Implementation and Impact of the Secondary Science National Strategy : An evaluation of a major education initiative intended to transform teaching and student attitudes to science

This study explores the background to the National Strategy as developed for the teaching of science in England and Wales. The conclusion, sadly, is that the initiative did not transform teaching methods in the long-term, and student attitudes towards the subject remain as ambivalent as ever. This study explores what happened and considers what went wrong - to a large extent the failure of the Strategy, despite the vast sums of money expended, could be readily identified. The Strategy was over-ambitious, generating too many areas of advice for the school teachers to implement and embed in their daily work. In addition, the messages were not repeated, and were given once during training sessions, with attendees expected to cascade the ideas to their colleagues. Ultimately this process failed, with excellent ideas being passed over in a process of Initiative Overload, where schools became faced with too many new concepts to absorb into their work. Swamped by other pressures, the National Strategy for science became submerged and lost, despite the merits of the messages.