In this article, newly qualified teacher (NQT) Alexander Odeneal shares some ideas that primary teachers could use to capture pupils' interest and support scientific discussions. The article offers four different activities and an explanation of why they do what they do to support the non-specialist teacher leading the lesson. Each activity…

Although it is itself a core subject, science seems to receive less priority and designated time on the primary curriculum timetables. Curriculum changes over the years have resulted in science being taught with other subjects as part of cross-curricular topics, rather than as a "stand-alone" subject. This cross-curricular pedagogy in…

Learning to use visualisation techniques in the classroom enables pupils and teachers to gain new insights into how concepts are formed and how to strengthen them, but visualisation is sometimes not what it seems. Learning by constructing meaning is a long-standing principle underpinning much of today's school science. In "Primary Science…

How can educators provide children with a genuine experience of carrying out an extended scientific investigation? And can teachers change the perception of what it means to be a scientist? These were key questions that lay behind "The Human Condition" project, an initiative funded by the Primary Science Teaching Trust to explore a new…

Traditionally, alchemy has involved the power of transmuting base metals such as lead into gold or producing the "elixir of life" for those wealthy people who wanted to live forever. But what of today's developments? One hundred years ago, even breaking the four-minute mile would have been deemed "magic," which is what the alchemists of the past…