ASE 2027 Annual Conference

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries, please email [email protected]

This session aims to enable participants to:

• Understand how children’s thinking scientifically can be assessed meaningfully in outdoor primary science
• Explore a research informed Thinking Scientifically Assessment Matrix that supports progression across primary phases
• Engage with examples of how the matrix has been co designed and trialled with experienced teachers in real classrooms
• Consider how assessment can strengthen, rather than constrain, outdoor science learning
• Reflect on how a shared assessment framework can support trainee teachers, Early Career Teachers and whole school professional learning

Outdoor science offers rich opportunities for curiosity, talk, investigation, and sense making; yet many teachers report uncertainty about how to assess thinking in these spaces. In this interactive session, participants will be introduced to a Thinking Scientifically Assessment Matrix designed to support assessment for learning in outdoor primary science. They will explore how the matrix makes children’s scientific thinking visible, supports progression over time, and aligns with everyday classroom practice rather than adding to the teacher's workload. Drawing on real examples from classrooms, the session will share how teachers have trialled the matrix outdoors, what has been learned through co-design, and how assessment has been embedded into practical, exploratory learning. Participants will be invited to engage with sample learning scenarios, consider where evidence of thinking might be captured, and reflect on how a shared framework could support consistency across year groups or within professional learning communities. The session will be relevant for classroom teachers, subject leaders, mentors, and those supporting teacher development.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
• Identify key features of progression in children’s scientific thinking across the primary age range, in outdoor contexts.
• Use an assessment matrix to recognise and interpret evidence of thinking in outdoor science lessons
• Adapt assessment approaches to support exploratory, enquiry rich learning
• Apply shared assessment language to support planning, reflection, and professional dialogue within and across schools
• Support trainee teachers and Early Career Teachers in developing confidence with assessment of primary science, particularly in outdoor and enquiry based contexts
• Integrate a research informed assessment framework within ITE programmes to strengthen coherence between university based theory and school based practice
• Consider next steps for embedding the assessment of thinking scientifically within their own settings

This session draws on EdD research, which focused on the creation and application of a Thinking Scientifically Assessment Matrix designed to articulate progression in children’s scientific thinking. The research explored how early career teachers used the matrix to support planning, teaching, and assessment in primary science, particularly in outdoor learning contexts, where assessment is often perceived as challenging or impractical. Building on this work, I am currently collaborating with experienced primary teachers through a structured programme of professional learning and classroom trialling. Together, we are refining the matrix through lesson observations, peer discussion, and shared analysis of children’s learning. This knowledge exchange approach values teacher expertise alongside research informed pedagogy, with the long term aim of making outdoor science learning assessable, sustainable, and impactful beyond the Early Years.

This collaborative session invites teachers and leaders to reflect on practical science models that are realistic, workable and educationally valuable. It will explore how practical assessment and practical learning can be designed in ways that support classroom delivery, gather meaningful feedback and balance ambition with the operational realities schools face.

Participants will also explore what makes practical science both educationally valuable and operationally manageable; to surface the barriers schools face in delivering practical science well; and to discuss models that could improve consistency, feasibility and learner experience. Participants will leave with a set of practical design considerations, examples of alternative delivery models and prompts for reviewing practical science in their own context.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how students access information, construct knowledge, and engage with scientific ideas. For science educators, this presents both exciting opportunities and important responsibilities. This session explores how AI can be meaningfully and ethically integrated into science teaching to support inquiry-based learning, deepen conceptual understanding, and strengthen assessment practices across primary and secondary contexts.

Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for traditional teaching approaches, the session emphasises its role as a powerful partner in learning. Participants will explore how AI tools can help students generate hypotheses, visualise abstract processes, interpret data, model scientific phenomena, and refine scientific explanations. Practical classroom examples will demonstrate how AI can scaffold thinking while maintaining the integrity of disciplinary knowledge and scientific reasoning.

A key focus of the session is supporting teachers in developing students’ scientific literacy in an AI-rich environment. As learners increasingly rely on intelligent systems to gather and synthesise information, they must also learn to question sources, evaluate outputs critically, and recognise limitations and bias within AI-generated responses. Strategies will be shared for helping students become reflective users of AI who can distinguish between evidence-based reasoning and plausible but inaccurate outputs.

Participants will also examine how AI can support inclusive science education. AI-powered tools can help differentiate instruction, provide accessible explanations, support multilingual learners, and offer alternative ways for students to demonstrate understanding. Examples will highlight how thoughtful integration of AI can increase participation and confidence among learners who may otherwise feel excluded from science learning.

Assessment is another important dimension addressed in the session. As AI tools become more widely available, educators are reconsidering how to design tasks that promote authentic scientific thinking. The session will present approaches for designing assessments that value process, reasoning, and interpretation over simple recall, while also using AI to support formative feedback and student reflection. These approaches encourage learners to engage more deeply with scientific practices such as modelling, argumentation, and evaluation of evidence.

Ethical considerations will be woven throughout the session, including responsible classroom use, transparency, data awareness, and supporting students to understand how AI systems function. Participants will leave with practical strategies for introducing AI in ways that align with curriculum expectations and uphold professional standards.

This interactive session is designed for educators who are curious about using AI in science education but want practical guidance grounded in pedagogy rather than technology alone. Through discussion, examples, and collaborative reflection, participants will develop confidence in identifying opportunities where AI can enhance—not replace—effective science teaching.

By the end of the session, participants will have concrete ideas they can adapt immediately within their own classrooms and departments to support thoughtful, future-ready science learning.

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.

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries, please email [email protected]

Aims: This session aims to share research findings and new professional development resources for purposeful practical work to support inclusion in primary science. We will consider examples of adaptive teaching and how practical work can be used to enable children to sense that science is ‘for them’ and is accessible to their needs.

The purposeful use of practical work in primary science provides a range of opportunities for inclusive practice. Drawing on research from the Nuffield and Comino Foundation funded practical work project (2023-26), this session will consider how purposeful practical work can be used most effectively to support all learners. With examples from across the four nations of the UK, we will discuss adaptive teaching and the importance of essential experiences to support disadvantaged learners. We will use the outcomes of the research projects and the examples from a range of schools to stimulate discussion and reflection on the nature of inclusive practical work in primary science. Links will be made across research projects such as SEERIH’s ‘Shining a light on inclusive science’ and the Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS) projects, to show how key messages align across the primary science community.

Outcomes: Attendees will develop an awareness of the research base for practical work in primary science and become familiar with the proposed pedagogy model. By discussing examples selected from the professional development materials, they will reflect on practice in their own context.

Background: The Nuffield Foundation funded research project (2023-25) considered practical work from a primary perspective, proposing a pedagogy model to support practice. With support from the Comino Foundation, the project follow-on (2025-26) involved visits to 30 teachers in 20 schools across the four nations of the UK. The new bank of professional development videos model adaptive teaching and purposeful use of practical work in primary science.

This session will explore how the practical Barcoding For Beginners project is being used to investigate invertebrate biodiversity with learners in years 10-13. Hear about the impact of authentic scientific investigation and collaboration on educators and students and see the resources available to support this inquiry-based project using molecular biology techniques, bioinformatics and transferable skills.

Launched in September 2024, Barcoding For Beginners is a project by Wellcome Connecting Science, funded by a Royal Society SEED Partnership grant. It provided funded CPD for eligible educators, a series of resources, equipment and consumables to support a 10 hour DNA barcoding project in the classroom. This session will discuss the findings from this two year project and examine the impact on educators and learners of completing inquiry-based science, using molecular biology equipment, supported by scientists in the field.

This session will discuss and showcase:
• how DNA barcoding has been used in schools and FE colleges for practical, inquiry-based projects investigating invertebrate biodiversity in years 10 - 13
• how using practical project work can enhance understanding of molecular biology techniques in the curriculum
• the positive engagement of educators and technical staff with Barcoding for beginners CPD and resources
• the impact on practical molecular biology ability, transferable skills and career awareness in participating students
• one of the bioinformatics exercises to showcase how interrogating open access databases can be used in teaching

Attendees will:
• understand the structure and impact of the Barcoding for beginners programme and how it can be applied in school and colleges
• hear about the impact the practical investigations had on students engagement with molecular biology and bioinformatics and their development of practical skills.
• discuss how a DNA barcoding project fits with the curriculum and can be integrated into teaching
•t rial a bioinformatics element from the project to demonstrate how the project can enhance students’ domain-specific skills

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries, please email [email protected]

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries please email [email protected]

The session begins with everyday objects that prompt close observation, enabling learners to notice patterns and features that naturally lead into specific primary science phenomena. Each activity is deliberately structured with scaffolds that support pupils in articulating their ideas and using scientific language with increasing confidence. In line with research emphasising science as a distinct linguistic practice (Lemke, 1990), the session foregrounds opportunities for learners to develop and apply scientific vocabulary through guided talk, modelling, and structured interaction.

All materials have been developed directly from classroom practice and draw on a range of pedagogical approaches, including inquiry‑based learning, dialogic teaching, and explicit vocabulary instruction, to ensure accessibility for all learners. The design of the session reflects current evidence that vocabulary must be explicitly taught and embedded within meaningful contexts to support understanding, as highlighted by the Education Endowment Foundation.

Embark on a hands-on adventure and join marine biologists in their quest to uncover the mystery of Luna's father! Meet Luna, an adorable whale calf,  and become part of a passionate team determined to solve this heart-warming puzzle using gel electrophoresis and DNA fingerprinting.

The Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Careers Guidance highlight the importance of linking curriculum learning to careers, yet many teachers face the challenge of fitting meaningful careers education into an already crowded curriculum.
The Scientists Making a Difference book and supporting teaching resources have been created by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Imperial College London and What on Earth! Books to help schools address this challenge quickly and easily.

The book features 47 diverse scientists working across a wide range of STEM careers, alongside a comprehensive teacher resource pack. Designed for use with students aged 11–16, the resources provide curriculum-linked activities that enable teachers to embed STEM careers into existing science lessons with minimal planning required.
All UK state-funded secondary schools received free copies of the book and teacher resource pack in September 2026. You can also access a digital copy of the teaching resources at www.scientists-making-a-difference.com.
This practical session will introduce attendees to the Scientists Making a Difference resources and demonstrate how they can be used within existing schemes of work. Covering varied lesson activities, worksheets, presentations and curriculum mapping documents, the session will walk you through how the resources can not only help schools in achieving the Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Careers Guidance, but also inspire students through contemporary examples of scientists who’ve undertaken a variety of career pathways.
Attendees will leave with:

• a clear understanding of how to access and use the Scientists Making a Difference resources, to integrate STEM careers education into science lessons.
• Increased confidence in supporting careers education through the curriculum.

There will be opportunities for discussion and questions throughout the session, and attendees will all receive a hard copy of the teacher guide to support implementation within their own schools.

The session is underpinned by the evidence base that informed the Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Careers Guidance, particularly Benchmark 4: Linking Curriculum Learning to Careers. Research has highlighted the importance of helping young people understand the relevance of curriculum subjects to future education and employment pathways. Scientists Making a Difference has been created by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Imperial College London and What on Earth! publishing to provide practical, curriculum-linked resources that support schools in embedding STEM careers within secondary science teaching.

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries please email [email protected]

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries please email [email protected]

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!

This session will include input from Hitchin School Girls who will give insights and practical tips on how to encourage independent revision for students.

There will be lots of visuals in this practical session with some discussions in smaller groups.

A chance to gets hands-on, and try out some of the latest CLEAPSS practicals.  

Pop in, ask a question, chat with the CLEAPSS advisors!

For queries, please email [email protected]

The recent curriculum review recognised the importance of good quality purposeful practical science. In this workshop we will share the journeys of some of the schools on our Keeping Science Practical project - hear from the schools how they consistently improved practical provision in their own schools (and the impacts of these changes).