Launching its fundraising appeal to turn its five-acre central London site into a free-to-visit green space from next summer, The Natural History Museum published results of a survey looking at how the capital’s children interact with nature. The research found that young people in London are now more likely to connect with local nature through social media than a walk in the park, with the biggest barrier being time spent inside the classroom.
The survey gathered the views of 2,003 young people, 85 per cent of whom – rather unsurprisingly – thought students would learn more about the natural world by experiencing it first-hand rather than from a textbook.
There’s an evidently self-justifying argument for increasing outdoor learning opportunities here. But even more concerning, perhaps, is the idea that hours spent in school are actually encouraging young people to spend more time on screens. Is all that screen time spent watching David Attenborough? Would we be less concerned about it if it was? And why are so many organisations’ educational work pitched as necessary because of a failure of schools?
Sticking to themes related to the DfE’s sustainability strategy, will its promised new model science curriculum for primaries due next year be ambitious enough?
Understanding climate change may require more complex ideas to be tackled at a younger age, not least for tackling growing climate anxiety among young people. So a new study showing that a well-constructed sequence can demonstrably increase year 6 pupils’ grasp of nanotechnology seems particularly relevant. The trial scheme saw most students improve their answers about three topics (size, the Lotus effect and water filtration) as a result of instruction, and sustained improvement (though to a lesser degree) three months on.
On a related topic, Routledge is this month publishing Big ideas in primary science: The climate crisis. Contact jl@schoolsweek.co.uk if you’d like to review it.
To classroom environments now, and could the least engaged pupils actually be the most sensitive to distractions? A new study by the University of Portsmouth has found students who struggle to concentrate at school are often negatively impacted by noise.
Research lead, Dr Jessica Massonnié explained the importance of the findings: “[…] they question the assumption that children who are perceived as difficult to engage in schoolwork ‘do not care’ about distractions – they do particularly care. The danger is that these children, who are already being labelled as less focused, will face a downward spiral if noise levels in classrooms are not controlled.”
The research concludes that interventions aimed at reducing classroom noise can benefit sensitive children, who may otherwise be at risk of falling out of the education system.
Sadly for those hoping to reduce noise, however, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health coalition chaired by Norman Lamb today publishes preliminary results of a survey under the heading, ‘School behaviour policies are ineffective in creating change’.
The survey is part of its inquiry in response to ‘growing concern’ about ‘the rise in the use of punitive approaches’ in schools ‘set against a backdrop of growing mental health need’. It gathered the views of 111 young people, 495 parents and carers and 234 professionals including teachers, mental health practitioners and representatives from the voluntary and community sector in May and June this year, and its results are not encouraging.
Only 21 per cent of young people and 7 per cent of parents felt that schools are responsive to young people’s mental health needs when dealing with behavioural issues. Even among professionals, only 32 per cent agreed (while 46 per cent disagreed).
The survey also found that 59 per cent of young people, 80 per cent of parents and carers and 56 per cent of professionals think behaviour management techniques used by schools are not effective.
The full results will be published with the inquiry’s final report. Watch this space.
More encouragingly, some change is evidently possible, and it’s precisely the kind of change fighting climate change will require oodles of. We need more students, and particularly more female students to pursue higher education and employment opportunities in science, technology, engineering and maths. But how?
New research by the Danish School of Education at Aarhus University suggests that girls’ and boys’ interest in pursuing science only differs materially in one respect: “beliefs about the utility value of science [its perceived usefulness for accomplishing future goals] are more important for female adolescents’ development of an interest in science than for their male peers. This implies a need for strategies for enhancing students’ perceptions of utility value in science education.”
The solutions put forward by science lead, Shamsa Mahmood here may help achieve exactly that.
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