Primary headteacher Irene Johnson started focusing on Stem - science, technology, engineering and maths - before the acronym became commonplace in education.
Her school, Thornton Primary in Fife, was strong in a lot of areas - including literacy and numeracy - but there was “a dip” when it came to science, she says. “I just felt the teachers were not confident and the pupils were not confident in that area.”
But now the school’s efforts to improve this situation have been so impressive they will be showcased at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival, along with a number of other primaries and nurseries, later this month (see box, “Scottish Learning Festival programme - Stem-related speakers”, below).
Ian Menzies, an education officer at Education Scotland, which organises the event, said: “One of the challenges in primary school is that practitioners often have not had a background in science or Stem areas”.
The inspectorate’s The Sciences 3 to 18 report showed that teachers quite often lacked confidence and activities were not necessarily taught in an investigative way, he said.
“What we are trying to promote is that confidence - that professional learning in primary and in the early years - to make sure pupils have positive experiences all the way through the system in relation to science and Stem.”
At the festival, staff at Thornton Primary will explain how the whole of the first term, for all year groups, is dedicated to a science topic. P1 and P2 are looking at the garden and the farm and P6 is investigating the water cycle, for example.
The school also has a dedicated science teacher, Joanne Jarvie, a primary teacher with a science background, who delivers lessons from P1-7. She covers class teachers’ noncontact time of two and a half hours per week in “a meaningful way”, says Ms Johnson.
The school taps into a wide variety of programmes that are offered by the University of St Andrews, from its science camp and space school, to its teacher education programmes and student ambassadors.
According to Mr Menzies, the importance of starting Stem early was made clear by a five year longitudinal study conducted by King’s College London into 10- to 14-year-olds’ career aspirations (see box, “Pupils put off by ‘brainy’ science stereotype”, below).
The report, published in 2013, recommended earlier intervention, saying that: “The current focus of most activities and interventions - at secondary school - is likely to be too little, too late.”
Tackling gender sterotypes
Another good reason to introduce Stem to young children, said Mr Menzies, is to avoid the issue of gender stereotyping.
“That begins when children are born, so if you are going to tackle it you have to begin at the earliest possible age,” he says.
Ms Johnson agrees. At Thornton, almost 40 per cent of children are entitled to free school meals and 15 per cent are from the gypsy traveller community.
There are a lot of “really bright girls” at the school who can identify their academic skills, she says, but when they are asked about their career aspirations, many do not see themselves as doctors or teachers.
She adds: “A lot of the girls said that they wanted to go into hair, care or beauty. Their expectation of where they would end up was quite different to what they saw themselves being able to do.”
The King’s College London research found that girls were less likely than boys to aspire to science careers, even though a higher percentage of girls than boys rated science as their favourite subject.
Now the school has helped the University of St Andrews develop another initiative to help address the problem. An “XX Factor” event ran for the first time last year and involved female PhD students presenting their research to an audience of P7 girls. The girls then grilled the researchers about their work and voted for the best presentation.
Ms Johnson continues: “The earlier that you can raise children’s aspirations, the better, particularly if children are living in workless households, or have parents who never went on to do any further study themselves. If you get them early, you can help them believe it is possible.”
