Oral evidence: Practical science in schools, HC 1270Monday 12 May 2014
Oral evidence, 12 May 2014.
Witnesses
Dennis Opposs, Director of Standards, Ofqual, Glenys Stacey, Chief Regulator, Ofqual, and Janet Holloway, Head of Reform, Ofqual, gave evidence.
Chair
Good afternoon. Could I welcome you here this afternoon, and thank you for sitting in on the earlier session, which I think helps to inform some of the exchanges. For the record, I would be grateful if the three of you would introduce yourselves.
Glenys Stacey
My name is Glenys Stacey and I am the Chief Regulator at Ofqual.
Dennis Opposs
I am Dennis Opposs. I am Director of Standards at Ofqual, and in the past I taught science in schools.
Janet Holloway
I am Janet Holloway, Head of Reform at Ofqual, and I also used to teach science in schools.
Chair
Out of interest, can I ask whether any of you read our previous report?
Glenys Stacey
For my part—I am sure my colleagues will speak for themselves—I read your 2011 report very carefully. Indeed, Dennis Opposs gave evidence to you at that time.
Chair
Did any of our recommendations influence your thinking?
Glenys Stacey
Yes, they did. If you recollect, in recommendations 10 and 15 in particular, you expressed concern about the need for experimentation and lab skills to be properly tested. You proposed that students’ understanding of the experimental process should be examined properly, and we had very real regard to that.
Chair
Because my information is largely based on media reporting of what you actually said, and my instant reaction when I read one report was, “This is daft,” I want to give you a clear opportunity to convince me that it was not daft. I am firmly of the view that practical knowledge of how science works is equally as valuable as theoretical, yet it seems that the proposals to decouple, as you heard earlier, will, in the eyes of many, not achieve the goal you are seeking. Can you convince me that it is not daft?
Glenys Stacey
Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I will give it my best shot. We are making changes to A-levels, the sciences in particular, first to embed the new content agreed by Government. If you have a chance to look at that, you will see that the new curriculum requires greater emphasis on testing and experimentation by exam, but there is also a list for each of the science subjects of a dozen or so practical skills that must be taught and assessed. If you like, we are putting into effect regulating for a more specific—
Chair
Can I just get it clear in my mind? Assessed beyond pass or fail? Grade?
Glenys Stacey
Not necessarily.
Chair
Why not? This is the bit I fail to understand.
Glenys Stacey
If I can explain what we are doing, we are taking that content and embedding it in a qualification—A-level—and in assessment arrangements that we judge are best, or most likely, to produce valid and reliable outcomes and also, as far as possible, the right educational outcomes for those students, so students are more likely to go to university with the right range of practical bench skills that universities themselves through research have said they most value. What we have been wrestling with is not that these skills are not important or not central to science; it is how best to regulate for the design of an assessment that is most likely to achieve the valid outcomes everyone wants, and also most likely to ensure that most students study a greater range of practical skills than—frankly—they do at the moment.
Chair
Do you think this approach will result in schools and parents putting greater or lesser weight on science education?
Glenys Stacey
I do not think it will result in lesser weight being put on science education. I say that for several reasons. One is that 15% of the marks in the examinations will be allocated in each of the exam boards to the student’s understanding of experimentation in its wider sense, including data analysis and experimentation design. Frankly, it will no longer be possible for students to obtain the best grades in any of the science subjects unless they have sufficient understanding and experience of experimentation. Parents will, hopefully, regard that well. It also means that the grade from the examinations will be more valid and reliable than the current ones. It will not be obfuscated, confused or made less valid or reliable because of any particular practices that happen at the moment around experimentation and the assessment of it by non-exam techniques.
Chair
If you have a student who is heading for good grades—high grades—and their parents and teachers see that they will get a high grade come what may, surely they are going to put less emphasis on the practical skills, because all they are going to do is pass or fail.
Glenys Stacey
Students will, as I have said, only be able to achieve the highest grades in these qualifications if they have sufficient experience of experimentation in every sense. They are also required in each of the science subjects to do a minimum of a dozen determined practical skills. They will have to do those; there is no avoiding it. We will require a record of those things. We will require live moderation over the two years of the qualification from exam boards in a targeted way. We will require evidence per student that each of those practical skills has been undertaken and assessed. It is not that the practical skills in our proposal are optional for students; they are required. Therefore, if I were a young scientist with ambitions to study at university, I would be looking forward to a good deal more experimentation than I experience at the moment.
Chair
You heard the professor from the UK Deans of Science say that this will not stretch students. How can you convince him—or me—that that is not true?
Glenys Stacey
First, what has beleaguered this debate for many months—we started the consultation in October last year—is that, although there is a common view and agreement that things do not work well at the moment, none of the solutions in play at the moment, including the extended project, can be said to work sufficiently well across the vast majority of our schools. One of the issues we have all grappled with is that there is no immediate happy solution. Secondly, we are looking to promote the right educational outcomes. We are looking to promote more science work and more bench work in schools, basically making it more difficult to avoid, should a teacher, school or student wish to do so. There is now a basic requirement in relation to a dozen skills. If you are a well-motivated teacher, an enthusiastic scientist, surely the way of doing that is to integrate your science teaching, so you are demonstrating and teaching students to learn these practical skills and be at ease with them through experimentation. We will be making sure that that happens through moderation and in discussions with Ofsted through the checks and balances they can bring to bear.
Stephen Metcalfe
As I said to the earlier panel, we all agree there is a need for change and for motivating the changes for the right reasons. We have the right reasons, but when you went out and consulted about decoupling the majority of respondents disagreed with your view. Can you tell us who supported the proposals?
Glenys Stacey
Yes, I can. First, some teachers at the chalk face supported them. One or two eminent scientists recognised the intractable issues with assessment; Jon Osborne, for example, was one of those who did that. Indeed, the Abrahams and Reiss research that Julia quoted earlier recognises the inherent problems with indirect, as opposed to direct, assessment of skills. I think there was a mixed picture. Many leading scientists prefer solutions such as, for example, the extended project, but we have the difficult task of squaring the promotion of science with manageability in the vast majority of schools, not simply a few, and also of being sufficiently sure of valid and reliable outcomes. We are trying to get three things—three boxes ticked, if you like: to promote good science and good learning, and for it to be manageable in the vast majority of schools. Remember that some of them—for example, OCR, have centres with 300 students doing chemistry, so the extended project gets very problematic. We are also looking for sufficiently valid and reliable outcomes. Often the engagements we have had recognise the problem and the need to promote good science thinking, but the solutions get much thinner when you are looking at whether it is manageable across the range of centres and schools we are talking about and whether it will produce sufficiently valid assessment outcomes. That is really where the problems lie.
Stephen Metcalfe
What I draw from that is that all the major scientific organisations who are opposing these changes are looking at this from a different angle from you. Is that right? They want a different outcome from the one you are trying to achieve.
Glenys Stacey
That is right. We all have a common interest in ensuring that practical work is at the heart of science teaching, and that we develop people’s interest, enthusiasm and ability in science and in bench skills. There is no distance between us there at all. I suspect that we are in a slightly different position from others because we are looking across the evidence base and what we have seen by way of different solutions. We obviously have to focus on issues such as lack of discrimination in some of these assessments and manageability. These are our statutory requirements; we need to do that. I think it is right to say that a good number of the leading science groups—for example, SCORE, Wellcome and Gatsby—all presented to us different proposed possibilities for solutions and combinations. We set those out for you in our memorandum to the Committee. The solution that we have come up with takes a good number of those things—for example, log books and increased testing, experimentation and examination—but one or two of the things proposed are, I suspect, the real rubbing points. One is the extended project. We cannot see that it is manageable or valid across all schools, so we did not go for it in the end. The big issue, which I quite understand, is that we have determined to take practical skills out of the main grade, but to get them assessed as pass or fail. I quite understand that that is a significant challenge and change. I believe we have set out the reasons why we have done that: the accountability pressures and the sufficient experience we now have across a wide range of schools of mark-chasing and grade-chasing that happens when it is within the assessment. We are trying to liberate it—to take the shackles off it—to enable proper science teaching, freed of the notion that you chase grades. Frankly, the evidence is that you chase grades even in the extended project, because you are assessing an extended project by a record of it—an indirect assessment which Reiss and Abrahams argue against, as do we. Good teachers not only know how to teach science but which words students should use in their assessment to make sure they tick the boxes for the marks scheme. I think there is a common understanding of the issue, and a common requirement and desire to liberate science teachers to enable them to teach our budding science students well, but when it comes to how best to do that, we are very keen to ensure that we have good valid outcomes. We did not think that some of the solutions presented to us would do that sufficiently well.
Stephen Metcalfe
You heard what the previous panel said when I asked them what message they would like to send to you. There is obviously huge concern about the changes. They talk of danger, risk and potential damage to the current cohort—no evidence; think again. Regardless of whether or not you think you are right and they are wrong, or vice versa, would it not be better for science overall if there was more unanimity on this issue and you could find some common ground where you did agree? At the moment, it strikes me that we are damaging the perception of science and the way it is taught, whatever the outcome.
Glenys Stacey
One of the heartening things about the debate in the last month or two has been the willingness of even those science groups that react most adversely to our decisions to work with us to make sure we can implement these proposals well and, indeed, to evaluate them as they run. We welcome that wholeheartedly. It is important for us now to regulate well, and promote as far as possible the outcomes we all want to see. For example, it was unknown to those commenting on our consultation, until we agreed it recently, that we will require all exam boards to dedicate 15% of their marks to experimentation. Unlike in the past, when there was a little bit of freedom of interpretation, we are really buttoning this down across all exam boards. We have a strengthened accreditation process that will check that in action. We require exam boards to set out their assessment strategies as well, which will show us how they intend to do that. For our part, we can regulate well and keep right on top of this. For the practical skills requirements, we are for the first time ever going to require exam boards to adopt a common approach. One of the issues in the past has been the freedoms that exam boards have enjoyed to interpret these requirements. It will no longer be so. There will be a common approach to checking, moderation and setting out those requirements. We have an opportunity. They are not coming in until first teaching in September 2015, so we are very keen to talk to science teachers—and, yes, the interested science representative groups—to make sure we design and agree the checks and balances so that this really does happen. Just as a small thing, we have taken the logbook proposal. How do we make that logbook really integrated into science teaching? In my day, you had to write out your science experiment, draw it and explain it in a way that another scientist could replicate it. That has been a bit lost, and we have an opportunity to get the logbook right. The checks and balances can really help. The success will be in the detail. We also have an opportunity to pilot, as was discussed earlier. We will work with exam boards to pilot these arrangements to make sure we can get them as right as possible, but there is more work to be done, not just by us but by others, to prepare schools for teaching practical science to the extent that they are now required to do. The equipment issue, which you were exploring earlier, is one that we need to pick up, but not all of these things are solely within our gift. We need to be talking with others to make sure that both equipment and timetabling work as well as possible. It is not simply our controls over exam boards and schools.
Stephen Metcalfe
What would success look like? What would be your definition of a successful change? How long will you give it before you decide whether it has been successful in achieving the results you wanted, or that you would think again?
Glenys Stacey
I would like to be clear that we are committed to achieving better educational outcomes in science A-levels. That is what we are looking for. We will be doing all that we can to make sure we achieve those. Like all assessment, this is a relatively long game. For us, better outcomes would, for example, in time be feedback from higher education that those getting to university have a wider range of practical skills than they have at the moment. I was very struck by John Holman saying that one of his chemistry students said that she had done only two practicals in the two years she had studied, and some of the other students agreed. That feedback loop is really important, but we need to let these run. In the meantime, we will be making sure that they run to best effect while they are running, so that is about the assessment strategies being right; it is about accrediting qualifications only to the right standards, with good moderation checks and the data analysis that we can do. For example, what correlation do you expect to see between pass/fail? We will be right on top of that. We will be working with Ofsted to see what checks and balances and live information they can give us, and, yes, we are very interested in what research we can run live to see how these things work in practice. We are quite a young regulatory body, but we have learned some hard lessons. One of them is getting out to schools, which I personally do a lot. Incidentally, I can tell you I have had enough experience of sitting in A-level science labs with teachers and students together telling me that the current experience is simply stultifying. I hope that over time when we get out to schools we hear a better story.
Jim Dowd
I think I now have a clear impression of the power structure of Ofqual, but I would be grateful if you could explain, as briefly as you can please, why you need both a chief regulator and a chief executive.
Glenys Stacey
I am the chief regulator and the chief executive; I am one and the same. I was employed as the chief executive, but already by statute it was determined that the chief executive would become the chief regulator accounting to Parliament.
Jim Dowd
Right. The biog I had in front of me did not make that clear. It said that you had moved from being chief executive to chief regulator.
Glenys Stacey
Only because the statute required it.
Jim Dowd
That’s fine. Your proposals were very prescriptive. There was no menu of options; just one approach was adduced and sent out into the world. Was this the only route—the only solution—you looked at?
Glenys Stacey
We looked at a range of options and the evidence we had of how the range of approaches tried in the past had stood up. None of them stood up sufficiently well for us to promote them as a solution. The guidance we follow for structuring our consultations is that where we have a preferred solution we should state it, so we did.
Jim Dowd
On the decoupling, as it has been called this afternoon, where was the evidence that separating the practical from the theoretical—although there is a heavy overlay of theoretical on the practical—would lead to more and better teaching of science in our schools?
Glenys Stacey
In coming to that decision, two particular things influenced us. One is the evidence that under the current arrangements, where those assessments contribute to the grade, distortion occurs. Forgive me if I get this wrong, but, for example, in AQA chemistry, which I think is the biggest provider, there are 40 marks for practical assessment. The most common marks are 38, 39 and 40. Of those, the most common mark is 40. That suggests to us, particularly when we correlate it to the range of marks on examination, that the correlations do not sufficiently equate. The evidence was, first, that a good number of so-called tried-and-tested approaches were not working in practice. Secondly, we had over 800 responses to our consultation, and there were a good number of independent responses from teachers.
Jim Dowd
How do they break down, roughly, for and against your approach?
Glenys Stacey
I think 52% were against decoupling, as you call it, but some of those were proposing written examination, so it was not a straightforward “against” every aspect of what we were proposing. Coming back to the teacher evidence, there were some telling submissions from very experienced and well-placed teachers about what is happening in schools. It is very persuasive, and being out there seeing it is as well.
Jim Dowd
The Minister for Science and I were both on a Committee together. He said that because somebody said this went too far and somebody else said it did not go far enough, he felt it was right. I asked him—Hansard records it—whether, if he felt that if nobody agreed with him he must be right, this was his approach to matters. Is it your approach?
Glenys Stacey
I do not think it is Ofqual’s approach at all. These decisions, as perhaps you know, are made by the Ofqual board, which in the main is seeking to make evidence-based decisions. The board has on it experienced teachers and heads, as well as others. We are always trying to make the best possible decisions. On occasions, that has meant that the board made decisions which are deeply unpopular. Why is that? It is because we are where we are with the way qualifications and examinations are designed at the moment, and to get them to a place where they best suit their purpose and produce valid outcomes we often challenge the way things are done in schools.
Jim Dowd
How much ministerial engagement and involvement was there? How closely did you work with Ministers before deciding to pursue this path?
Glenys Stacey
We did not seek Ministers’ opinions or advice.
Jim Dowd
Very wise.
Glenys Stacey
This is an independent regulator.
Jim Dowd
It is all your own work.
Glenys Stacey
It is.
Jim Dowd
There was no other prompting, other than the general proposition.
Glenys Stacey
The content for these A-levels is set by Government. We are looking at how best to embed that content in these A-levels. You will have seen the list of practical skills, so we have to take that content in the round and say, “Is that good enough in demand?” and all the rest of it. When we have it, we have to design the best qualification and assessment rules that go with it. That is the relationship between us. Dennis, do you want to say anything on that?
Jim Dowd
As you have taken all the trouble to come here, you are welcome to speak.
Dennis Opposs
One thing it is worth being very clear about is what we are separating out. It is not really separating science theory from science practical. We have said that a lot of science practical is now going to be embedded in the syllabuses and has to be taught. Some of that practical—certainly skills like planning investigations and data analysis—is going to be assessed in the exam. There are a small number of skills—the manipulative skills—that you can assess only if you are a teacher observing a student doing them. Those are the ones that can be reported separately. The way our proposal has been characterised in places is rather inaccurate in that sense. It is not that all the practical skills have been separated out and are reported separately.
Chair
You said you were hoping that this approach was going to be evidence-based. You heard us ask the previous panel about international comparisons. Have you any international comparisons to bring into the equation?
Dennis Opposs
We have drawn on some evidence. There was a piece of work done by Ofqual, published two years ago, which was a study of four A-level subjects, including chemistry, where we compared what went on in A-levels with what went on in 20 or so jurisdictions around the world.
Chair
Were these jurisdictions our competitor countries or just random countries?
Dennis Opposs
They were the sorts of countries that are often referred to as higher performing. Because it included chemistry, some of that evidence was about practical skills. Some of that was then drawn into the paper by Abrahams, Reiss and Sharpe, which was referred to by the earlier witnesses, who looked more widely at the state of practical work and practical assessment across the world. They found that, certainly in some of the countries that do very well in the PISA international tests—they quoted China, Singapore, New Zealand and Finland—they all made much more use of direct assessment of practical skills, as they referred to it, which we are saying is the separately reported part. They make more use of that than England and some other countries—for example, Australia or Scotland. There was some evidence to suggest that we ought to be doing more of that.
Chair
Is there a country that fits into that category that is using the methodology you are describing?
Dennis Opposs
According to that paper, in China, there is separate assessment and reporting of that direct assessment of practical skills, so there is one.
Chair
But, in China, there isn’t a universal system applying to the education system. You are selectively choosing parts of China. Which parts?
Glenys Stacey
It is fair to say that we are not choosing China.
Dennis Opposs
It is the case that the only part of China that has had its results reported in the PISA analysis is Shanghai.
Chair
That is a successful and important part of China, but it is not the whole of China.
Dennis Opposs
I cannot be certain because it is not my paper, but I think they are referring to something that is used more broadly inside China, so it was not just part of PISA.
Chair
To the best of your knowledge, there are some reports that parts of China adopt this approach. United States? Australia?
Dennis Opposs
No, not as far as I know.
Chair
Anywhere else—Germany?
Dennis Opposs
One of the messages from the work is that, when you look around the world at the way different countries do it, there is no very popular approach to this. There is a huge variety of different approaches.
Glenys Stacey
You mentioned Australia. As Malcolm Trobe said earlier, each state in Australia does it differently. There are very significant differences in the amount of examined and non-examined assessment, for example. The equivalent body to us in Australia spends a lot of its time trying to reconcile those things within the states of Australia, let alone comparing itself internationally. One important feature here, which is not so dominant in the vast majority of other jurisdictions, and which we all have regard to, is the accountability framework that our schools and colleges are judged by. It is quite unusual.
Graham Stringer
You heard the previous witnesses say that this is a big gamble. What would it take for you to change your minds?
Glenys Stacey
First, we want to see these qualifications run, and we want to put every effort into making sure that the checks, balances and controls are right. Indeed, part of that involves piloting with exam boards. If that piloting found these arrangements to be unworkable, we would be putting up our hands and saying so, but that is not our expectation. Secondly, if in practice these qualifications do not produce the educational outcomes we aim for, and if we have evidence over time that students are not going to university with the right range of practical skills, we would be looking to advise Government of that, and look to our own arrangements for the design of qualifications. It is the same for any key state qualification. If the evidence is that it is not working well enough, our job is to address that and to make proposals to improve it, and that is what we would do.
Graham Stringer
Can you tell us a little more about piloting? Are you going to introduce it across all exam boards and the whole country, or will there be a small number of students involved to start with?
Glenys Stacey
Could I ask my colleague Janet to speak to this?
Janet Holloway
The proposal is that the arrangements when implemented nationally will be a national means of operating across the exam boards, so there will not be an area of competition or of different practice; there will be consistent practice. The piloting would take place with a small but representative group of centres on behalf of all the examination boards.
Graham Stringer
I am not understanding something. Everybody is doing it the same.
Janet Holloway
Yes.
Graham Stringer
But there is a small number of pilots. Does that mean you are doing a more detailed assessment on them? Usually, a pilot is taking so many people and measuring that against what went on previously, but you are not saying that, are you?
Janet Holloway
I am saying there would be a pilot in advance of the teaching starting, and it would be refining the assessment criteria that will be used by all the exam boards, reviewing the operational arrangements to ensure that they are manageable and identifying any unintended consequences that might arise.
Chair
It is not a pilot; it is a piece of testing.
Janet Holloway
I think “trial” might be a better way of putting it.
Chair
You are going to trial it with the objective of taking out any glitches before rolling it out in its entirety.
Janet Holloway
Yes.
Graham Stringer
Can you tell the Committee what the schedule is for that trial pilot and the 100% roll-out?
Janet Holloway
The schedule is being worked upon at the moment and discussed between the exam boards. We do not have it at the moment, but we will be able to share it with you. The intention is that the trial takes place during the autumn term.
Chair
The coming autumn term.
Janet Holloway
This coming autumn term, and any refinements will be implemented, so that final assessment criteria and arrangements are with the centres no later than spring next year.
Graham Stringer
Would you be doing 100% roll-out, if you were satisfied with the experiment, in the autumn term of 2015?
Janet Holloway
Yes.
Graham Stringer
That is clear. You mentioned previously that you were very bothered about the clustering of results right at the top: 90% or 100%. Is that evidence of excellent students, or is it evidence of malpractice and fiddling?
Glenys Stacey
I hesitate to answer. The plain fact is that, going out to schools, what we are told by students and teachers alike does not suggest that students are enjoying a wonderful experience and gaining the wide range of practical and experimentation skills that they aspire to. It suggests to us that the current arrangements narrow teaching, because schools can to a large extent predict the nature of the assessment that is coming. There are only a limited number of tasks that can be delivered in national standardised tests at more or less the same time. It suggests there is a narrowing of teaching, which no one is comfortable with, and a focus on a small number of tasks and refining performance in those tasks, and also making sure that performance by students is recorded in ways that mean optimum marks are achieved. That is what it suggests.
Graham Stringer
It does not quite answer the question whether teachers are fiddling with it.
Glenys Stacey
I think teachers are in an invidious position.
Chair
You use the word “malpractice” in your document. Where is this malpractice? Set it out; show us the evidence.
Glenys Stacey
There is evidence of malpractice in the administration of A-level science practical. For example, from memory, last summer about 750 AQA students were given estimated grades in relation to their chemistry results, because of known and reported malpractice. That is a worrying number of students who are going to university short-changed in the grade they are given. The thing to bear in mind is that that is only the malpractice that has been reported and is known. We will not always be aware of every incident. Malpractice is at the most hard-edged end of the spectrum, where you are doing something that is plainly wrong. The difficult territory many teachers are in is where they are trying to balance the tension between doing the best for their student and getting the best results. It is not always one and the same thing.
Graham Stringer
It seems to me from what I have heard this afternoon, putting malpractice on one side for a second—there is malpractice—that the incentivisation of teachers is to teach to the exam and, therefore, pupils are not being taught experimental techniques properly, whereas the previous witnesses were saying that the new system would downgrade experimental science because it was not part of the A-level. Can you help me and the Committee square that circle, because there is a direct and absolute conflict of view about this?
Glenys Stacey
It is difficult. When we press harder to understand the concerns, there is general acceptance that the current arrangements simply do not sufficiently promote experimentation and practical skills. The evidence for that is plain. We know from research Gatsby have done that higher education is able to identify skills that are not sufficiently well developed. The way this thing works in practice at the moment does not do what it was designed to do sufficiently well. That is the first commonly agreed position. Secondly, where there is a greater range of views, it is very difficult to find a way of promoting, encouraging, describing and then validly assessing the practical experimentation skills that we all look for in these students. We have not been able to square that circle, and nothing has been presented to us that will enable the proper teaching of those practical skills, and a valid, robust and manageable assessment that can contribute to the grade. That is the nub of it.
Graham Stringer
We have also heard from both panels that in some schools sixth forms are under-resourced when it comes to experiments. How can you differentiate between under-resourcing that can lead to students going to university without the necessary skills and your criticism that this is teaching to exams? How do you separate those?
Glenys Stacey
I am not a science teacher; my colleagues have been and perhaps they can comment as well. From what I have seen in schools, if you know that your students are likely to be assessed on a range of six to eight tasks, you only need to resource up for that, so presumably that is what you would be doing. Under the new proposals, we have a minimum of a dozen different practical skills. Just sticking with chemistry, which has been the flavour today, they range from titration using a burette or a pipette through to the use of paper or gas chromatography. In the list of skills now you know you have at least those dozen skills and can see pretty well the equipment and kit you will need, and presumably you can thump the table in the senior management team as head of science and be very plain that, if you want to aspire to the best grades and good practical skills, this is the kit that is going to be required. In a way, it puts teachers of science in a stronger position both to identify a greater range of equipment that they will require and to require it. Dennis may have a contribution to make.
Dennis Opposs
The only point I would add is that for the first time we have criteria which will govern the new syllabuses. We have had criteria for many years, but these are the first science criteria in which the skills are actually spelt out. In the past, it was not absolutely clear what practical skills people were looking for. That will now be clear in the syllabuses. In addition—I am not sure this was mentioned at all in the previous session—there will be a requirement in each syllabus for 12 particular experiments to be conducted, which relates to what Glenys was saying. Far more will be required up front—schools will know that if they are teaching a particular subject that is what they have to teach—in a way that was not there before. In that sense, they should be more aware of what they will need to teach in terms of practical science, and similarly they will know how they have to equip themselves to do that.
Graham Stringer
Your evidence base for wanting to change is really analysis of the results of the practical tests at the present time. If virtually all students who got grade C chemistry A-level passed the practical exam, would that mean you thought that the new system had failed? Will the new system require more people to be employed in the examining bodies?
Glenys Stacey
First, the success or fail measure is really the feedback from higher education. This is to be a valid qualification. We will want the feedback from higher education to tell us whether or not students are coming to university better equipped than they were. If there is a strange correlation between grades obtained in the examination and the results of the practical skill assessment, we will wish to understand what lies behind that, in the way we now interrogate data and information on outcomes and identify some irreconcilable correlations. We will be looking at the same, so if there is not a good correlation we will be looking to understand why, and there will be a range of reasons.
Graham Stringer
What about the number of people employed by examination boards? More or fewer?
Glenys Stacey
We are still working with exam boards to agree the common arrangements for checking. We will not compromise on those arrangements, so if they require greater expenditure by exam boards, so be it.
Chair
Thank you very much for attending this afternoon.
Glenys Stacey
Thank you for giving us the opportunity. Examination of Witness
Witness
Elizabeth Truss MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Childcare, Department for Education, gave evidence.
Chair
Minister, thank you very much for coming this afternoon. Apologies that we have slightly overrun; I hope you found it useful listening to some of the exchanges. I understand that procedurally we are likely to have a vote at about 20 to or quarter to, so perhaps we can rattle straight on, if you don’t mind. First, can you tell us what your aspirations are for A-level science and convince us that it is not just targeted at high achievers?
Elizabeth Truss
My aspirations are for many more students to study A‑level science. In particular, we have just launched a campaign called Your Life, with leading entrepreneurs and businesses, to get more students studying physics in particular, where there is a very low number of girls at the moment, and also studying chemistry and biology. We all know that science is an increasing part of many jobs and opportunities, and if young people do not have the opportunities to study those subjects, it is likely that they will be closing doors that are potentially open to them. From the evidence I have just heard from Ofqual, as well as the evidence from other people who have appeared in front of the Committee, everybody believes that practical science is one of the main ways of preparing students for university and work after university and going straight into the workplace, whether through an apprenticeship or directly into employment, but also motivating students to carry on with science. The Ofsted report last autumn on curiosity in science was very convincing that the best way of motivating young people is through practical experiments.
Chair
This we totally agree on—no dissent whatsoever from any of our witnesses today. Under the system that we appear to be presented with, we could end up in a position where you could get an A-grade science result without having passed your practical. Is that right?
Elizabeth Truss
The majority of students studying A‑levels go on to university. Universities, who are very keen to see better practical experience, and at the moment are complaining that students are arriving at university without relevant practical experience, will surely be looking at whether the students have passed in the 12 practical examinations that take place. There is a very strong incentive for schools and students to make sure that those students have the relevant practical experience. Indeed, it is considerably more practical experience than students will be getting under the current system.
Chair
Have you had any direct discussions with the deans of science education on this proposition?
Elizabeth Truss
I have not spoken to the deans of science education. I spoke to various scientists at universities, while we were drawing up the GCSE plans, and I have also been talking to the organisations responsible for drawing up the content through ALCAB.
Chair
We are particularly engaged in the issue of Ofqual’s current proposition about the measuring and marking of science. Do you think it would be a good idea if you had some formal discussions with the deans before giving the green light to Ofqual to go ahead?
Elizabeth Truss
Ultimately, it is Ofqual’s decision. Ofqual have to make a decision about the best way to assess the reliability and validity of the examinations for which they are the independent regulator. As a Government Minister, it would be right for me to put pressure on Ofqual if they felt that was not the best way of assessing practical examinations. I would concur with what I have heard from Ofqual, though, which is that the current system is clearly not delivering what we all want, so to me there is a clear case for change.
Chair
Again, we are on common ground. [Interruption.] Minister, are you in a position to come back for 20 minutes?
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Chair
Perhaps we can suspend the sitting for a maximum of 15 minutes. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming—
Chair
Minister, you were responding to my question, which was testing whether it was appropriate to have a system that could, if our understanding is correct, end up with someone getting a grade A who had nevertheless not passed their practical examination. Is that theoretically possible? Is it desirable?
Elizabeth Truss
It is theoretically possible at the moment to pass an A‑level without having the practical experience.
Chair
That does not sound like a good idea, does it?
Elizabeth Truss
I would say that it is now much clearer. A university looking at a candidate who has, let’s say, done A‑level chemistry and physics will be able to see how the student has done in the examination, including the part that refers to understanding how practicals work. They will also have a grade for whether or not that student has achieved what they need in the 12 practical experiments, so it will be very transparent to a university or an employer whether or not the student has those practical skills. At the moment, that transparency is not available.
Chair
But they could not get an A* today without passing them.
Elizabeth Truss
I would need to look at the grading structure. That is potentially possible, but the point is that universities and employers are the people who are saying that students do not have developed practical skills. They would presumably insist that students had passed those practical examinations to get on their courses; otherwise, what they are saying would not carry much weight.
Stephen Mosley
Ofqual announced the results of the consultation last month. How much involvement did you have in that consultation?
Elizabeth Truss
I have had a number of discussions with Ofqual to understand their rationale. Ultimately, it is Ofqual’s decision about how examinations are regulated, so it is their decision about the best way to ensure validity and reliability.
Stephen Mosley
Was there any push at all from Ministers—yourself or other Ministers—either to do the consultation or to go along with the outcome of that consultation?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree with the decision that Ofqual has made.
Stephen Mosley
One of the issues we heard about is that the Department for Education currently does not have a chief scientific adviser. Without a chief scientific adviser, who within the Department was responsible for looking at the proposals and deciding what your position was?
Elizabeth Truss
Ultimately, what we have done with A‑levels is put them under the authority of ALCAB, which determines the content of A-levels. In the short term, it was carried out by Professor Mark Smith in the review of science A‑levels. The longer-term proposal is that it sits under ALCAB committees, which will determine whether the content is keeping in line with the latest research in universities, but there is a different discussion about the best content for A‑levels—it is very clear that there is a lot of practical experience required in the A‑level—and the way it is assessed. The way it is assessed ultimately is down to Ofqual. It is quite a technical decision about validity and reliability and how you assess—is there something a bit funny about this microphone? It echoes.
Stephen Mosley
There is a bit of an echo, isn’t there?
Chair
There is an echo coming from somewhere.
Elizabeth Truss
I feel like there is a ghost in the room.
Chair
It’s your bottle, Stephen.
Stephen Mosley
Is it me? There’s an echo when I speak as well, isn’t there? Keep going.
Elizabeth Truss
I will carry on. The decision on content is ultimately for the university-appointed bodies to make in the long term, to make sure that standards are high. That is a promise we made when we came into office. We wanted universities to be back in the driving seat as far as A‑level content was concerned, but in terms of the way it is assessed, that is a professional decision for Ofqual to make. We have to recognise that over the years the examination system has become a high-stakes system. Things that might have been possible 30 or 40 years ago in terms of practical examinations are now under great pressure through the school accountability system. That means that Ofqual has to make very rigorous decisions and ensure that those exams are ultimately fair at the end of the course. That is why I think they are best placed to do that.
Stephen Mosley
Are you planning to get a new chief scientific adviser, and when?
Elizabeth Truss
That is a very interesting point, and I will take it back to the Department.
Chair
In the absence of a CSA, do you think it would be sensible for the Department to have a discussion on this issue with the overall Government chief scientist, Mark Walport?
Elizabeth Truss
Absolutely. I will provide you with a list of all the people I have met in discussions about the future of GCSEs and A‑level. I have met a lot of scientists.
Chair
Specifically on practicals, I know that Mark Walport has strong views.
Elizabeth Truss
I certainly will meet him on that subject. I know this specific inquiry is about the A‑level, but we cannot as a Government do everything through the accountability system. The accountability system is good at ensuring standards, but it does not dictate everything that is done in the classroom, and it can’t. We cannot micro-manage classrooms through the accountability system. What I am looking at as Education Minister is how we create the right environment, so that teachers and schools do as much practical work in science as possible. There are other avenues we should be looking at, because through high-stakes accountability, it is very difficult to incentivise that type of behaviour. I am very pleased that Ofqual decided there should be 12 practical assessments, but to my mind that is just the beginning and not the end. We need a change in culture in the classroom. We already see the very best teachers doing that. We see the very best teachers and the very best schools, who are passionate about science, doing that. My question is how we spread it much more widely. I do not think the accountability system, particularly the performance tables, are the best route to do that.
Graham Stringer
I take it from your answers to Stephen that you think the proposals are good.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Graham Stringer
Given that you think that, were you concerned about the high level and quality of the opposition to the proposals to decouple practical examinations from the final grade?
Elizabeth Truss
Of course we listen to all representations. The people who have raised concerns are scientific experts absolutely. Ofqual are assessment experts, so there is always a balance to be struck. What we are talking about is the interaction between schools and teaching and the accountability system and examinations, and we need experts on all sides of that argument working together. I am very keen to work with the deans—the Chair just mentioned them—and organisations like SCORE as to how we can improve practical science in our schools, but I do not think that the primary route for that should be the high-stakes examination system. I think there are other routes. For example, the Government fund science learning centres that are doing a lot to put on good examples of practical work that can be used in schools. They will be working around the new specifications from the awarding organisations to encourage best practice. A lot of this is about school leadership as well. We are now moving to a school-led system where head teachers have much more flexibility to decide what happens in their school with the curriculum. For example, they have the flexibility to expand the amount of timetable time for science. One of the issues raised in the Ofsted report is that, often where schools do not have good-quality practicals, it is because science has been squeezed in the timetable, and maybe there are not the quality and expert science teachers needed to lead those practical examinations. I want to work with those organisations to focus on how we improve the quality of practice. The accountability and examinations system is quite a blunt instrument for trying to do this. Perhaps I may quote from the Ofsted report about maintaining curiosity in science. This is about key stages 3 and 4, but I think it is very interesting. In terms of teaching how science works under the current system, the finding of the report was: “The majority of the schools visited planned for this, with teachers wanting to use investigative science to teach the content; in general, most did this well at Key Stage 3.” Key stage 3 is ages 11 to 14 before students start GCSE. “However, as students moved to Key Stage 4, preparing for GCSE assessment tasks became all-consuming in many science departments, leading to an ‘atomistic’ approach to teaching the various skills required. These were without a particular purpose other than learning the skill as an end in itself.” What Ofsted are saying essentially is that at key stage 3, which is quite a long way from the examination, good practical skills were being taught, but by the time of key stage 4, where there are specific practical tasks to be prepared for, it became an end in itself. I would caution against trying to use the exam system to drive all practical teaching of science in schools, because it tends to become more of a teach to the test exercise. As Ofqual said, no one has put forward any way of preventing that from happening. I think a lot of the voices that have been raised are concerned about the future of practical science, as am I. It is absolutely true that we do not have enough practical science in our schools. I also think that too often lessons in science and maths are not brought to life, and students do not understand why they are relevant in the workplace or in the world at large, so we need to do more to bring science to life and to teach it practically. I am not convinced that further changes to the exam system will deliver that without perverse consequences.
Graham Stringer
This was not a view I came to the Committee meeting with, but to me there appears to be a complete difference of view. What some of the academics we heard from say is that the new system devalues practical science by removing it from the exams, because students value exams more than anything else—that is what they focus on—as against the view of Ofqual that the current system devalues practical science because it is just about teaching to the exam. How do you as the Minister responsible, who wants to get the best science teaching, on which we are all agreed, judge between those two points of view? Is there any level of opposition that would have made you change your mind?
Elizabeth Truss
As you say, the outcome everyone wants is the same. We want high-quality practical science. We have a school system that has been very focused on high-stakes accountability and getting students to a certain level in examinations. Sir Michael Wilshaw and the Secretary of State are very clear that we want schools and teachers to be educating the whole child, to develop a wide range of skills, whether those are practical science skills, the ability to present well, the ability to debate, or the resilience and social skills students will need when they leave school and are in the world of work or university. I put it to you that not all of those skills can be tested in exams. If you try to do that, you get to a stage where you are micro-managing a school to a huge level. The best education systems in the world have a combination of strong accountability on a few key matters, but a lot of autonomy for schools to develop in the way they see fit. Part of the issue here is about culture and school leadership. It is about a culture of valuing practical science. As a local MP, when I go into schools, I want to see what the school is doing to encourage students to take science subjects at A‑level. We know from the Ofsted evidence that schools that do practical experiments right through primary and secondary school get better outcomes. It is in a school’s interests to do practical experiments and have good practical science teaching, just as it is in a school’s interests to hire high-quality teachers. If students are exposed to high-quality practical work, they are more likely to take science A‑levels, which is very beneficial to those students. I think there is a case to be made to school leaders about how to change the culture of science, which is what I am keen to work on with the organisations you refer to. We have just done some focus grouping for the Department for Education on why students are not taking physics A‑level. At the moment, only 2% of girls and 7% of boys do physics A‑level, which is a pretty appalling figure. The words that came back were: “dull,” “boring,” “male,” “irrelevant,” “glasses” and things of that ilk. It seems to me that the issue with science practicals is part of a broader problem about the perception of science in schools, and the way it is being taught in some schools. The Ofsted report lays out very well what the best schools and teachers are doing. The question is: how do we achieve a culture shift from just teaching the content in a dry way to teaching it in a very lively way? It is about practical application and also linking it to developments in the world.
Stephen Metcalfe
Following on from Graham’s questioning, there is a lot of very serious opposition to this, whether it is SCORE or CaSE or Lord Winston, who publicly castigated the proposals. Do you think that is a communications problem on the part of Ofqual in getting the message across to the wider scientific community about their thinking and their proposals? It cannot be helpful or good for science in general to have learned societies and scientific experts disagreeing on the way we are going to start students off on a potential scientific career.
Elizabeth Truss
Maybe there is some confusion about what we have at the moment and what is proposed. I understand Lord Winston’s concerns. Ofqual have been looking at that and have written to Lord Winston, if I am not mistaken. As the Minister responsible, I am very happy to engage. We are engaging the organisations, many of which are raising this issue, in our general process and campaign, and also linking together the Government’s initiatives on science and maths in a very coherent way, so that from September schools will be able to access high-quality science ambassadors for schools, CPD and excellent teaching resourcing. This is about schools having access to the best research on what sort of science teaching works and the best resources in terms of CPD materials. That is the way we can help raise the game. Maybe there is an issue about the communication process.
Chair
Minister, on all of those issues we are totally with you. We specifically want you to drill down and deal with the measurement of science practicals.
Elizabeth Truss
Perhaps there is not enough appreciation that the existing system has not delivered in terms of—
Chair
With respect, I appreciate that you were not here at the beginning of the session, but all the organisations we heard in our first session, including SCORE and a representative of the deans of science faculties, disagreed with you.
Elizabeth Truss
But they do not say the current system is delivering high quality.
Chair
Everyone agreed with that starting point, but this is about the recommendations from Ofqual.
Elizabeth Truss
I have not seen an alternative workable proposal that will deliver reliability and validity and what those organisations want. In an ideal world, if there was a proposal out there, I am sure Ofqual would have considered it, but the problem is that I do not think there is a proposal out there. There is no perfect answer for creating a perfect accountability system. I do not think there is an alternative out there that is better than what Ofqual have proposed. I am sure that if there was Ofqual would have considered it.
Stephen Metcalfe
On what have you based that decision? Who is supporting the proposals as they are currently? Have you taken advice from the chief scientific adviser? You said that you will meet the chief scientific adviser. Does that mean you have not met him yet?
Elizabeth Truss
I have not met him on this issue anyway.
Stephen Metcalfe
Who is supporting it, and why did you side with that side of the argument, as opposed to those who are saying there might be another way?
Elizabeth Truss
Ofqual are the organisation responsible for the decision on this.
Stephen Metcalfe
I realise that, but you must have a view.
Elizabeth Truss
I talk to Ofqual about who they have spoken to and what evidence has been presented. To me, the case that Ofqual makes is overwhelming: there is no alternative proposal that delivers a better result than this. I also want to shift the energies of the many august organisations to how we improve practice in the classroom, rather than focusing on something to which I do not think there is a perfect solution. In the past, when there were practical examinations monitored by awarding organisations and exam boards, it was before we had a high-stakes accountability system. It is very difficult to deliver a consistent practical exam across the country, as I think the chief executive of Ofqual has outlined to you already. Everybody has the same aspiration to improve practical science. In the exam and accountability system as it is now, we have gone as far as we can, and we should be looking at other avenues to pursue for improving practical science in schools. I would be very interested to see what the Committee says about this. If somebody has a fantastic proposal to make this work in a way that does not just mean teaching to the test—let’s face it; that is what is happening under the current system—I and I am sure Ofqual will be very interested to hear it.
Stephen Metcalfe
You think those learned organisations and other experts are overstating the case when they say this is a huge gamble; there is danger; it is a downgrade, not an upgrade; there is no evidence; and you should think again. They are just overstating the case, and you are convinced that this is the right way forward to benefit students. Presumably, that’s what we’re all after.
Elizabeth Truss
I think it is not correct to say that the current system is working very well.
Stephen Metcalfe
No one is saying that.
Elizabeth Truss
But no one is proposing an alternative apart from the alternative proposed by Ofqual, so there is no particularly positive alternative being proposed. It is possible to object to things, but it is hard to see if there is no alternative. It is like what people say about democracy.
Stephen Mosley
Assuming all this goes ahead, how will you know whether or not it has worked?
Elizabeth Truss
I think we will know if it has worked by the quality of students’ practical abilities once they leave school. That is how we will know it has worked.
Stephen Mosley
Will there be any measure of that? Who will be doing the measuring, and how will we know?
Elizabeth Truss
At the moment, we have a lot of feedback from universities saying that the quality is not good enough, and students do not have those practical capabilities. I hope that we will hear more positive feedback from universities.
Stephen Mosley
Would Ofsted have any role in it? Would they be looking at how practicals are taught at A‑level?
Elizabeth Truss
Ofsted clearly have a duty to make sure there is a broad and balanced curriculum taught in schools and also that there are high-quality outcomes. One of the things I highlighted earlier is that Ofsted have already said that high-quality outcomes are linked to good practical science. You cannot get good outcomes, and you do not get a lot of students going on to study the subject at A‑level and enthused about science, without having that high-quality practical education. It is hard to see how a school would be judged to be doing extremely well if it was not getting those outcomes, which generally come from having high-quality practical work.
Stephen Mosley
You said earlier that sometimes league tables are not the best way of measuring the quality of practical work. Will the separate grades that are given be reflected in those league tables at all?
Elizabeth Truss
They will not.
Stephen Mosley
They won’t at all. What incentive will there be for schools?
Elizabeth Truss
The point I was making earlier was that you cannot measure everything through league tables; you can only measure quite narrow things. We want students leaving school with a high-quality broad education, and you cannot measure all those things. If you try to, schools and students get overwhelmed with measurements.
Stephen Mosley
To a large extent, I think league tables indicate where something is not working, don’t they?
Elizabeth Truss
They do.
Stephen Mosley
At the moment, there has been a big push on the league tables, and they are seen as an incentive. Schools see their position on the league table as something to be valued and be proud about, and something that encourages them to push pupils to achieve their best. How will you incentivise them to do practical science if it is not reflected in the league tables?
Elizabeth Truss
At 18, destinations are a key measure for schools. Are students getting into good courses at university as a result of their schooling or their experience at college? Universities want to see high-quality practical science skills. If students are not doing the 12 practicals to a decent standard, they will not get that grade and those places at university, so it is indirectly reflected through the league tables. I think that at 18 schools are judged on where students go. That is a major consideration for students and parents when they look at a school. At 16, it is based much more on the pure performance data. The new performance 8 accountability measure puts a lot of weight on science. There are special slots reserved in the performance tables for science, and that will encourage schools to invest more time in science and maths education. Certainly, that is the feedback we are getting from schools that are preparing for the new curriculum and accountability system. One of the issues about A-level science is whether students are being prepared for it through the school system. A lot of the feedback from the Ofsted report is that they are doing experiments in big groups. Students are not necessarily getting the individual practical experience they need before they go on to A‑level. With so few students going on to do A‑level science, particularly physics, there is an issue considerably before the age of 16. Even if there was a perfect way of assessing science practicals in exams at 16 and 18, my question mark would be: what about the rest of the school system? What about primary school science? What about science for 11, 12 and 13 year-olds? These are the ages at which students often fall in love with science and decide to be inspired by science. I just warn against focusing too much on the end exams at the expense of what is going on through a child’s school career.
Stephen Metcalfe
On falling in love with science, SCORE has done a report that says there is a link between having a good experience in science and the amount of investment made in facilities within a school. Presumably, you agree—do you agree with that? I must not put words into your mouth.
Elizabeth Truss
It is difficult. It is definitely the experience students have—a combination of subject specialist expert teachers, which is very important, and high-quality practical experience. It is obviously easier to achieve a high-quality practical experience if the school has good facilities. That does not mean it is impossible not to do practical experiments with more meagre facilities—schools can think creatively about that—but all other things being equal, good-quality facilities are important.
Stephen Metcalfe
Combining those, a good inspirational or quality teacher and good practical teaching leads to a good experience, and a good experience of learning science is more likely to take you on to studying it at a higher level, or even to pursuing it as a career.
Elizabeth Truss
Yes.
Stephen Metcalfe
If you want to improve satisfaction with science overall and improve that experience, might it be better to spend money on facilities within schools to improve the ability to get a better experience, rather than reorganising exams?
Elizabeth Truss
What we are doing is giving school leaders much more flexibility over how they spend their resources. Science facilities are one of those things. It depends on what facilities exist at the moment, but obviously they are useful resources for schools to have. One of the things school leaders do is look holistically; they need to be investing in a high-quality teacher work force—probably the quality of the teacher is the most important thing. Without somebody with the right subject expertise, understanding and inspiration, it is very difficult to deliver a high-quality science programme. They need to give curriculum time to science. One of the bits of evidence from Ofqual is that sometimes triple science gets squeezed into a double science slot. That is a big problem if you want to give time to do practicals, so it is about people time and physical resources. Leaders of schools are best placed to decide the balance between those things. It is about how they prioritise science within the school. We know that some schools prioritise science, and other schools are what I call science deserts—the 49% of state schools where no girl goes on to do A‑level physics, for example. How do we shine a light on that and encourage schools to use facilities like the science learning centres that can provide them with CPD support and advice? How do we encourage schools to take part in some of the programmes that the Department funds, like the Stimulating Physics Network or the STEM ambassadors? There is some brilliant science practice out there. The question is how we bring everybody up to that level.
Stephen Metcalfe
I am looking at a chart which shows that a difference of under £10 per capita spend within a school leads to somewhere between “very dissatisfied” with the way science subjects are taught and “very satisfied”—£10 per head is a relatively small amount. Has the Department—forgive me if you have; I am asking from a point of ignorance—made any specific funding commitments to individual schools to get them to focus on improving the way science is taught? You have lots of good programmes, which I understand, but do you have a specific, targeted fund to help schools?
Elizabeth Truss
No. They are not directed at specific schools; generally, they are funding national programmes. The whole point about our school-led system is that head teachers need to make the best decisions about what is effective in terms of their schools and resources. Those may vary hugely according to what is available locally. For example, schools in my constituency work closely with the John Innes Centre, which is a life sciences centre nearby. They can leverage that. Others will have other local opportunities. We want to give flexibility, but we provide a lot of support to schools. One of my main objectives over the next year or so is to make sure all schools are aware that they can participate in those programmes and benefit from them, but it is about school leaders prioritising science. When I go into schools the question I ask, and all MPs should ask, is, “What are you doing to get more students to carry on studying science? What are your practical facilities like?” Every leader has decisions about where they spend their budget.
Stephen Metcalfe
Agreed. One of the things that comes out from our reports—we keep looking at how we can improve science education generally—is that there are great extremes in the way schools engage. We have not quite got to the root of whether it is down to leadership, lack of opportunity locally or knowledge, but it is quite a big issue. I am sure we all want better teaching of science in our schools and more people who understand its benefits. We need a bit more stick and carrot that comes down centrally to try to get more people to take up the opportunities. When I write to all my schools to talk about Primary Engineer or STEM ambassadors, those that I think are already good are the ones who take up the opportunities, and those that I think are struggling are the ones who never take up the opportunities. It is a leadership issue.
Elizabeth Truss
Quite often, they will also be the schools that are taking up opportunities for music hubs or the Mandarin network. It is about general leadership as well as specifically science. We are looking at some interesting cases of schools that are generally good but have poor performance in terms of the number of students who are going on to study science A-levels. How do we fill those positions? One of the ideas behind the maths and physics chairs programmes, which are co-funded by corporates, is to create a supply of physicists with PhDs who can go into those schools and help fill some of the gaps. Underlying all of this is the fact that scientists who have done university degrees are in such great demand that, in getting them to go into teaching, we are competing with the City, engineering firms and biotech firms. There is a whole range of employment opportunities for those individuals, which is why we need to grow the pipeline, so that we can get inspirational teachers in our schools.
Chair
There are lots of areas of agreement. Indeed, much of what you said about inspiring teachers is covered in an article I wrote a month ago for Tribune in which, by the way, you get a mention—I wonder whether your press office has picked it up. In your remarks, you said that in your view there was no alternative but the Ofqual proposition. You recognise that there are groups of people you need to engage with. Of course, these proceedings are broadcast, and I take it that, if the experts listening to this have alternatives, you would welcome them into your office to discuss them. Is that correct?
Elizabeth Truss
I certainly would. I would caveat it by saying that Ofqual are the ultimate decision makers; that is why they were set up as an independent regulator to make sure that examinations are valid and reliable. I highlight that I would also like to have a broader discussion with those stakeholders about what are the other ways in which we can encourage the better take-up of practical science in schools. It is an incredibly important issue. We can work with all of those interested parties and leading experts within the scientific community. As a country we can do better on this, and I welcome the Committee putting such focus on it.
Chair
Thank you very much for your attendance this afternoon. Oral evidence: Practical science in schools, HC 1270 34