Enlivening, Invigorating & Enhancing Science:This session explores learning from a range of Primary Science Teaching Trust projects focused on invigorating the experience of children, teachers and whole school communities with primary science.

This session will provide you with opportunity to find out what is being achieved and explore the implications for your own practice.

Science learning in the outdoors to support primary-secondary transition

This study provides additional insight into how outdoor learning can be used as a vehicle to address transition issues. This study analyses the benefits of outdoor learning through the use of shared learning days with young people in the primary-secondary transition phase. This paper argues that a carefully designed programme of outdoor ‘shared learning days’ with young people in both phases working together is a sound model to help address the recommendations arising from specific transition issues (Mullan, 2014; Rose, 2009) through the delivery of aligned outcomes (cognitive, affective, interpersonal/social and physical/behavioural) and impact from learning science outdoors (Rickinson et al., 2004).

Learning to read with a critical eye: cultivating discerning readers of media reports with a science component.

It is important for young people to be able to read science-related media reports with discernment. ‘Getting Newswise’ was a research project designed to enable science and English teachers, working collaboratively, to equip pupils through the curriculum with critical reading skills appropriate for science news. Phase one of the study found that science and English teachers respond differently to science news articles and eight categories of critical response were identified. These findings informed phase two, in which classroom activities were devised whereby pupils examined, evaluated and responded to science-related news reports. Science-English collaboration had positive outcomes for pupil understanding

A Machine Learning Analysis of Twitter Sentiment to the Sandy Hook Shootings

Gun related violence is a complex issue and accounts for a large proportion of violent incidents. In the research reported in this paper, we set out to investigate the pro-gun and anti-gun sentiments expressed on a social media platform, namely Twitter, in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, USA. Machine learning techniques are applied to classify a data corpus of over 700,000 tweets. The sentiments are captured using a public sentiment score that considers the volume of tweets as well as population. A web-based interactive tool is developed to visualise the sentiments and is available at this http://www.gunsontwitter.com. The key findings from this research are: (i) There are elevated rates of both pro-gun and anti-gun sentiments on the day of the shooting. Surprisingly, the pro-gun sentiment remains high for a number of days following the event but the anti-gun sentiment quickly falls to pre-event levels. (ii) There is a different public response from each state, with the highest pro-gun sentiment not coming from those with highest gun ownership levels but rather from California, Texas and New York.

Phonic skills mediate improved literacy outcomes in at-risk primary school children: results from the Ready-to-Learn Programme

Background
Learning to read is a key goal during primary school: reading difficulties may curtail children’s learning trajectories. Controversy remains regarding what types of interventions are effective for children at risk for academic failure, such as children in disadvantaged areas. We present data from a complex intervention to test the hypothesis that phonic skills and word recognition abilities are a pivotal and specific causal mechanism for the development of reading skills in children at risk for poorer literacy outcomes.
Method
Over 500 pupils across 16 primary schools took part in a Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial from school year 1 to year 3. Schools were randomly allocated to the intervention or the control arm. The intervention involved a literacy-rich after-school programme. Children attending schools in the control arm of the study received the curriculum normally provided. Children in both arms completed batteries of language, phonic skills, and reading tests every year. We used multilevel mediation models to investigate mediating processes between intervention and outcomes.
Findings
Children who took part in the intervention displayed improvements in reading skills compared to those in the control arm. Results indicated a significant indirect effect of the intervention via phonics encoding.
Discussion
The results suggest that the intervention was effective in improving reading abilities of children at risk, and this effect was mediated by improving children’s phonic skills. This has relevance for designing interventions aimed at improving literacy skills of children exposed to socio-economic disadvantage. Results also highlight the importance of methods to investigate causal pathways from intervention to outcomes.