Teaching Primary Science and Practical Ideas for Teaching Primary Science

Welcome to the shared companion website for Teaching Primary Science and Practical Ideas for Teaching Primary Science.

This site is designed to further support your learning to teach primary science. Explore the following features:

Flashcard glossaries: from decomposers to space, test your understanding of the subject areas within primary science with these interactive glossaries.
Discussion questions: our expert author team have set some questions to give you more things to think about after reading Teaching Primary Science.
Further reading suggestions: to help extend your teaching and research knowledge.
Image gallery: download images from the texts to use in your own teaching.

Teaching Primary Science Practical Ideas for Teaching Primary Science

About the books

Teaching Primary Science

3rd Edition

Teaching Primary Science

This fully updated third edition brings science subject knowledge and pedagogy together to support, inform and inspire those training to teach primary science.

Written in a clear and accessible way, Teaching Primary Science provides comprehensive coverage of a wide range of science themes. With a brand new chapter on STEM education, additional guidance on where to find the best resources and increased emphasis on assessment, story-telling and problem-solving, this book shows how science can offer children pleasure and intellectual satisfaction and help them to develop sound scientific minds.

Key features:

Ideas for practice exemplify how you can help children to acquire and use scientific knowledge to satisfy their curiosity about how the natural world works.
Something to think about scenarios help to extend and develop your own understanding of key ideas.
Examples of classroom situations, dialogues and stories help you see how theory is applied to practice and support you in reflecting on the best methods for teaching.
Global Dimension sections offer starting points for discussion and research into how scientific ideas can be positively applied and used to evaluate the impact of human activity on the natural world.
Talk Skills and Science Discussion sections enable you to develop children’s scientific knowledge and verbal reasoning skills.

Practical Ideas for Teaching Primary Science

Practical Ideas for Teaching Primary Science is a fun and interactive guide which supports teachers to design and deliver enjoyable science lessons. Peter Loxley explores different scientific topics from growing plants to nutrition to forces and magnetism with an emphasis on story-telling and art to help children share their ideas and work collaboratively in the classroom. This practical guide uses a three-stage framework design to encourage and guide sociocultural practice across three levels: KS1 (5–7), lower KS2 (7–9) and upper KS2 (9–11). The ideas for practice are placed in engaging and significant contexts to encourage curiosity and enquiry and, most importantly, promote feelings of pleasure and satisfaction from science learning. Teachers are guided through hands-on puzzles and activities such as role-play and design and technology tasks both inside and outside of the classroom, with health and safety aspects highlighted throughout, to inspire children’s interest in how the world works from an early age and provide them with the skills to apply their new-found scientific thinking in other contexts.

Endorsements

A very useful resource for everyone with a wide range of topics and themes. This book is particularly novel in its approach as it links science content (and sometimes stories!) with practical ideas which are realistic and engaging. The material will inspire scientists of the future.

Dr Karen Kerr, lecturer in education, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

This text is engaging with an enthusiasm for the themes within it that is quite infectious. The ideas are so well explained and sequenced that they serve as a valuable aid to planning for a beginner teacher or for one who lacks confidence in science. Consistent with key theories of learning and teaching, the text incorporates a range of approaches, styles and strategies whilst also giving a wealth of background information and support for the teacher’s content knowledge, in ways that most other texts do not. There are strong links to sustainability. The emphasis on the connection between science and real people is a valuable feature as it serves to make science more accessible. It will prove a valuable and inspiring resource to any primary teacher or student of education.

Deborah Holt, Bed Primary Programme Director, University of Edinburgh, UK

A comprehensive range of exciting practical ideas to support the teaching of science in primary schools. A must-have companion to Teaching Primary Science by the same authors.

Dr Christine Khwaja, Associate Professor, Middlesex University, UK