An Apple A Day...

Research has once again shown the benefit of eating fruit or vegetable.  Yesterday the news media was full of headlines like this:

“Fabulous” I thought.  “I wonder where this research came from?”   

So I decided to follow the research back to its origins - a fairly straightforward task.  It turns out that the research was published in the British Medical Journal’s Christmas edition – a traditionally light-hearted edition often with slightly less-than-serious research articles.

For example, here is a selection of the titles of other articles in the Christmas 2013 edition:

The good news is that many of the articles are open access so you could download them and use them with students to show what a research paper looks like and how they are structured.  The light-hearted topics means that they are more ‘accessible’ than traditional research papers, but are still structured in the same way.  It could also be used to look at how computer modelling is used to look at the potential effectiveness of medical interventions without actually carrying out the intervention.

If you want to do that then the link to the apple story is here.

I heard/read a number of comments about the value of prescribing an apple instead of statins, such as this tweet:

I wondered about the cost-effectiveness of prescribing an apple a day to the population over 50 (around 21 million people according to this source).  Pleasingly, the authors of the paper actually calculate the cost of prescribing statins (to everyone over 50 who isn’t already taking them for other medical reasons) and the cost of prescribing apples.

Cost of additional Statins: £180 million

Cost of apples: £260 million

So, if the NHS were to prescribe apple, which I envisage to be a little like fruit time in primary school, it would cost more than £80 million MORE than prescribing statins.  

Of course, the statins have additional side effects which would have to be taken into account.  The authors also assumed that calorie intake would remain the same if everyone ate an apple, but that might not be the case, so the side effects from that should also be considered.

Interesting questions to ask:

• Why might people be happy to pay for an ‘apple a day’, but not a ‘statin’ a day?
• Could/Should the NHS prescribe fruit&vegetables in the same way that they prescribe medications?
• The authors assume a 70% compliance rate in eating the apple – is this realistic?
•   Should researchers spend time writing light-hearted research articles?
• Why did the news media pick up on the story, and report it without comment on the reasons why it was written?

 Enjoy, and do let me know if you use this in class.

 

How many students get G?

Will there be lots of students who are 'demotivated' by the new grading structure for the GCSEs?

On 16th November the BBC published a story about the new grading structure that will be brought in for the revamped GCSEs in (initially) English and Maths in 2015 and then in the other Ebacc subjects in 2016.

The new structure will see the loss of letter grades (A* to G) and in their place will be numerical grades (9 to 1), with 9 being at the top of the scale and 1 at the bottom.  In their response to the GCSE consultation Ofqual said:

"In response to feedback to our consultation, we have moved from the eight grades we proposed to nine grades. In part this was to avoid the risk of people assuming that eight new grades would map onto the current eight grades. We also want to avoid the risk of reducing the opportunity for less able students to demonstrate the progress they have made and have their achievements recognised." pg 6

So Ofqual were not giving many details about the equivalence of 'old' and 'new' gradings.  However, the BBC report suggests the following potential equivalence:

"Ms Marshall, from King's College London, has told the BBC she understands that for English at least, there will only be one or two grades below the equivalent of a C.
"It's my understanding that there will be more or less three levels for A grades, two levels for a B and two for a C," she said."

Which of course, leaves two levels for grades lower than a (current) C, rather than the current four.

I wondered how many students this would affect?

Each year, once the examining season is done and dusted, and results day has arrived JCQ publishes details of the results for that session.

The following are the percentage of students in English and Maths that achieved each grade.

English (731153 students sat the exam):
A* 3.3%   A 10.9%   B 20.3%   C 29.1%   D 21.5%   E 9.2%  F 3.8%   G 1.2%  U  0.7%
(36.4% of students achieving D - U)

Maths (760170 students sat the exam):
A* 4.9%   A 9.4%   B 16.2%   C 27.1%   D 18.1%   E 10.0%  F 6.9%   G 4.7%  U  2.7%
(35.5% of students achieving D - U)

From these figures, we can see that there are far fewer students at the bottom end of the scale than at the top end.  The grading system currently provides very finely differentiated marks for E - U grades, and much less differentiation at A* - C).

I can therefore see the strong justification for providing a much smaller grade range below the nominal 'good' grade.

Of course, this doesn't address the fact that the 'new' GCSEs are likely to be harder than the old ones, so perhaps students getting a C currently, wouldn't do so in the future.

.....................................................................................................................................................
Out of interest, the figures for the various sciences are:

Biology (174428 students sat the exam)
A* 14.4%   A 26%   B 28.3%   C 21.1%   D 7.7%   E 1.7%  F 0.5%   G 0.3%  U  0.1%
(10.3% of students achieving D - U)

Chemistry (166091 students sat the exam)
A* 16.6%   A 25.6%   B 26.9%   C 20.9%   D 7.7%   E 1.7%  F 0.4%   G 0.1%  U  0.1%
(10% of students achieving D - U) 

Physics  (160735 students sat the exam)
A* 16.0%   A 25.5%   B 27.8%   C 21.5%   D 7.4%   E 1.3%  F 0.3%   G 0.1%  U  0.1%
(9.2% of students achieving D - U) 

Science (451433 students sat the exam)
A* 1.4%   A 6.7%   B 16.2%   C 28.8%   D 24.6%   E 12.5%  F 6.0%   G 2.5%  U  1.3%
(46.9% of students achieving D - U)

Additional Science (283391 students sat the exam)
A* 2.6%   A 9.2%   B 20.0%   C 32.3%   D 20.6%   E 8.9%  F 4.0%   G 1.6%  U  0.8%
(35.9% of students achieving D - U)

Working Scientifically

Recently I've been talking with secondary school teachers about the quality of science enquiry that can take place in primary classrooms. I've become more aware of what goes on in primary classrooms because I've been working on a course for primary science specialists.  I have developed sessions on physics subject knowledge (up to KS3), and with colleagues have linked this to activities that take place in the primary classroom.

In the previous national curriculum, science enquiry became a strong focal point in primary classrooms, with a lot of good practice being developed.  The Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) and also the Primary Science Teaching Trust have highlighted what good primary science can look like. 

In the new National curriculum, scientific enquiry has been subsumed into 'working scientifically'.

‘Working scientifically’ specifies the understanding of the nature, processes and methods of science for each year group. It should not be taught as a separate strand. These types of scientific enquiry should include: observing over time; pattern seeking; identifying, classifying and grouping; comparative and fair testing (controlled investigations); and researching using secondary sources. Pupils should seek answers to questions through collecting, analysing and presenting data.

pg 3, Science Programme of Study, 2014

I know that a lot of work was done by the primary science community, including the ASE, to ensure that the definition of science enquiry in the new NC was not limited to 'fair tests', but included a range of different ways of doing science.  If you are interested in looking at these ideas in more detail then the ASE publish a book called 'It's not fair...or is it' which is worth a read.

Looking further through the programmes of study, working scientifically is defined in more details for each of the key stages.  So in lower KS2 (years 3 and 4) we find that children  "... should draw simple conclusions and use some scientific language, first, to talk about and, later, to write about what they have found out."  In upper KS2 (years 5 and 6) children "... should select the most appropriate ways to answer science questions using different types of scientific enquiry… Pupils should draw conclusions based on their data and observations, use evidence to justify their ideas, and use their scientific knowledge and understanding to explain their findings."

In good primary science lessons this happens.  Children choosing their own equipment, devising a method, thinking about controlling variables, taking measurements and drawing conclusions from their experiments. 

If you haven't had chance to visit a primary science lesson recently (or at all), I would recommend that you try to do so - especially if you have a PSQM primary school near you.  You might be surprised by what you see.

And then the children enter secondary school, and often this level of independence disappears.

Looking at the statement about what children should be doing in years 5 and 6, many secondary teachers that I have been working with have been struck by the similarity in description between the new primary national curriculum and the marking descriptors for controlled assessment.  

That set me wondering if there were some interesting ideas for enquiries that could also be used as part of the preparation, or even as investigations, for controlled assessment.

A few years ago (when it was still coursework) I was involved in moderating for an exam board.  At the moderation training, we were told to expect to see a wide variety of different investigations.  In reality, I saw a very narrow range of experiments: resistance of a wire, osmosis using potato chips, and the thiosulfate cross.

On one of my courses (small advert!), I do a session on physics enquiry, where we look at different investigations that students could carry out and I thought that perhaps this could be developed further to reflect the changes to the national curriculum from 'How science works' to 'Working scientifically'.  I also wanted to incorporate some of the skills that I'd seen in primary science.

It's a physics course, so I asked my physics minded twitter followers if they had any good examples of experiments used for controlled assessment tasks or investigations that went beyond the ubiquitous resistance of a wire.  

I wanted examples where students would have more freedom about what they might investigate, where the science was perhaps not straightforward. 

Some of the suggestions were of quite straightforward experiments, but I could see that it might be possible for students to design their own method, choose suitable equipment and take data that could be interpreted using their GCSE science knowledge (with perhaps a bit of stretch).

Suggestions given included:

• Ray box and several thermometers with bulbs painted different colours to investigate heat absorption
• Rolling ballbearings down curtain tracks to measure efficiency
• Hookes Law with springs or plastic bags (or use strawberry laces to examine creep)
• Different ways to measure g
• Dropping cupcake cases or parachutes
• 2 beakers of hot water wrapped in paper towels and one is kept wet to investigate evaporation (video of a similar experiment but with bottles and a towel)
• Looking at how power changes with time, doing step-ups on and off benches
• Voltaic piles
• Conduction rods
• Windmills -
• Solar panels

These last two were from the Gatsby SEP Innovations in Practical work series.  They produced a series of booklets on a variety of different topics which included a lot of practical work and also worked with Mindsets online to develop equipment that can be used in science investigations.  The booklets are all available as downloadable PDFs .

With the eventual demise of controlled assessment, I hope that teachers will be able to include a wider variety of practical work.  But as you can see, there is quite a lot of practical work that can be done which will fit into the controlled assessment model - especially if that includes an investigation.

The tweacher revolution?

I have written before about the discussion of 'Twitter as the best CPD ever' that occasionally surfaces in my twitterstream.  I find it very sad that the quality of CPD in some schools is so poor, that 140 character interactions are so transformational.

Having said that, I do like twitter a lot.  It makes my job of keeping up with Policy changes and government pronouncements much easier, and allows me to discuss the changes quickly with others who care about such things.

However, do I think that twitter and blogs have the power to change education, as Joe Kirby discusses in his blog 'How might social media help teachers improve education'?  I'm not so sure that I do.

The digital elite.
The vast majority of teachers and education professionals are not on twitter.  When I am running courses I often ask who is on twitter, and rarely will more than 5% of the course answer in the affirmative.  Last week I was working with over 50 NQTs.  Before the course started we thought that of all our courses, this would be the one where there was a high proportion of twitterers.

There wasn't.

Possibly about 10% owned up to being on twitter - but not the large proportion we were expecting.  They were not the social media generation we were expecting.

Those of us on twitter are the minority in education.  Most of the teachers and educators do not tweet, or blog.  In our little bubble world, it might feel like we are mighty, but sometimes I feel that we are in a hall of mirrors, listening to the echoes of ourselves.

The enthusiastic few
I would argue that, in teaching, there have always been an enthusiastic few who have been willing to try out new things, who read books, who went to meetings.  And now some of these are on twitter.

And it's great.  We can indeed write blogs that the Secretary of State reads (well, some of us can), we can find out about the latest trend (PBL, direct instruction, SOLO, educational myths and the like) and we can find people like us (or not like us if you choose to follow a wide range of people). Which is a good thing.

But . . .

Twitter and blogging is unlikely to cause system wide change.  The vast majority of teachers will be untouched by the ebb and flow of ideas on twitter.  They will continue to go to, and grump about, in-school CPD, they'll teach, and they'll be good at their job.  They'll complain about the new changes, and implement them well (or badly).

The system is so large and ponderous that having a small proportion of teachers (and others involved in education) on twitter will not change the system.