This booklet draws on educational research and extensive experience with classroom practices to explain important principles for increasing literacy.

Writing, speaking and listening are communication skills that are important in all subject areas in the curriculum. Hence, literacy should have a central...

This booklet is about tutoring. Tutoring can be defined as people who are not professional teachers helping and supporting the learning of others in an interactive, purposeful and systematic way.  

Research shows tutoring can be highly effective. This is good news, since in some places in some countries...

This booklet, draws on research and experience to presents eight key principles of creative thinking that are interlinked and interrelated and equally important for nurturing creativity in the educational context.

Creative thinking is defined as the thinking that enables students to apply their...

This booklet is a synthesis of principles of effective teaching that have emerged from research in classrooms. It addresses generic aspects of curriculum, instruction and assessment, as well as classroom organization and management...

A Catalyst article looking at climate change. In particular the science of phenology, the study of the times each year that certain life-cycle events occur, is examined. It involves recording data on when birds migrate, eggs hatch or when leaves change colour. If the climate is changing, the timing of these events...

A Catalyst article about what causes faults in electrical appliances and the wiring installations in homes, and why people receive electric shocks. How regulations can reduce the risk of electrical faults and electric shocks is also examined together with the use of fuses, fuse wire and modern RCDs (residual...

A Catalyst article about the UK's extremely reliable electricity supply system generated in power stations which burn gas or coal, or use nuclear fuel. The article looks at how this is achieved using high voltages and how the demands for power at different times of the day and year are met.

This article is...

Produced by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), this case study looks at the theme of embedding functional skills. It describes how staff within the motor vehicle department of the City of Wolverhampton College were faced with the challenge of embedding functional skills within motor vehicle courses...

Produced by the Learning Skills Improvement Service, these materials help to demonstrate effective practice. This case study looks at the theme of knowledge and technology transfer. It describes how members of staff operating in the STEM area of Huntingdonshire Regional College were encouraged to embed and deliver...

Produced by the Learning Skills Improvement Service, these materials help to demonstrate effective practice. By Cambridge Regional College, this case study looks at the themes of functional skills, equality, engineering and mathematics.

The aim of the project was to work with staff to raise awareness of the...

Produced by LSIS, this report and associated materials describe a research programme aimed at supporting and disseminating effective practical work in further education science classrooms. This report summarises the key findings from action research projects carried out...

This publication, from Warwick University, reports on the STEM Careers Awareness Timeline Pilot. The Timeline project seeks to establish how schools can embed a more systematic programme of careers awareness into the existing subject curriculum. The report gives emerging findings from working with stakeholders and...

Produced by the Learning Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), this case study looks at the theme of curriculum development. From the Isle of Wight College, it shows how the explicit embedding of science into a vocational qualification helps to develop an appreciation of the role of science in construction. The...

This collaborative project by the Royal Statistical Society and the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education presents findings from an analysis of statistics in five recently reformed A levels in England. The aim of the report was to investigate whether the recent reforms will result in improvements in the...

Produced by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), this case study looks at the themes of knowledge and technology transfer, enrichment and enhancement in STEM and employer engagement. It describes a project at Petroc, a large further education college in Devon. Sustainable development education covers...