A secondary School Teacher Fellow within a university chemistry department: the answer to problems of recruitment and transition from secondary school to University and subsequent retention?

Abstract

In the UK the changes that have taken place in secondary school science education over the last 20 years are considerable. The national curriculum for sciences has once again been changed and has just been introduced to the current Year 10 (fifteen year olds) in September 2006. The most recent AS/A level (exams at 18) syllabuses (now called specifications) were unitised in 2000 and are to be changed again for September 2008. The International Baccalaureate and School Diplomas are mooted to be the way that secondary education is heading. However, changes to the scheme of work in all science subjects has been a moving target where topics within a subject have been in and out and even changed from one science discipline to another during this turbulent period. A quandary indeed for a University Science Department to maintain congruence at the A level – year 1 undergraduate interface and allow students to have a smooth transition from secondary school or college to University (e.g. Rynne and Lambert, 1997). The School of Chemistry at Bristol University, like many others in the UK, have set up a teaching advisory board (TAB) comprising secondary school teachers, academics and other interested parties. The TAB has proved to be a very helpful mechanism for exchange of ideas but is limited in that secondary school teachers can usually only commit to one or two (unpaid) meetings a year, and the focus of each meeting must be narrow for it to achieve depth of investigation. School-university transition is not the only problem that all University Science departments struggle with in the UK, retention and recruitment are also major items on the agenda. The well-publicised demise of several Chemistry Departments has highlighted the danger, and in recent years the need to raise the profile of Science, and in particular Chemistry and Physics, has been paramount (Woods and Morris, 2005). What can be done in response to such problems? Barnes (1999) suggested that academics should return to the classroom. Bristol ChemLabS has taken the step to recruit a School Teacher Fellow (STF), and here we outline the potential benefits to all concerned of recruiting a School Teacher Fellow.