Nuffield Curriculum Centre

Nuffield Science in Practice

Directors
Andrew Hunt and Nicholas Russell

A new dimension to Nuffield's support for science
The Nuffield Foundation set up this project in 1991 to innovate in the field of vocational science education. For the first time for Nuffield, the project team set out to work with teachers in FE colleges as much as with schools.

Influencing GNVQ specifications
Just as work started in the new Nuffield Curriculum Centre, the government announced that the National Council of Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) would be setting up a new general vocational qualification to replace BTECs.

The professional bodies, especially the Royal Society of Chemistry, campaigned for GNVQs in science. The Nuffield Science in Practice project was able to contribute to the development of the programme specifications from the start.

Working with teachers and lecturers
Early involvement in developing GNVQ Science allowed the project to interpret the emerging qualifications to the teachers in many schools and colleges that saw its potential for some of their students.

The project helped to set up a network of user groups which teachers starting the new courses found very helpful.

Publications
The new GNVQ specifications had many mysterious and novel features because NCVQ adopted an idiosyncratic approach to defining the mastery learning required. The first of the project publications, GVVQ SCIENCE: your questions answered (1994) sought to demystify the new programmes.

The project, in partnership with Heinemann, wnet on to publish textbooks and files of assignments for the Intermediate and Advanced level courses between 1995 and 1996.

Impact
The project had a short life due to the excessive instability of the GNVQ specifications. BTECs never went away and are now being re-established alongside new applied qualifications within the GCSE and GCE frameworks.

The Curriculum Centre learnt a lot from the experience and has since been able to apply this knowledge to the development of the Additional Applied Science course in the Twenty First Century Science programme.