ASE 2027 Annual Conference

There continues to be a physics teacher recruit and retention crisis across the nations of the UK.  
There is little point in governments investing heavily in teacher recruitment if qualified teachers then leave the profession in large numbers.

With this in mind, Mark Whalley and Stuart Farmer have conducted research in both England and Scotland into identifying the reasons why physics teachers have recently left the profession. In this session, these reasons will be explored and comparisons made between the situations in Scotland and England, which factors are in common and which are different in the two nations where there has been an increasing divergence in educational policy in the last two decades. How do factors such as accountability and performativity, administrative workload, pupil behaviour, relationships with colleagues, and career progression routes impact on teacher wellbeing and their decisions to stay or leave teaching?

The initial learning about biological organism, naming, form and function,  begins in the earliest  years before any formal learning facilitation and  builds on the child’s understanding. These foundations are rarely discussed in training and with communities. This talk will cover how earliest learners construct undemanding of themselves and other organisms in form, function and habitat. This knowledge is from research, teaching and observations.  Learners   learn their biology beginning with  experiencing their needs and actions as a biological organisms. Such understanding forms the basis of their subsequent interpretation of species and is the basis of subsequent anthropomorphic interpretations. Their interactions and observations of the Environment and organisms, contributes to their understanding  in three categories, identified from everyday environment  Applying a grounded theory analysis of the observations they made and what caught their interest, and on their narratives verbal and actions.  These categories emerged:

1. NAMING and HABITATS - identification of organisms, naming, personal names, everyday names and scientific perhaps, locations, criterial attributes.

2. SYSTEMS - interrelationships horizontally and vertically.

3. TIME – much is not instant - germination, dimension, evolution, life cycles, change in form and function which for the early years is a very difficult idea. Identify the sequence in which names, form, function and behaviours are learnt.

The learner’s understanding develops progressively with age and opportunities to observe and interact with plant and animals. As children are biological beings, they acquire an understanding of basic life functions from first-hand experience as well as a rudimentary understanding of the biological form and function of organisms in their relationship with the environment, (Ghazili and Tolmie, 2014).

In the first quarter of the 21st century, the situation has not improved since educational researchers wrote in at the turn of the century that’ insufficient work has not been done on how children view living organisms in their environment ,Tunnicliffe and Reiss, 1999a). Such acquisition of understanding is in stages. From the first image animal shape in a soft toy replicating an animal to sightings in the environment, or images on various media. And Plant sightings in their everyday. lants are frequently neglected in formal study, there id still a ‘plant blindness’ (Wandersee and Schussler, 2001).

As the. Early leaner meets various organisms they acquire some understanding which is extended through formal teaching. Young children name animals and plants. Usually the first name becomes the superordinate category. For example, if the first object noticed and named in the sky is bird, anything else observed thereafter, e.g. a plane is called ‘bird’. Similarly green ‘objects’ that do not move around are ‘plants’, subcategories referred to by everyday names such as weeds, fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees. grass . This learning persists often in everyday life for use however, despite subsequent teaching. Learning about the biological world is crucial in developing understanding   and action in managing a sustainable world (Tunnicliffe and Reiss, 1999) but there is a long way to go yet.

This interactive workshop introduces a proof-of-concept student toolkit for using spatial computing to support climate change education in primary-aged multicultural settings. The session draws on my doctoral research at the University of Leeds, which examines how spatial computing can be co-developed within a climate change play curriculum with Indonesian and Malaysian children living in the UK.

The aim of the session is to share a research-informed and practice-facing approach to climate change education that is child-centred, culturally responsive and suitable for primary-aged learners. Rather than presenting technology as a novelty, the session considers how virtual reality, augmented reality, digital mapping, LEGO robotics and 3D modelling can help children explore climate change causes, impacts, mitigation and adaptation through active, visual and playful learning.

The session will begin with a short introduction to the research context and the meaning of spatial computing in primary climate change education. I will then share examples from six participatory workshops, showing how children’s discussions, drawings, digital artefacts, mapping activities and reflections shaped the toolkit’s content, learning approaches and activity design. These examples will include children’s use of VR to explore climate-affected environments, digital maps to compare climate issues across countries, LEGO sensors to model environmental systems, and AR/3D modelling to design climate solutions.

The main focus will be the student toolkit developed from the research. By the time of the conference, this toolkit will have been reviewed with children through a co-review workshop. This is not presented as a final validation exercise, but as part of the wider co-development process, where children’s responses help refine the clarity, relevance and usability of the resource.

Participants will examine selected toolkit activities and consider how they might work in primary classrooms, after-school clubs, teacher education or informal learning settings. Using a short feedback template, they will reflect on the toolkit’s climate change content, use of spatial computing, opportunities for children’s participation, cultural responsiveness and practical classroom feasibility.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to identify ways of using spatial computing to support climate change learning, explain how children’s contributions can inform curriculum development, and critically consider how a proof-of-concept toolkit can be adapted for their own educational context.

This session will unpack the biggest trends shaping science teaching right now, including how teachers are reacting to the changes to the national curriculum, and what it all means for anyone just starting out in the profession.

Teacher Tapp surveys over 10,000 teachers every day, giving us a unique, real-time picture of what's changing in science classrooms, from practical work and curriculum shifts to workload and AI adoption.

The session presents a research-informed reconceptualisation of the quadrat through two complementary lenses.
First, informed by Barad’s agential realism and sociomaterial perspectives, we consider how tools actively shape knowledge, attention, and experience. Through iterative design and reflection, we have developed approaches that disrupt conventional ecological practices, incorporating art (e.g. Dürer’s Great Piece of Turf), narrative, and structured noticing to broaden engagement with ecological complexity.

Second, LCT (Maton), particularly its semantic dimension, offers a framework for analysing how learning moves between concrete experiences and abstract concepts. In ecology, this involves shifts between everyday observations and disciplinary language. Examining these shifts across classroom and field contexts helps explain how knowledge and disciplinary understanding develop. This work builds on Sanders and Davies (2023) and aligns with current priorities in science education.

Participant Experience
Participants will rethink the quadrat as a tool for exploring ecosystems, interdependence, scale, and human–environment relationships. Drawing on Barad and Maton, we examine how every pedagogical choice creates an “agential cut,” foregrounding certain aspects of the natural world while excluding others.

Participants will engage with the Toothpick Safari, a flexible, narrative-based alternative to traditional quadrat work. Examples from school and teacher education contexts show how this approach encourages richer discussions about interdependence, multiple scales (micro to macro), deep time, evolution, and human impact.

The session models how uncertainty and open-ended inquiry can be productive in teaching, supporting deeper ecological understanding. Participants will also reflect critically on their own use of tools, tasks, and instructions.

Outcomes - by the end of the session, participants will be able to:

Recognise the agential cuts within their teaching practices

Use quadrats to support narrative, relational, and inquiry-based learning

Design adaptable outdoor activities that prioritise noticing over counting

Explain how material tools shape what counts as knowledge in science

Connect classroom and outdoor learning to support ecological understanding and disciplinary language development.

This session supports teachers, teacher educators, and outdoor learning practitioners to rethink the quadrat as more than a measuring device, positioning it instead as a tool for ecological inquiry. Participants will explore how Karen Barad’s concepts of agential cuts and intra-action can deepen outdoor science learning, and how Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), particularly semantics, helps explain shifts between classroom preparation, fieldwork, and follow-up meaning-making.

Through first-hand, narrative-based approaches, participants will experience alternatives to traditional quadrat activities used with school students and pre-service teachers. The session also invites critical reflection on how teaching decisions influence what students notice, value, and come to understand in ecology.

This work arises from concerns that ecology teaching often prioritises counting and sampling over relationships, meaning-making, and ecological thinking. Drawing on collaborative work across teacher education contexts in London and Gothenburg, involving both pre-service teachers and school students, we began to question the pedagogical role of familiar tools such as quadrats.

This session shares findings from an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) doctoral study exploring how Heads of Science experience and make sense of GCSE science pathway decisions in secondary schools.

Rather than focusing on outcomes alone, the session explores the lived realities of curriculum decision-making — including tensions between accountability measures, student perceived ability, staffing constraints, and aspirations for equity in science education.

Participants will gain insight into how departmental leaders interpret and negotiate competing pressures when constructing science pathways, and how these decisions shape access to science at Key Stage 4. The session will invite reflection on how curriculum structures are experienced in practice, and what this means for equity and progression in science education.

Oracy is set to have a renewed emphasis in the revised National Curriculum, but what is the opportunity for oracy in the science classroom? In this keynote, Amy Gaunt will explore what it means to learn to and through talk in science, supporting students to develop their disciplinary knowledge and understanding while also learning to speak, listen and communicate like scientists.

Through discussion and practical activities, delegates will experience oracy in action and consider the opportunities for creating authentic and meaningful contexts for talk across their own science classrooms and departments.

Curriculum debate across the four nations keeps returning to one question. What is science education for? The answers point towards young people who can ask a good question, weigh evidence and contribute something new. Yet working scientifically is often reduced to practical technique, and the disciplinary knowledge behind real research goes untaught. Where research does appear it is usually optional, so the students who would gain most are least likely to meet it.

The Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) has worked with over 10,000 students to carry out research. Getting Started with Research is what teachers told us they need to support research and innovation in schools.

What you get: Getting Started with Research is a free lesson programme for students, fully resourced and ready to teach. Lesson plans, slides, worksheets and a knowledge progression map. It builds a shared model of the research cycle, then teaches how researchers find and judge evidence, how curiosity becomes a testable question, who does research, and how students plan an enquiry of their own.

It is designed the way you already plan. Outcomes first, knowledge specified lesson by lesson, misconceptions named, retrieval and modelling built in, reading age controlled. It strengthens working scientifically rather than competing with it, and it maps to the curriculum in all four nations.

Aims and outcomes - In this session we will:

> show why research and innovation are better taught explicitly than left to chance

> walk through the lesson sequence and the knowledge each lesson builds

> show how it fits existing schemes of work, progression pathways and the enrichment you already run

Delegates will leave able to identify where research knowledge is currently assumed rather than taught in their own curriculum, and with free access to the full programme. Time is protected for questions.

This session will explore how AI is influencing trainee and early career teachers beyond practical use, focusing on professional identity development in a changing educational landscape.

You will hear findings from research into how trainee teachers are currently using AI to support planning, learning, reflection, and professional practice, alongside key themes around confidence, dependency, authenticity, and perceptions of expertise.

The session will then examine how AI may shape identity development during the transition from training into independent practice, raising questions around autonomy, judgement, professional voice, and the evolving role of the teacher.

The final part of the lecture will introduce the next phase of research focusing on ECTs, exploring identity development in the early years of teaching and launching a wider survey to gather insight into lived experiences of AI use in practice.



Outcomes:
Following this session, participants will hopefully be able to:

* Recognise key patterns in how trainee teachers engage with AI.
* Critically consider how AI may shape professional identity and autonomy.
* Reflect on implications for teacher education, mentoring, and induction.
* Identify emerging challenges around authenticity, confidence, and dependency.
* Engage with research-informed discussion around AI and identity development.
* Consider how AI use may influence teachers beyond efficiency and workload.

This session is grounded in research conducted at the University of Warwick exploring how trainee teachers are engaging with AI and how this intersects with their developing professional identity. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in educational practice, it raises important questions not only about workload and efficiency, but about how emerging teachers construct confidence, autonomy, expertise, and authenticity.

The project has explored how trainee teachers use AI for planning, idea generation, academic support, and reflective practice, alongside wider considerations around ethics, professional boundaries, and dependency. This work has led to a broader interest in how AI may continue to shape identity formation beyond initial teacher training. What the research has shown is that trainees are using AI, and the project is investigating what this means for both ITE and schools going forward.

The next phase of this research expands to newly practising teachers, examining how Early Career Teachers navigate AI use while developing identity, confidence, and professional agency in their early years of practice and we hope to promote this phase at the ASE Conference.

This professional registration lunch (by invitation only) is for those Honorary ASE members and member-science teachers and technicians who have gained professional registration or Chartership: CSciTeach, RSci or RSciTech, all of whom are invited to join Lynn Ladbrook, the ASE's CEO along with the Chair Trio for the Association.

New Honorary members will also be announced. Honorary Membership is the ASE's highest honour and is awarded to those individuals that have made outstanding contributions to the work of the ASE in at least two of the following areas:
National affairs of the Association
Regional affairs of the Association
Science education in general (at a national or international level)

This session will explore:
• Teachers and students’ perceptions on the effectiveness of student-led questioning and feedback in engaging students in science.
• Share a more effective model of classroom discourse and how it has enhanced teaching and learning in the science classroom.
• Provide participants opportunities to share ideas and knowledge on pedagogical approaches to authentic assessments and opportunities for collaboration.

To address the underlying concerns regarding students’ learning in science, a more responsive teaching approach and assessments are relevant. This must be student-led to promote self-regulation, feedback, identify areas of weaknesses and support peers in the process (Chen & Chang, 2022). This can be facilitated through a constructivist learning environment where students can collaboratively share knowledge and ideas whilst making meaning from different concepts (EEF, 2024), with added benefits of reducing cognitive load.

This presentation will:
• Share how we trained students to use taxonomy of learning to create questions for their peers through modelling and locating these question types within their epistemological framework for learning (Elby & Hammer, 2010).
• Discuss how the OSLA (2012) model was used to assess and grade students’ presentations and implications on learning.
• Highlight teachers’ roles as facilitators of learning and reviewers of epistemological resources and framing (Elby & Hammer, 2010).
• Discuss how problem-based learning (PBL) was used to develop problems and scenarios used in the study, and how this promoted pedagogy and students’ learning.

By attending the session, participants can learn from the approach to this study as discussed above and would be able to contribute other areas not mentioned, share knowledge and network with others for future research collaboration.

Background information: Working with various secondary schools and teachers has enabled me to provide different types of support ranging from research to pedagogy and linking theory to practice. This presentation is inspired by research conducted in a secondary school with science teachers and their students. At the time, the school was concerned about students’ lack of interests in science and poor outcomes from GCSEs. This became an opportunity for me to conduct research and find possible means to improve teaching and learning at the school. I was familiar with the school due to insider knowledge in the science department and from working with the science teachers. The school was in one of London’s deprived Boroughs where achievements is below the national average and fewer students move on to post-16 let alone studying science subjects at A’ levels and BTEC.

Are your students struggling to reliably control variables in their science investigations? In this session, we will explore how the first five lessons of the CASE pedagogy can transform how your students approach fair testing and multivariable problems. You will be introduced to the 5 pillars of CASE; Concrete Preparation, Cognitive Conflict, Social Construction, Metacognition, and Bridging.

Rather than just teaching the "rules" of investigations, you will learn how to facilitate metacognitive dialogue that forces students to reconstruct their own understanding. We will also showcase the "CASE for Teachers" online course. Using real classroom transcripts from the course workbook, you will practice evaluating student cognitive levels (from early concrete to late formal) to inform your questioning strategies.

Aims:
Share pedagogical approaches: Introduce the 5 pillars of Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE) to help bridge the cognitive readiness and demand gap.

Solve recurring classroom problems: Provide specific strategies from the first five CASE lessons to help students master the control of variables in investigations.

Improve student thinking through dialogue: Disseminate methods for using classroom dialogue transcripts to accurately evaluate and strategically elevate student cognitive levels.

Showcase a new resource: Launch the "CASE for Teachers" online course by demonstrating its interactive workbook and video simulations.

Background: Research indicates a significant gap between the high formal cognitive demands of the science curriculum—which requires abstract reasoning like controlling variables—and the actual developmental readiness of early secondary students. Many students naturally struggle to isolate variables to ensure a "fair test." Drawing on the proven CASE intervention, this session explores how shifting our pedagogy towards five constructivist pillars can systematically upgrade student thinking from concrete observations to formal scientific reasoning.

2026 saw issues of equity, diversity and inclusion thrust violently into the academic and educational spotlight. EDI has been the subject of intense, polarised and painful debate across national and international media, with events that have shaken the academic world to devastating effect.
This presidential address explores the motive of what it means to talk/ speak about equity within science education. It engages with a range of discursive challenges relating to equity issues, spanning resistance to equity through the accusation that “you can’t say anything these days”, to the practical dilemmas that STEM educators may encounter, such as not knowing ‘what you can or can’t say’, through to issues of ‘voice’ and injustice and whose voices are valued, recognised or marginalised and excluded within STEM learning spaces.
The presentation concludes with some possibilities for supporting greater equity, justice and inclusion in and through science education and how educators might speak more justly and productively about equity issues.

Our dedicated Chair Trio invite you to drop-in to the “Chair-Chat” sessions on one of the days of Annual Conference 2027. The Chair is a vital role to the ASE, and the elected Chair provides an authoritative voice for the thousands of members that the ASE supports, along with those working within the wider science education community. Those elected remain part of our Chair Trio for 3 years.

Got a question? Ever wondered about what goes on behind the scenes? Ever thought about getting involved in Committee activities? Are you wanting to know more about Professional Registration or writing an article in one of the ASE journals? First time attending our flagship Conference?

If this is your first ASE Conference, then please come along and say Hello.

We look forward to hearing your questions and will endeavour to answer them or point you in a selection of possible right directions!

My aim with this session is to:
• raise awareness of students’ epistemological beliefs;
• discuss how these beliefs influence students’ participation and engagement; and
• illustrate how these beliefs can be supported towards a more sophisticated understanding through STEM educational practices.

Recent studies in Denmark have shown that students in many cases associate acquisition of scientific knowledge with passive memorization of facts and scientific concepts. I will address the challenges arising from this research and introduce a framework for understanding the concept of epistemological beliefs. This will be used to highlight the findings of a case study I conducted in an eighth-grade physics class in Denmark.

My hope is that the participants will gain a more complex understanding of students’ conception of scientific knowledge and of what we’re teaching the students about science besides the concepts, methods and practices. This will enable the participants to identify indicators of epistemological beliefs among their own students and to discuss initiatives to support more sophisticated beliefs about knowledge, knowing and learning in their own classrooms.

I completed my master’s thesis on this subject at the University of Copenhagen, where I recently finished my master’s degree in STEM education. I investigated this topic through research into academic literature and a case study in a lower secondary school class, where I conducted observations in a STEM physics course and did three semi-structured interviews with six students.

CASTME Awards:  CASTME’s mission is to raise the general level of STEM education in commonwealth countries and beyond. They support and promote education at all levels, working in partnership with schools, colleges, civil society organisations and industry across the world. Their awards scheme recognises innovation, awareness raising, and sustainability across science education.