Nuffield Science 13 to 16

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The Nuffield 13 to 16 project grew out of an investigation set up by the Nuffield Foundation Science Teaching Project in 1974. This was CESIS: Curriculum and Examination Systems in Integrated Science. The main finding was that what teachers needed was a project to help them make the best use of all the resources already available and to help them tailor resources to fit their own pattern of school organisation. From the start of the scheme until the material was prepared for publication, the units were tried in schools and modified accordingly.

A modular approach to integrated science
As the work developed during the 1970s, the project team decided to develop a ‘comprehensive’ integrated course drawing together ideas from SCISP and Nuffield Secondary Science. To make the resources as flexible as possible, the published scheme consisted of 44 short units, each with a student booklet and a teachers' guide. The ‘Teachers’ Handbook’ included a formidable network chart that showed the interconnections between the Units and the possible routes through the scheme.

The students
Nuffield Units were written primarily for pupils of average ability. In this context, ‘students of average ability' meant those who were potential candidates for the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE). This in itself provided a pretty wide spread, but students outside this range were provided for, to a limited extent, by extra worksheets in the teachers' guides.

The publications
Nuffield Science 13 to 16 booklets were published by a low-cost method. The booklets for students were more like workbooks than textbooks. Each chapter usually corresponded to an hour or so of class time. The units, for a three year course to age 16, were presented in four groups:
• B Units for Year 3 in secondary schools (now Year 9) – 15 shorter units
• S Units for a single-certificate Science course – 11 units
• D Units for double-certificate Further Science course – 10 units
• X Units as extras to be used selectively to supplement the certificate courses – 8 units

URL: http://stem.org.uk/cxpr

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