The only way is Essex and Herefordshire for Thinking, Doing, Talking Science
March 28, 2018
Education departments in two counties have received funding to trial our Science Oxford Thinking, Doing, Talking Science programme in their schools.
Thinking, Doing, Talking Science (TDTS) is an educational research project, funded by the Educational Endowment Fund, which Science Oxford has been working on in partnership with Oxford Brookes University for the past five years.
As an approach to learning, TDTS aims to make science lessons in primary schools more practical, creative and challenging by training teachers in a number of strategies to encourage pupils to use higher order thinking skills.
The project is currently being trialled in over 200 schools across the country and, in addition, we have recently launched two new TDTS outposts of activity. Essex and Herefordshire have both received funding from the Strategic Schools Improvement Fund (Department for Education) to initiate the TDTS programme in their regions. In Essex, we will be training two cohorts of teachers on TDTS in twenty primary schools over the next two years. In year one, our expert team will be leading the first cohort of teachers through the programme and also training up four new TDTS trainers, who will help to deliver training to the second cohort in year two. Bridget Holligan, our Director of Education and Engagement, who is leading TDTS on behalf of Science Oxford, said: “Our legacy in Essex will be to have not only trained up a new group of teachers but also to have given a new group of trainers the skills to deliver TDTS more widely in the region.”
In Herefordshire, we are piloting the TDTS programme ethos and strategies at secondary school level. Bridget says: “Our focus so far has been on TDTS in primary schools so this is a great opportunity to see whether the programme can translate to Key Stage 3 teachers and pupils. The results of this trial will inform future strategic decisions.”
Find out more about TDTS by going to www.thinkingdoingtalkingscience.org and read about our TDTS training for teachers in Oxon and Bucks at www.scienceoxford.com/thinking-doing-talking-science.
