Curriculum Programme

Nuffield Science 13 to 16

Organizer and general editor
Beta Schofield

Background
The project grew of an investigation set up up by the Nuffield Foundation Science Teaching Project in 1974. This was CESIS: curriculum and examination systems in integrated science. The finding was that what teachers needed was a project to help teachers make the best use of all the resources already available and to help them tailor rsources to fit their own pattern of school organization.

The Schools Council had funded an O-level integrated science course (SCISP) based at Chelsea College. This was headed by William Hall and Brian Mowl, and the publications were produced in 1973. All the practical work in SCISP was based on Nuffield O-level activities. The rationale was based on Gagné psychology of learning, and the sciences were integrated under a ‘pattern-seeking’ description of scientific method.

This course covered a wide spectrum including behavioural and environmental sciences. It was extremely demanding. Despite very imaginative examinations, SCISP proved too much for most schools.

A modular approach to integrated science
In the late 1970s, Nuffield decided to develop a more ‘comprehensive’ integrated course drawing together ideas from SCISP and Nuffield Secondary Science.

The scheme consisted of 44 short modules, each with a student booklet and a teachers' guide. The handbook for teachers included a formidable network chart that showed the interconnections between the modules and the possible routes through the scheme.

The publications
Nuffield Science 13 to 16 booklets were published using the low-cost method adopted for Working with Science. The booklets for students were more like workbooks than textbooks. Each chapter corresponded to an hour or so of class time.

Impact
The programme underpinned school-based curriculum innovations in Hampshire and Hertfordshire but was not widely adopted elsewhere. It was significant as an early attempt to devise a common science curriculum offering both scientific literacy and a preparation for more advanced study.