The Chelsea College phase

Kevin Keohane, Nuffield Science Teaching Project Co-ordinator and Chariman of Governors, Nuffield-Chelsea Curriculum TrustResearch and revisions
Once the O-level science projects were published it was clear that continuing efforts would be needed to keep all the successful projects up to date.

Paul Black, Co-Director of Nuffield Advanced Physics, Nuffield Primary Science and Nuffield Design & Technology, and Educational Adviser to the Nuffield-Chelsea Curriculum TrustNuffield at Chelsea College

In 1966 the Nuffield Science Teaching Project staff moved to Chelsea College and the publications unit moved to a new home. William Anderson was the publications manager. The Nuffield Foundation handed over the sales income to the College to provide for revisions and promote new work. Kevin Keohane was the Director of the Chelsea College Centre for Science Education in which the teams were based.

The advantage of this move was that Nuffield teams, the science ones in particular, were more closely associated with researchers and teacher trainers. There was research into the dissemination of Nuffield projects and evaluations of their impact in schools. The findings underpinned the major revisions of the O-level schemes.

Pupil material in response to demand from teachers
In the first 1960s editions of the O-level Science courses the projects did not produce conventional textbooks. There was a strong feeling that textbooks with the answers undermined investigative, practical science. Commercial publishers filled the gap with a variety of profitable texts.

However, feedback from user schools showed that there was a strong demand for books to give more help and support to students. The Nuffield publications unit, in partnership with its publishers, responded by producing much more pupil material for the revised editions published in the 1970s.

New projects
There were new projects too, especially in science and maths. Here we feature a selection of the more important initiatives:

• Nuffield Working with Science
  
• Nuffield Science 13 to 16
  
• Nuffield Co-ordinated Sciences
  
• Nuffield Modular Sciences
  
• Nuffield Science for Key Stage 3
  
• Nuffield Primary Science
  
• Nuffield Mathematics 5 - 11
  
• Nuffield Secondary Mathematics
  
• Nuffield Home Economics

The Emergence of support and aftercare
During the Chelsea period (1966 to 1993) the focus was on development of new projects and revision of the publications for existing ones, not on the maintenance of projects in a steady state. The largest component of the Nuffield Science Teaching Project was the publications department which turned into the heart of the Nuffield-Chelsea Curriculum Trust.

Some projects began to take on a life of their own. Users (teachers, trainers and researchers) began to take ownership of the courses and develop new models for support and aftercare.

Nuffield Chelsea Curriculum Trust
In the late 1970s the independence from the Nuffield Foundation was formalised by setting up the Nuffield-Chelsea Curriculum Trust (NCCT). The publishing models were varied and innovative as the publications unit took advantage of new technologies (such as golf-ball type-setters and off-set litho printing). From 1987 the publications manager was Dieter Pevsner.

As royalty income from the early publications declined, the unit became increasingly dependent on publishers’ advances and NCCT became focussed on publications.

>> Download a 1960s/70s Nuffield Science Teaching Project bibliography. We are grateful to Professor Arthur Lucas, former Professor of Science Curriculum Studies, later Principal of King's College London, for providing this.

Here is a summary of courses and examinations in England and Wales from 1951 onwards.