to know.
Ben and Hoddlwood, lets get to the nub of the argument.
You argue that this course is needed, is useful and we are wrong to take exception to it.
The argument is not in fact that. The argument is that it is not science, plain and simple. If you want to have a GCSE in general studies or some other title by all means do. Feel free. Just don't call it science because rather obviously it is not.
Is there any point in teaching people a course which contains no real science? Would there be any point in teaching law with no law in it?
Furthermore you talk of the importance of teaching it so that people can understand what is being debated in the media. What? The problem is that they will have no knowledge of science to know when they are being told rubish as so frequently happens when we have journailists an politicians talk about science but have no background in it.
So explain the value of having a course with no science in it called science.
This seriously scares me. They are changing a scientific subject into something else. They are teaching a way of thinking that reminds me of the dark ages. Don't get me wrong, I was a victim of a pretty bad educational system, the Greek one. However, while it was overloading students with things they would probably never need in their lives and undervaluing knowledge they would need, destroying lives and future careers in the process, it gave a pretty good grounding in Physics and Maths, which has seriously helped me at University. I have just finished the second year of Electronic Engineering and I have many friends educated by the English system who, while very smart, have serious problems in solving engineering problems because the way of thinking needed has not been taught to them. You cannot do such a thing in retrospect. The university got forced to introduce additional maths classes to give people the basics.
The GCSE and A-Level system has a lot of potential in my humble opinion, unlike some other systems, it gives kids the choice to study what they think matters to them the most, what they are good at. Undermining it for the sake of equality and political correctness, is something I can only call criminal. No matter what the labour government wants people to think, people are *not* the same, people do *not* have the same abilities. Giving kids a false sense of security in subjects they would have otherwise failed will only end up with them being extremely disappointed at the A-Levels.
Which leads me to the following question...: Why?
Why destroy the subjects Britain has traditionally been good at? Who do they think they are, using education to push their political views down people's throats?
The thing is, I fear that the answer that comes to my mind might well be the correct one...
- Alkis Tsapanidis
Electronic Engineering student at the University of Nottingham
General Secretary of the Nottingham IEEE Student Branch.
Benedict White said...
“The argument is not in fact that. The argument is that it is not science, plain and simple.
Is there any point in teaching people a course which contains no real science?”
At the risk of repeating myself:
There is plenty of science in the course that Wellington derides. There is even more in the Additional Science GCSE (which virtually all pupils will do) and even more than that in the triple, separate sciences option.
Secondly, within all these courses there is (or ought to be if QCA’s programme of study has been adhered to) a clear emphasis on the methodology of science (i.e. investigative techniques, analysing data, testing hypotheses etc.). So the accusation that it does not contain any real science is false.
As I said, do the research. Look at all the courses on offer. Wellington derides that which is done by only a tiny fraction of pupils (the least able).
"The least able (around 10 to 20% of pupils) will do the core only"
- Right, sounds sensible.
"These children are not going to be scientists and therefore is it unnecessary for them to know Ohms/Hook’s law etc."
- If you say so, they probably wouldn't be my first choice of interesting or useful science to teach.
"It is, however important for them to understand the implications of science on the wider world and their lives. They will, after all be voters one day, and will need to make informed decisions."
- Absolutely, so test them on the scientific method; ask them questions about their understanding of different kinds of radiation; find out if they know about the difference between a scare story printed in a newspaper and a published scientific study; make sure they understand why anybody who claims CO2 is not a greenhouse gas is lying.
But for the love of god don't do reading comprehension or economics in a science exam.
"We are all scientists after all aren’t we?"
- No, less than 1% of us are, which is probably why those sample questions were so poor.
"Frankly, if all you can do is resort to ad hominem attacks (e.g. “they care about money, back covering and promotion as well.”) "
Cripes, Hoddlwood, do you ever read your own posts ?????
Like..... your opening salvo at Wellington Grey.
"I have never read such emotive, ill informed garbage as this open letter. I have been in science education for 12 years and I do not recognise a word of these criticisms. Firstly you are utterly ignorant of how education and curriculum policy is determined for school"
How come, Hoddlwood, that no-one appears to agree with you about how fantastic these new courses are ?
You might not agree with him but you must recognise a word of these criticisms surely ?
I knew before I read Mr Grey's letter (something far better composed than your "I am right and you are all wrong" rampages) that many Science teachers had concerns about the lack of science.
Your fundamental problem, AFAICS, while you are droning on about what children need (you think) is that you don't appear to know what science *is* ?
A piece of information ; unlike you, I suspect, I've taught not the bottom 10-20% but the bottom 1-2% science. They *love* real experimental science and they do a far better job of it than you might think. And they *hate* preachy politico-environmental propaganda.
Anonymous (2:17) “Absolutely, so test them on the scientific method; ask them questions about their understanding of different kinds of radiation; find out if they know about the difference between a scare story printed in a newspaper and a published scientific study; make sure they understand why anybody who claims CO2 is not a greenhouse gas is lying.”
This is why I think the letter is ignorant because the new course does these things in EXACTLY the way you’ve just outlined. The old course did not. The criticisms that Wellington makes are just not reflective of the reality, which is why I ask everyone to research it for themselves.
Anonymous (3:11)
It is not ad hominem to say someone is ignorant, emotive or ill informed when the evidence supports such a view (for example, Wellington claism there is no maths anymore when those doing the 3 sciences will do plenty of it, don't take my word for it, look it up).
You are correct that many teachers have concerns, after all they had concerns about the last course too (you know, the one that led to a massive drop in students taking science eat A level). Concerns, in themselves are not a reason to resist change; especially if they are rooted in ignorance of the facts, as these are. Do the research, see for yourself.
Don’t make judgements about my teaching experience (I have taught the FULL range), and let me make this clear once again – STUDENTS WILL STILL BE DOING INVESTIGATIONS!!!
My point is, and always has been, that the criticisms of Wellington are false. There is loads of 'science' in the new courses. Once again, do the research. Go to the QCA website and look up the science programme of study for Key Stage 4, you’ll see that 50% of GCSE science should be around investigative science (How Science Works, as it is called).
You say I don't know what science is, maybe, but you don't know what the new course really is. Just like Wellington. Criticise it if you must, but criticise what it is, not what you think it is.
Hoddlwood said...I have been in science education for 12 years.
This is a little vague. Care to enlighten us? Have you actually been teaching for this long or are you more of an administrator? Do you actually teach physics or one of the other sciences?
Since when is the fact that we MUST develop renewable energy spruce a political statement? I assume that you are aware the non renewable sources will one day disappear?
So what? We could learn to sit in the dark! Of course most people do not want to and so there is a political motive to develop new energy sources. However even in that case nuclear power is a non-renewable source but is certainly a viable alternative to "renewable" energy (and if fusion power is made to work the fuel reserves are effectively limitless). The choice between whether to develop nuclear or solar, wind etc. or to sit in the dark is a political one.
Your pupils “complained that the exam did not test the material they were given to study”. That is probably because they had a teacher who was utterly unaware of the nature of the new course and who taught them poorly.
I completely fail to see how a physics teacher can possibly be expected to figure out that the new physics course didn;t contain any physics.
May I also suggest that with ever declining numbers of pupils taking physics that the old course, of which you seem to approve, was not delivering the enthusiastic scientists of tomorrow? Indeed it was not even delivering a scientifically literate population.
While this is a problem I utterly fail to see how you can fix it by removing all the physics from the physics course. This results in even the students who take it ending up scientifically illiterate! If the goal is simply to attract students then why not devote the course to a visit to the local amusement park where they can spend all their time on the rides? You end up with a far higher enrolment and they might actually learn a little about kinematics and dynamics which is, at least, physics! If you are going to drop all the physics from the course then at least have the decency to be honest about it and stop calling it physics.
"How come, Hoddlwood, that no-one appears to agree with you about how fantastic these new courses are ?"
Plenty of people agree with me, some have even posted here (just scroll up to see). Some of the institutions that agree with me are: QCA, the Association of Science Education, The Institute of Physics, the Nuffield Foundation. There are more but these will do. It is not I that is on the minority.
Mallorn,
I’ve outlined already what my background is in another post.
“The choice between whether to develop nuclear or solar, wind etc. or to sit in the dark is a political one.”
I disagree utterly, but regardless of that it still involves science and the application of science. What is wrong with teaching this in a science GCSE?
“I completely fail to see how a physics teacher can possibly be expected to figure out that the new physics course didn;t contain any physics.”
Er...it is not a Physics course that he criticizes, but a science course, and a basic one at that. I’ve answered this point ad naseum. No need to repeat myself.
“While this is a problem I utterly fail to see how you can fix it by removing all the physics from the physics course.”
They haven’t removed it, which is why I object to the letter by Wellington. When he gets round to teaching the Additional science course (or the Triple separate science courses) he’ll see this...I hope.
“If you are going to drop all the physics from the course then at least have the decency to be honest about it and stop calling it physics.”
As I said they haven’t ‘dropped all the physics’ and it is not called physics anyway, it is a Core Science GCSE, in other words the basic minimum. Most pupils will do much, much more. Please read all that I have written.
Hoddlwood said....My point is, and always has been, that the criticisms of Wellington are false. There is loads of 'science' in the new courses.
If you judge what you are expected to know by the requirements document linked from the letter then indeed the course does contain a reasonable amount of physics, although there still are several environmental topics that have nothing to do with a physics course. However I don't think that you read the original complaint very carefully. The complaint was about the exam questions. It was these that bore no resemblance to the course and tested no physics whatsoever. The clear implication is that while I read the course requirements to contain a basic physics grounding it is clear that whoever is writing the questions either does not understand the course content or else is following guidelines that interpret it for them.
For example having read the section of the EM spectrum requirements a far more reasonable question would have been:
A book with a blue cover is sitting in the sun and heats up. What can you say about its absorbtion and reflection of (a) visible, (b) Infrared. In each case explain your reasoning.
You could then follow it up with a question about the heating power of the sun given a certain absorbtion efficiency of the book and the infrared intensity. That would be a simple physics question not the biology question included in the letter.
You can write what you want in the course requirements but if the people writing the exam questions do not have any grasp at all of physics then the effect will still be to destroy the subject.
"Plenty of people agree with me, some have even posted here (just scroll up to see). Some of the institutions that agree with me are: QCA, the Association of Science Education, The Institute of Physics, the Nuffield Foundation"
Sorry, I meant teachers and physicists ; not quangos and shambolic organisations like QCA.
Yes, I did see a couple of cheerleading posts, I assumed they were sock puppets.
Re: exam questions. the ones quoted are from the specimen paper not the real thing. Specimen papers, especially for brand new courses, are notoriously unreliable indicators of future exam questions (despite what it says on the tin!). It is perfectly valid to criticise that issue, but it has been ever thus. It is not correct to spout nonsense about the entire course based on some shoddy specimen paper questions. Frankly this is, as I have said, an issue with the exam board (AQA) not the nature of the new course, as has been the case here.
“The choice between whether to develop nuclear or solar, wind etc. or to sit in the dark is a political one.”
Hoddlwood said...I disagree utterly, but regardless of that it still involves science and the application of science.
Ok, please explain to me how the choice between power generation technologies is a scientific one. All the science tells you is the likely consequences of the options: the choice of which consequence to accept is a purely political choice.
Maybe this is where we disagree. You see I thought the point of an education was to give students a grounding from which to form their own opinions and NOT to teach them which opinions are the good ones to have. It is a perfectly reasonable, if perhaps unpopular, stance to take that we should just develop nuclear power and forget renewable sources. So how can scientifically justify claiming that you must develop renewable power? This exam question highlighted in the complaint is unjustifiable as science, let alone physics.
I’ve outlined already what my background is in another post.
Yes, but even there you fail to say whether you have actually taught physics or have any physics qualification like a degree in it.
anonymous,
Does the institute of physics not count? The ASE (professional association of science teachers)? Nuffield? All these organisations contributed to the changes and supported them. You are simply wrong to insinuate that they do not garner any support amongst the key groups you cite.
I have just completed a course in teaching physics and while this turn of events does shock and upset me, I can see why it is being done.
The theory is that courses such as this make science more accessible to the masses. On the other hand that is why we have courses such as General science which are to cater to the masses of people who are put of by the maths.
What scares me more is that last year I sat a Advanced higher Chemistry exam because I was bored (having not done much chemistry in 9 years) and managed to pass on the information out of the data book alone and only basic chemistry knowledge from a GCSE many years before.
Education in this country is getting out of hand and in several weeks we will return to the rounds of how we aren't "dumming down" education when the results come out. After looking at this how can anyone believe that.
Mallorn,
The world has moved on, children need to learn both the science and the consequences of it. Your point regarding power generation misses the point. Who would you rather have teaching the consequences of Nuclear power, a science teacher or a geography/RE/sociology teacher?
Aside from this the new course aims to do both: teach the science AND the implications of science. It is ridiculous to have these taught in separate lessons. Also it is not about teaching them to form certain opinions, it is about getting them to apply scientific knowledge to make their own judgements and to justify them rationally. This is just plain sound pedagogy.
My experience: I have taught science (including physics) to GCSE level and my degree is in Biochemistry (and an A level in Physics). To assume that only physics graduates are capable of delivering effective GCSE physics is silly and backward; many good teachers of physics have no degree in the subject.
It is not correct to spout nonsense about the entire course based on some shoddy specimen paper questions.
I'm sorry but if the exam board that will be writing the exam to test knowledge of the course is incompetent how can it be out of place to question whether this course will be a disaster for physics? The questions will be based on the interpretation of the exam board and not that of the teachers.
What is worse is that you claim this is a "known problem" with specimen papers. So if you admin lot know all about it why have you not fixed it or at least notified people that the specimen paper bares no resemblance to the actual course? In fact why did you not write a specimen exam paper yourselves as an exam to the exam boards?
Who would you rather have teaching the consequences of Nuclear power, a science teacher or a geography/RE/sociology teacher?
That's easy to answer: a geography teacher because it has everything to do with that and very little to do with physics once you understand the basics of a nuclear reaction. Just look at Universities: we don't teach the environmental impact of nuclear power in physics courses because it has nothing to do with physics.
Aside from this the new course aims to do both: teach the science AND the implications of science. It is ridiculous to have these taught in separate lessons.
I completely disagree. I think teaching the science and then using that say, in geography, to discuss siting a nuclear plant would be an excellent way to split things up. What better way for the students to learn that science has applications outside its field? Afterall surely you don't advocate maths teachers starting to teach economics so that students can see where maths is used?
To assume that only physics graduates are capable of delivering effective GCSE physics is silly and backward; many good teachers of physics have no degree in the subject.
I agree, but we are not talking just about teaching are we? We are talking about the curriculum and what physics the students should be learning and, without a university level education in the subject you simply do not know enough about the field to be able to know what is important and what is not. You have only done two years more physics that the students themselves and have at best only a very basic understanding of quantum physics, particle physics, relativity, astrophysics etc.
Given that I'm sure that you do think the emphasis on applications of science is great: it is easier to teach and you are probably unaware of all the fun and amazing stuff you could be teaching them instead.
Now before you say "but they don't need to know that - they aren't going to become scientists", in my opinion, that doesn't matter. Even non-scientists should be exposed to some of the amazing things that science can do. I don't know anyone who went into physics to find out what the environmental consequences of nuclear power are but I know a lot of people who wanted to know about the structure of the universe or what a force is or how is matter put together etc.
Now you can't do that rigorously at GCSE level but that is the sort of thing that could be included at the "verbal explanation" level instead of, say, the consequences of sunbathing.
Mallorn,
“What is worse is that you claim this is a "known problem" with specimen papers. So if you admin lot know all about it why have you not fixed it or at least notified people that the specimen paper bares no resemblance to the actual course?”
Admin lot??? What are you on about? I have neither the time nor inclination to explain my job to you, but it is not about admin. My point was that the question may be poorly made (not sure I agree but who cares?) but this is not reflective of the course as a whole. Wellington is judging an entire curriculum change based, it seems, on a couple of anomalies. This is a far wider issue than that.
“That's easy to answer: a geography teacher because it has everything to do with that and very little to do with physics once you understand the basics of a nuclear reaction. Just look at Universities: we don't teach the environmental impact of nuclear power in physics courses because it has nothing to do with physics.”
We’ll just have to disagree here as I can see no logic in this view of yours. However it is worth noting that we are talking about a course for children, not university students. I may also ask that perhaps if more science students discussed the wider implications of their work we’d have an easier job convincing the wider world of the benefits of what we’d both agree is a wonderful subject. It is folly to assume that physicists or geneticist should not have to learn about the impact of their work in society. This seems an incredibly insular view, although funnily enough my university course did contain such work.
“but we are not talking just about teaching are we?”
I am afraid that is exactly what I am talking about. Teaching children about science.
“without a university level education in the subject you simply do not know enough about the field to be able to know what is important and what is not.”
“Now before you say "but they don't need to know that - they aren't going to become scientists", in my opinion, that doesn't matter.”
What arrogant statements these are. I assume you do know what is best for the students then? Perhaps you’d like to walk into an average comprehensive school and tell the them yourself?
“Now you can't do that rigorously at GCSE level but that is the sort of thing that could be included at the "verbal explanation" level instead of, say, the consequences of sunbathing.”
This last point of yours illustrates how little you know about pedagogy. Should we not teach children about the dangers of sunbathing then? Perhaps when they are dying from skin cancer (which, incidentally is on the rise) they can console themselves with their extensive knowledge of forces, relativity, and the structure of the universe.
Anyway, that is enough for me, I’ve got work to do.
That letter hits the nail on the head, its just what needs to be said. I'm taking the module and it is awful. the mark scheme is not only stupid, but overly strict to its stupid answers.
Cheers Mate!!!!!
“but we are not talking just about teaching are we?”
I am afraid that is exactly what I am talking about. Teaching children about science.
No, we are talking about WHAT to teach them not about HOW to teach them. To know WHAT to teach them you need a broad based view of the field and that requires a deeper knowledge.
“without a university level education in the subject you simply do not know enough about the field to be able to know what is important and what is not.”
“Now before you say "but they don't need to know that - they aren't going to become scientists", in my opinion, that doesn't matter.”
What arrogant statements these are. I assume you do know what is best for the students then?
...and yet here you are telling all of us with far better physics qualifications than yourself what should be taught as part of the physics curriculum. Doesn't this seem a little odd to you?
But enough of my opinion, lets look at the evidence. Since the curriculum has been watered down by these extraneous, non-scientific applications standards have fallen and enrolments have fallen. This suggests that not only do students learn less but they are not interested in learning what you insist is relevant for them.
This last point of yours illustrates how little you know about pedagogy. Should we not teach children about the dangers of sunbathing then?
No, not in a physics class because it has nothing to do with physics. The fact that you think this is a good example to assist in teaching physics just shows that you do not understand the subject.
Perhaps when they are dying from skin cancer (which, incidentally is on the rise) they can console themselves with their extensive knowledge of forces, relativity, and the structure of the universe.
If you are REALLY concerned about the dangers of skin cancer then don't you think that it should be covered a lot earlier than GCSE, like, say in primary school? That is certainly where my daughter is learning it. By the time they are 15-16 they could well have already damaged their skin.
mallorn,
"No, not in a physics class because it has nothing to do with physics. The fact that you think this is a good example to assist in teaching physics just shows that you do not understand the subject."
this is getting boring. how many times do i have to say it? this course is not a physics GCSE.your points are rendered irrelevant by the fact that the specification that wellington criticizes is, in fact a SCIENCE GCSE. Therefor it teaches a wide range of concepts, of which the effect of UV is but one. do your fcuking research.
The End.
mallorn,
one last thing
"Since the curriculum has been watered down by these extraneous, non-scientific applications standards have fallen and enrolments have fallen. This suggests that not only do students learn less but they are not interested in learning what you insist is relevant for them."
the fall in enrollment in the sciences at a-level and beyond has been going on for over 15 years, well before these changes (which are a year old). so it is, in fact, the old system that turned kids off science, not this new course. do your fcukign research.
this course is not a physics GCSE.your points are rendered irrelevant by the fact that the specification that wellington criticizes is, in fact a SCIENCE GCSE. Therefor it teaches a wide range of concepts, of which the effect of UV is but one.
Have you actually read the specification you keep talking about? Section 13.5, which is clearly labelled as physics, is the only section which refers ultraviolet radiation. So how are you expected to realize that it is referring to biology and not physics?
do your fcuking research.
I have. Perhaps you should do some too so you don't have to resort to swearing to try and defend your position.
You can’t ask a civil engineer to build a bridge that will safely carry the required load during a hurricane, whose education has comprised solely of pub arguments about whether morally the bridge should be carrying only solar-powered vehicles!
In such cases, people will die unless the engineers’ and physicists’ model of the real world is precise, accurate and objectively correct, and this is a far more immediate moral requirement.
What about an "E-gov" (or whatever it's called) petition on this topic?
Bob Fletcher
The whole course is science and while the specification is demarcated along traditional lines it is expected that pupils are to make links across these lines. A good teacher would do this. Wellington obviously is not (at lest in this case).
Additionally, people on this thread (and Wellington) keep referring to it as a Physics GCSE, while ignoring the fact that the real Physics GCSE contains all of the beloved precision that you think this course lacks. This is not a Physics GCSE; it is a general science GCSE that contains some physics. It is not representative of the experience of physics that most future physicists (or even most pupils) will experience. It is like judging an entire meal by the hors d’oeurve.
I have lost count how many times I have made this point and I shall not make it again; it is boring, hence....
I swore because your pedantry and ignorance of educational matters is irritating.
Re: Anonymous (1:01pm)
“You can’t ask a civil engineer to build a bridge that will safely carry the required load during a hurricane, whose education has comprised solely of pub arguments about whether morally the bridge should be carrying only solar-powered vehicles!”
That is why future civil engineers will be doing far more (at GCSE level) than this course – how many times do I have to say it???? Fer fcuk’s sake....WHY ARE YOU ALL SO BLOODY IGNORANT OF THE TRUE NATURE OF THE NEW GCSE COURSE?????
Seriously though, there is plenty of real science given to most pupils at GCSE level, enough to provide a good grounding for A-Level and enough to ensure that engineers know how to build bridges properly. Wellington is panicking over nothing, as are you all.
This is an excellent letter, I too are becoming sick of the crap that is fed to us (I'm two years past GCSE now, thank God), but its good that teachers are recognising this and caring genuinely about our subject.
I will be forwarding this to all the relevant people I know.
James,
The GCSE that you did two years ago (and called crap) is the one that the author of this letter would like to see back in schools. I think you’ve go it the wrong way round.
This is not a Physics GCSE; it is a general science GCSE that contains some physics.
What you are failing to hear, time and time again, is that everyone is appalled at what you are calling physics. The example questions have nothing to do with physics! Some of them have nothing to do with science. You keep saying that its only a science GCSE as if that is an excuse: it isn't. Nor is it enough to write down physics in the requirements if the questions will never test it. One of the foundations of science is physics: you cannot have a science GCSE without it containing physics...and before you return to the old chestnut of "but the example questions are always bad". If they are then you should fix it by writing your own example questions and not just sit there like a lemon bemoaning the fact.
I swore because your pedantry and ignorance of educational matters is irritating.
I don't see how complaining about a lack of (and quality of) physics in a science GCSE is "pedantry". Of course given your lack of interest and qualifications in physics I can understand how you don't think this is particularly important subject but frankly, that is the result of your ignorance not mine.
So far the summary of your arguments seems to be:
This is a science GCSE so its ok that it contains rubbish physics because it isn't a physics GCSE.
It is quite reasonable not to have calculations required because it is more important than the students know about for example sunbathing than the physics of EM radiation.
It's old fashioned to think that someone deciding what physics should be included in a curriculum should have a university level education in the subject so they know what they are talking about.
The example questions are always bad although they don't seem particularly appalling.
With arguments like that is it any wonder that nobody agrees with you?
I can see in the next post that you are back to swearing again to make your point. For someone who advocates discussion over substance in the classroom I must admit I am not at all impressed with your discussion skills. Is this what you teach your students? If someone doesn't agree with you start shouting and swearing at them? I'd strongly suggest you take a good look at your own competency before criticising that of others.
Mallorn,
“What you are failing to hear, time and time again, is that everyone is appalled at what you are calling physics. The example questions have nothing to do with physics! Some of them have nothing to do with science. You keep saying that its only a science GCSE as if that is an excuse: it isn't. Nor is it enough to write down physics in the requirements if the questions will never test it. One of the foundations of science is physics: you cannot have a science GCSE without it containing physics...and before you return to the old chestnut of "but the example questions are always bad". If they are then you should fix it by writing your own example questions and not just sit there like a lemon bemoaning the fact.”
Have you actually seen the exam?
Or are you taking Wellington’s word for it?
Do you teach the course?
Did you teach the old course?
Have you ever taught normal children in a comprehensive school?
What experience, other than as a pupil or parent, do you have of education?
I assume, because you have not mentioned, that the answer to these questions is no (or none). In which case, you are less qualified to speak on issues of education than I am to speak on matters pertaining to physics.
“So far the summary of your arguments seems to be:
This is a science GCSE so its ok that it contains rubbish physics because it isn't a physics GCSE.”
No, what I’m saying is that this is a basic GCSE in science. Most pupils will go on to do more physics as part of the Additional Science GCSE, and that includes some calculations etc. The only pupils that will do only this GCSE and no other in science, are those that are so weak in ability that they would have got nothing from the other courses anyway. It is better instead for them spend some extra time on their basic literacy (for instance), which, after all is more useful to these kinds of pupils. After all reading and writing is of greater value to them than knowing Hook’s Law or calculating acceleration under gravity. This is better for the pupils and no, that is not my opinion, it is theirs. Don’t believe me? Go and ask them.
But seeing as you do not have experience of education at this level (I assume) you have no conception of this, do you?
“It is quite reasonable not to have calculations required because it is more important than the students know about for example sunbathing than the physics of EM radiation.”
Most pupils will still have to do some calculations. Incidentally, under the old GCSE the calculations were mainly the preserve of the most able anyway. The foundation tiers were always bereft of any real calculation. The maths is, and always has been, the preserve of the more able. You see all that has changed is that we are able to offer more relevance to the least able and a wider variety of choice to the middle ground. The higher stuff (that you love) is still there for the academically minded scientists.
“It's old fashioned to think that someone deciding what physics should be included in a curriculum should have a university level education in the subject so they know what they are talking about.”
I don’t think that at all. As I have said in earlier posts the Institute of Physics (for example) are in support of this new curriculum. Got a problem? Take it up with them.
“The example questions are always bad although they don't seem particularly appalling.”
I simply don’t understand what this means or where you got it from. As I have said before I agree that AQA is shite in many ways, but this is not reflective of the curriculum change as a whole.
The facts are these:
Under the old GCSE (i.e. the last 15 years or so) all pupils have been forced, by law, to study science in the way you seem to love; the result? We got a continuing decline in uptake of A-level physics and Chemistry, alongside a dramatic decrease in the scientific literacy of the general population. To bastardise a well known phrase: if it is broke, fix it.
The fact is, you don’t really understand the new curriculum model, you don’t understand the nature of modern children, nor do you realise just how destructive to science the old course was. In fact you don’t understand any of the nuances to this debate. You support this letter because it confirms a pre-conceived judgement that you have. Unlike a true scientist you have accepted on faith something that just does not tally with the evidence. Are you religious by any chance?
Re: swearing. Personally, I consider our ancient Anglo-Saxon heritage to be illustrative of the rich tapestry of the English language. If it is good enough for Geoffrey Chaucer, it is good enough for me. You really ought to get over it. If not, you can fcuk off.
Is this the same Hoddlwood who was bemoaning Ad Hominem ?
"Fuck off", indeed. A better two word summary of barely qualified LEA advisory teachers input one would struggle to find.
it was a joke, admittedly not a funny one, but a joke nonetheless.
Glad to see you still hold your irrational prejudices about LA staff.
I replied on my blog Badcop666
Sign of the times...
Ah, the excuse ever beloved of EBD children "it was a joke, can't you take a joke" ?
Irrational: nope, I don't think so.
"I assume, because you have not mentioned, that the answer to these questions is no (or none). In which case, you are less qualified to speak on issues of education than I am to speak on matters pertaining to physics."
Presumably he could pontificate endlessly (and in the anglo saxon mode) if he'd got an A level in something vaguely related ?
“Ah, the excuse ever beloved of EBD children "it was a joke, can't you take a joke" ?
Irrational: nope, I don't think so.”
If a child made reference to Chaucer whilst calling me a cunt it would certainly raise a smile, yes.
Irrational: yes. You have no evidence for your assertions regarding my job except your own prejudice. That is a pretty sound example of the irrational.
“Presumably he could pontificate endlessly (and in the anglo saxon mode) if he'd got an A level in something vaguely related ?”
Your point is what, exactly? I am merely answering points made by people directly to me, no more, no less.
By the way, you never did get round to answering my point about the new GCSEs having the support of THE major body for physicists (the IoP), did you? It seems the arbiters of your subject do not agree with your hypothesis, despite you claiming that no real physicist supports the new courses. Looks like you are wrong here, eh?
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