The Education Endowment Foundation has recently released a new Guidance Report on Improving Secondary Science.

The report is written based on the feedback and input by an Advisory Panel consisting of experts in the field of science education, and an Evidence Review Group,  consisting of members of the Maths, Science and Health Education Research Centre, at Southampton Education School. Dr Andri Christodoulou, Professor Marcus Grace, Professor Janice Griffiths, Dr Carys Hughes, and Willeke Rietdijck have provided a review of current research and evidence in a number of areas of science education, that has been used to inform the report’s recommendations.

The report includes seven evidence-informed recommendations on areas that science teachers need to address for effective science teaching that can improve the attainment of students of all backgrounds.

The recommendations are:

1. Preconceptions: build on the ideas that pupils bring to lessons
2. Self-regulation: help pupils direct their own learning
3. Modelling: use models to support understanding
4. Memory: Support pupils to retain and retrieve knowledge
5. Practical Work: use practical work purposefully and as part of a learning sequence
6. Language of Science: develop scientific vocabulary and support pupils to read and write about science
7. Feedback: use structured feedback to move on pupils’ thinking

You can read the full guidance report on the Education Endowment Foundation website.