ALMOST three-quarters of Scottish pupils are leaving primary school without a proper understanding of science, a national survey has found, writes Grant Smith, education reporter.

Some do better once they get to secondary school but the overall finding is that “a significant number of pupils are not achieving expected levels.”

The Scottish Government admitted the results were “challenging” but Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop blamed the “unacceptable lack of progress” made under the previous Labour administration.

The Scottish survey of achievement (SSA) involved testing almost 40,000 pupils at 1100 schools during 2007. The results showed no improvement on a similar exercise four years previously.

The tests were based on the levels of knowledge and understanding pupils are expected to reach at P3, P5, P7 and S2.

The younger pupils did well, with more than half the P3s getting at least 65% of their questions right—the point at which skills are reckoned to be “well-established.” However, pupils coming to the end of their time at primary did significantly less well.

Only one-sixteenth of the P7s answered 65% or more of their questions correctly, while almost three-quarters of them got at least half of their answers wrong.

Among the S2s, fewer than a sixth of them scored highly enough to gain a “well established” rating and more than half failed to pass the test.

For the first time the SSA also looked at science literacy, asking pupils to read about a topic and then assessing them on their understanding of it. The aim was to see how well they could understand the impact of science on everyday life and then take informed personal decisions about things such as health, diet and use of energy resources.

More than eight out of 10 of the P3s were said to have well-established skills when tested at the level appropriate to their age group. That fell to under half among the P5s and under a third for the P7s. There was a small improvement at S2, with two-fifths doing well.

The SSA found that children from deprived areas tended to do worse than the others.

Asked for their own opinions of their science skills, pupils often thought they knew more than was borne out by the test results. Boys tended to rate themselves more highly than girls.

Most pupils wanted to do well in science, feeling it would be useful later in their studies and in helping them get a job. However, their interest in school science topics appeared to decline as they got older.

The survey said, “Few pupils thought that these topics affected their own lives and even for topical issues like diet and exercise, climate change and pollution, only around a third of pupils felt they were relevant to them personally.”

Questioning of the primary teachers found varying levels of confidence in their abilities. Two-fifths said they had not taken up any professional development opportunities in science in the past four years.

The SSA questioned whether teachers were getting the right training to meet their needs and what could be done to encourage pupils to think of science as relevant and important to their lives beyond school.

Ms Hyslop said, “Scotland’s economic future is increasingly dependent on science and technology… We are determined to work with schools and local authorities to ensure that the previous lack of progress in science achievement in our schools between 2003 and 2007 is addressed.

“Through the Curriculum for Excellence we are committed to developing a modern curriculum, with science, modern languages and technology at its heart.

“Good quality learning and teaching is key to real and lasting improvement and that is why we’re investing £2.1 million in continuous professional development to build teachers’ skills…

“We have also launched a new Science Baccalaureate qualification to encourage more young people to study science at the highest level.”

Dr Stuart Monro, co-chairman of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee, said it had been calling for improvements in the learning and teaching of science in schools since a major report in 2003.

“The Curriculum for Excellence has begun to address many of the SSAC’s concerns by delivering new approaches which will bring contemporary science into the classroom, taught within a framework which demonstrates its relevance to all our lives.”