ASE 2027 Annual Conference

The aim of this session is to report on early findings from a current research study that takes forward recommendations from the PCAG report (Primary Science Teaching Advisory Group, 2023). The study extends the work into testing the Framework within primary schools, in particular junior classes (7-11 year olds). The overarching purpose has been to explore the shifts in teachers’ planning and practice required to interpret and implement a curriculum aligned to the Framework.

Findings draw on professional reflections from primary science subject leaders and align to evidence from the State of the Nations in Primary Science Learning Report (ImpactEd, 2025). What has emerged stimulates and informs policy makers, practitioners and senior leaders to question and consider the levers and challenges in designing a curriculum for the future. The session informs on how teachers perceive, interpret and apply policy recommendations into day-to-day classroom settings. This falls at a time where England awaits the outcomes of the Curriculum & Assessment Review (DfE, 2024) and when other nations in the UK are reviewing the purpose and nature of primary science education.

Expected outcomes of the session will be that participants are increasingly aware of the real world experiences and challenges that influence primary science classroom practice. This will especially focus on the different ways in which schools manage curriculum implementation across different settings. They will have:

* a greater awareness of the real world experiences and challenges that influence primary science classroom practice.
* reflected on the differences in science learning emerging across different school settings.
* considered their readiness to offer primary science teachers support and guidance ahead of or when new curricula guidance is published.

Curious to know why girls do choose physics A-level? This session presents the results and conclusions from a doctoral research project recently conducted in England.

Outcomes – Participants will be able to reflect on the uptake of A-level physics by girls in their school and take ideas from the research to employ in their own setting.

Following on from the results presented at ASE 2026 Annual Conference, this session will present the final results and findings from my EdD doctoral thesis into why girls do choose to study A-level physics. It is aimed at secondary school teachers and leaders looking to increase the numbers of girls choosing the subject, as well as researchers interested in physics education. There will be time allocated at the end of the presentation for comments, questions and discussion.

Background – At ASE Conference 2026, I presented the initial findings from my doctoral research project and in this session I will share the findings and conclusions presented in the thesis. The research draws upon my experience of teaching GCSE and A-level physics. Initially I was curious to know why girls who enjoyed physics at GCSE and were achieving top grades were not choosing to take the subject to A-level. The numbers of girls choosing A-level physics have remained stable over a few decades, so I decided to find out what it is about these girls to explain why they choose A-level physics through the use of focus groups and semi-structured interviews.

In my experience, girls studying A-level physics regularly outperformed the boys (in tests and conducting practical work) and so I wanted to know more about their reasons for choosing a subject that many girls choose not to study.

What does an ambitious science education look like from primary through to secondary? This session will explore how we can keep expectations high for all pupils, prioritise depth before pace, and use rich texts, images, examples and questions to provoke curiosity and build secure knowledge.

Mary Myatt will consider what happens when we move beyond coverage and activity and give pupils the intellectual substance and time they need to think, make connections and encounter the power of the discipline. The session will also explore how assessment can support, rather than distort, this ambition.

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 interactive workshop explores the impact of project-based learning in science education, including through the lens of the CREST Awards, a nationally recognised framework for student-led STEM project work. Drawing on research evidence and programme evaluation, as well as the stories and experiences of teachers and young people- the session will examine how structured project work can enhance student engagement, attainment, and the development of wider scientific skills.

The session begins by situating project-based learning within the broader evidence base- which will be based on a report by Jennifer De Witt, including research demonstrating improvements in outcomes when students engage in inquiry-driven projects.

Participants will then explore CREST as a case study of effective implementation. CREST provides a flexible, student-led approach to project work across age phases, supporting engagement with real-world scientific challenges. Evaluation evidence indicates that participation can lead to improved attainment and progression into STEM, alongside enhanced confidence and aspiration.

A central feature of the workshop is a panel discussion bringing together teachers and CREST graduates. This provides an opportunity to explore lived experiences of project work, including its impact on motivation, identity, and classroom practice. Delegates will engage directly with panellists through facilitated discussion and audience questions.

The session concludes with structured reflection and planning, enabling participants to identify practical strategies for embedding project work within their own settings.

By the end of the session, participants will:

Understand the evidence base underpinning project-based learning in science education
Explore how CREST operationalises effective project work in practice
Reflect on the impact of project work through teacher and student perspectives
Identify practical approaches to embedding project-based learning in their own contexts
Develop one actionable change informed by evidence and discussion

The primary focus of the PISA Assessment in 2025 was on the outcomes of school science education for 15-year-olds. The 2025 Assessment framework, which was the basis of testing in over 90 countries in 2025, introduced three new elements.
First, two of the original competencies in the 2015 framework were merged. This change enabled the introduction of a new third competency that measured students’ ability to “research, evaluate and use scientific information for decision making”.
Second, because of the importance of educating students about the environment, climate change a specific focus on environmental education was added. The framework for this was elaborated in the document Agency in the Anthropocene.  

This framework has three new competencies with a focus on education for sustainability and climate change. Finally, the concept of attitudes to science has been broadened to the notion of science identity which introduces the notion of capital. This talk will explain these changes, their rationale and illustrate ways in which they were measured with sample items. In addition, it will present the findings from the results published in September 2026, and discuss their implications.

In this session attendees will be introduced to Model-Evidence-Link (MEL) instructional materials designed to assist American learners as they construct arguments to evaluate the plausibility of evidence connected to models and the research base that supports using these scaffolds. These MEL diagrams allow students to think critically about socio-scientific issues by evaluating connections between lines of evidence and alternative explanatory claims.  

Explorations that utilize the MEL scaffold promote changes in epistemic judgments, including claim plausibility, and help students move toward a more civically minded and scientific stance. Student discourse is a critical part of these activities and include negotiation toward scientific consensus.

MEL activities for available for teaching about socio-scientific issues include climate change, dead zones, energy, extreme weather, fracking, freshwater resources, fossils, moon formation, nuclear energy, origins of the universe, soil and food security and wetlands. All materials are freely available under a Creative Commons license. Participants receive access to all instructional materials and instructional guides, found here:

https://serc.carleton.edu/mel/index.html

This interactive session will explore how disciplinary literacy can be embedded into post-16 science curricula to support learners in moving beyond the memorisation of key terms towards reading, writing, reasoning and communicating like scientists.

The session draws on work developed at Milton Keynes College Group within a growing sixth form context, where disciplinary literacy has been used as a curriculum design principle across A Level and Applied Science provision. The approach was developed in response to a familiar post-16 challenge: learners may know isolated scientific vocabulary, but struggle to interpret exam questions, explain processes precisely, evaluate evidence, or communicate using the conventions of the discipline. Drawing on research-informed practice in disciplinary literacy, curriculum design, and assessment, the session will show how science teachers can make the hidden demands of scientific reading, writing, and thinking more explicit.

Participants will examine examples of how diagnostic questions can reveal gaps in conceptual understanding, command-word interpretation, and scientific reasoning. The session will also consider how independent study booklets and structured writing tasks can help learners practise the forms of explanation, evaluation and evidence use required in Biology, Chemistry and Forensic Science. There will also be a demonstration of tools which are used to identify specific AO gaps which relate to terminology/application of language and how we address it.

During the session, participants will be able to review sample resources, view the tools we use and given time to consider how similar approaches could be adapted for their own phase, subject or qualification context.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the specific literacy demands within post-16 science tasks;
2. Distinguish between teaching scientific vocabulary and developing disciplinary scientific thinking.
3. Use diagnostic questions to uncover barriers to scientific understanding.
4. Adapt examples of disciplinary literacy resources for Biology, Chemistry, Forensic Science or related pathways.
5. Consider how disciplinary literacy can support curriculum planning for academic, applied and future technical science routes.

The session is intended for science teachers, curriculum leaders, post-16 practitioners and anyone interested in strengthening students’ access to complex scientific knowledge through practical, evidence-informed pedagogy.

More than a dozen schools in deprived areas of the North West are currently delivering their Year 3 science curriculum via an extended story involving a Black female engineer rocketing around time and space in a cardboard time machine. Why? What has this unique project taught us about the power of story and simple stage magic to engage learners? Is there a particular power to performers in role? What do teachers get out of it? How can SLT members support their teachers to find the elusive “why” in the existing science curriculum – and how do we encourage children to talk more in our science classrooms?

Participants will leave with some answers to those questions - plus ideas for how to make use of some of the key elements of this successful oracy-rich programme in their own classrooms.

Aims: to share learning from an innovative arts-based learning project in Manchester, and explore what elements of the programme can be taken forward by educators more widely - including feeding into a brand-new arts-based learning programme currently being developed in Morecambe Bay by the same company.

Background: "Terri and the Time Machine" is currently being delivered in over a dozen North West primary schools. It is an arts-based creative programme delivering the whole of the Year 3 science curriculum, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Professor Lynne Bianchi (SEERIH) provided expert advice during development. In-depth evaluation was conducted throughout the initial three years by Dr Zoe Crompton (Manchester Metropolitan University). The fully-funded period came to an end in July 2025; but 14 schools are continuing to participate, thanks to extended support from the PHF and financial contributions from the schools involved. Why? What is the benefit of teachers working with a theatre company, and what have we discovered by undertaking this unique project?

Science is a mandatory subject across most nations, and we too often take its privileged position for granted. Much has been written about the purpose of education but far less when it comes to the specifics of science education.

Science teaching and curriculum development should be grounded in sound reasons for its presence on the curriculum along with what it should contain and what it should stand for. Over the last year data has been gathered, supported by the ASE, to probe how science teachers perceive the purpose of science education. Surveys have been able to establish certain standpoints are more widely help than others; in this presentation we will look at this research and its findings, and look at science education through the lenses of utility, curiosity, culture and citizenship. This research has implications for all involved in science education, from the classroom through to curriculum policy makers.

By the end of the session colleagues will hopefully have some alternative perspectives on why science education is so important and why its importance will only grow over time.

Building on our work investigating the mathematical skills of trainee science teachers, in this session we will explore the needs of serving teachers. The aim of the session is to inform our next steps to support trainees and serving science teachers with the maths skills required to teach GCSE sciences.

In this session we will:
(a) identify mathematical skills challenges
(b) revisit issues experienced by trainees
(c) identify the issues for serving teachers using:
(i) a survey of GCSE Examiners’ reports
(ii) an overview of existing CPD provision for serving teachers together with lessons from uptake and evaluation information.

Working closely with trainee teachers, we have begun to review existing resources that might help teachers to improve their maths skills.
In this session participants will be asked about:
(a) the resources teachers and teacher developers use to develop maths skills of serving teachers
(b) whether an online self-assessment tool would be helpful
(c) what additional CPD provision may help
(d) the possible role of online asynchronous support
(e) resources that might support science teachers to improve their maths skills pedagogy

Background: With over 60 years of Physics teaching experience between them as well as a background of supporting Science teachers with Physics, Ally Davies, Liz Nourshargh and Caroline Neuberg have been working together on the maths skills of trainee science teachers since 2021, initially as part of the IOP Physics Teacher Educator Programme. Since then, they have presented at conferences, published a paper, written maths support materials and delivered Maths CPD on behalf of a number of organisations. As they continue to work with trainee Science teachers and deliver maths CPD for a variety of organisations, they aim to ensure that the tools developed are suitable for and freely available to all Science teachers.

AI technology is changing the fabric of scientific knowledge building.  In biology, for example, AlphaFold predicts the structure of proteins and other biomolecules, changing how drugs are developed and diseases are  studied. In medicine, AI-powered image generation is changing medical diagnostics. In chemistry, AI tools are automating and accelerating organic chemistry and material discovery. In physics, complex AI-based simulations accelerate research across topics, while AI-based robotics is driving change in engineering. Further, scientific inquiry requires new skills for scientists, such as designing ‘AI experiments’, navigating data ethics and governance, evaluating AI models, and interpreting AI system output.

How, then, is school science changing to teach about this new way of scientific working and these new discoveries? What new AI-related real-world science concepts and skills might be taught?

The aim of this workshop is to start this discussion. We will lead a workshop to brainstorm candidate uses of AI in real-world science and consider what concepts and skills might be introduced at different stages of science education.
We will provide examples of how basic AI literacy concepts have been introduced in existing AI lessons covering topics such as ecosystems and healthcare.  We will use these to spark discussion on what content might be taught in classroom science lessons to showcase `AI in real-world science’.  We are particularly interested in stimulating discussion on how scientific inquiry in school might change in the light of AI technology.
 
The outcome from this workshop will be that participants will become more familiar with AI literacy concepts and begin to form ideas about what AI literacy for Science might look like. They will also start to develop ideas for lessons that introduce `AI in real-world science’ into their science classrooms. We do not have the answers to what should be taught and how about `AI in real-world science’, but as computer science education researchers, we would like to facilitate this discussion with science educators to help work towards this goal.

Central aims for the session: (a) to support participants in understanding what constitutes educational system building and (b) how to categorise and evaluate their own leadership efforts to identify key areas of focus for continuous improvement.

Education system building is an empirically evidenced approach to educational improvement. System building involves teachers and school leaders collaborating to organise, support, and manage teaching and learning across five key domains of practice:

1. Building educational infrastructure: designing formal teaching materials (schemes of work, assessments) and establishing social resources for learning (norms, values, and relationships among students, teachers, and leaders)

2. Teacher professional learning for supporting use of infrastructure in practice: formal CPD, coaching, and opportunities for peer learning (co-planning, peer observation, lesson study, collaborative data analysis)

3. Managing environmental relationships: navigating external environmental influences (exam boards, DfE, inspection bodies, cultural and political shifts), and engaging environmental actors (universities, professional bodies, community actors)

4. Monitoring and managing performance for continuous improvement: monitoring and evaluating teaching and learning (data analysis, staff appraisal, observations of teaching and department routines, and designing mechanisms for teacher feedback), and identifying areas for continuous improvement

5. Developing and distributing academic leadership: structuring teams and roles (HODs, curriculum leads), and encouraging leadership of initiative across all staff

In reflecting on my work as a HOD in three schools, I can organise my activities into each of these domains, and identify domains where my efforts are focused in an average week. I can also compare across my different schools and see how work in each domain looked different depending on the context. This can be a useful framework for reflection to identify 'gaps' in our leadership practice.

However, this lens is most powerful for helping us coordinate improvement efforts across these domains. For example, it can help us to identify when data being collected is not being used to (re)design students’ educational experiences, or staff appraisal routines are not used to shape teacher learning initiatives and/or (re)configure informal leadership roles. A system building frame also helps leaders to conceptualise why some approaches that explicitly work across domains, like lesson study, can be incredibly powerful.

In this session, I will outline the key findings from the education system building research coming out of the US, and draw on my experience as a science leader in England to reframe this for a UK educational context, as well as provide participants with an opportunity to audit their own leadership practice, and learn from other leaders how their work looks similar/different through a system building lens.

You may know the idea of the Third Teacher: the Reggio Emilia principle that the physical environment is as formative as any instructor. What might this mean for your science classroom?

This interactive workshop explores how conscious spatial design — layout, naturalness, stimulation, and pupil-controlled affordances — can deepen engagement, support scientific thinking, and strengthen collaborative inquiry. The session itself is designed to demonstrate the very principles it explores.

You'll move through three activities — individual reflection, small-group application, and collective visioning — surfacing answers grounded in your own classroom experience and actionable research. You'll leave with concrete techniques to apply immediately, and the opportunity to help shape what comes next: a founding circle for a UK-wide action research network exploring classroom design in secondary science at scale. This is the future of science education — and we'll build it together.

Participants will be able to:
•Reflect critically on how their classroom's physical features currently support or constrain pupil engagement, cognition, and behaviour
•Apply evidence-based spatial design techniques to enhance science learning outcomes immediately
•Join a founding action research network with shared resources, peer collaboration, and opportunities to both contribute to and benefit from emerging findings

This session aims to:
• convene a founding circle for a UK-wide action research network exploring the transformative potential of classroom design in secondary science settings
• empower teachers and practitioners with evidence-based, immediately applicable answers, built directly from their own classroom experience

Background: Across years of action researching transformative learning experiences, a pattern emerged: expert facilitators consistently build a deliberate relationship with the physical space before their sessions begin. This observation sparked a master's thesis — An Architecture for Empowerment: Exploring How Physical Environments Co-Create Human Capacity — synthesising environmental psychology, 4E Cognition, neuroscience, and architectural theory. Its core finding: physical environments are not backdrops to learning but active co-creators of cognitive, emotional, and relational capacity. Science classrooms — with their fixed benches, equipment-laden surfaces, and competing sensory demands — represent a largely untapped frontier for this work.