Science and Maths

Development and individual differences

• Richard Cowan

Contrary to public perceptions, the differences in number skills between children in the same class taught by the same teacher are greater than differences between schools or countries. This inaugural lecture considers the factors that may be influential, drawing on findings from research projects funded by the ESRC and the Nuffield Foundation.

Student ambassadors and equality in higher education

• Clare Gartland

More skilled young people are urgently needed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the UK. This book indicates how policy can be developed to encourage young people to consider STEM careers. It challenges widely held assumptions about how role models help raise aspirations and support progression to Higher Education.

Taking a scientific approach

• Andy Tolmie

In this lecture, Professor Andy Tolmie explores what lies behind recent research findings in science learning that have shown how pupil discussion during group work plays an important role in promoting conceptual understanding and reasoning in science.

• Dave Pratt

This lecture examines how careful design can ‘phenomenalise’ mathematics and support not only engagement but also focus on key ideas.

• Jennifer Smyth

The early experiences children have of science are crucial in determining later attitudes to learning about it. This work is an introduction for trainee Early Years teachers, and one which helps practising teachers to make science interesting to young children. It provides strategies to help maintain the impetus all through primary school.

• Michael J. Reiss

This lecture examines what the boundaries of science are and how it should be represented in schools.

Demands, deficits and remedies

• Clare Tikly
• Alison Wolf

This book brings together new evidence on the importance of mathematics in the labour market, the growing disparity between school mathematics and the demands of higher education, and the disjunction between the British mathematics curriculum and those of all our major competitors.

• Tom Corner

Designed for primary school teachers who seek to ensure success in mathematics for all their pupils when they follow the most recent version of the National Curriculum. It is particularly suitable for beginning teachers with information on new and effective methods to teach and assess.

Classroom Mathematics for Equality and Justice

• Sharan-Jeet Shan
• Peter Bailey

This book illustrates how current teaching methodology and school management and the bias in existing textbooks can and often does disadvantage black, working class and girl students, and how often this might be changed. The authors have gathered their mathematics from sources across the world and from a multiplicity of disciplines: from global statistics, from architectural principles and from art forms. They will keep students and their teachers fascinated, motivated and learning the mathematics that our technological age – and the national curriculum – demands. For in maths lessons the students are the Multiple Factors in the equation of the world’s economy, resources and growth.