A short starter activity for students of all ages. It would make a good introduction to lessons on robotics or artificial intelligence and could spark a discussion on how neural networks might be used to create human-like behaviour. Equally, when discussing HCI design, it might move the debate beyond keyboard and...

This article looks at how STEM subjects can help students learn about key environmental issues using the National Association for Environmental Education's (NAEE) teacher handbooks about 'The Environmental Curriculum' and details of the 'Sustainable Development Goals' launched at the 2015 Paris agreement on climate...

This resource from Ofsted is a full report and summary of the findings from a visit, in September 2009, made by two of Her Majesty's Inspectors to educational establishments in Finland. Evidence was gathered from three schools and a university from each of three towns about the factors that contributed to Finnish...

This set of subject criteria were produced by the Ofqual, the Welsh Assembly and CEA (Northern Ireland) for Awarding Bodies to produce subject specifications for use in 2011 GCSE Science, GCSE Additional Science, GCSE Additional Applied Science, GCSE Biology, GCSE Chemistry, and GCSE Physics. GCSE specifications...

In January 2012 Ofsted implemented a new framework for inspection to be used by inspectors in the Section 5 inspection of schools and academies. At the same time Ofsted published supplementary subject-specific guidance for inspectors on making judgements during visits to schools.

The supplementary guidance...

This booklet from SCORE aims to help teachers to recognise and plan for a wide variety of high quality science practical work, ranging from out of the classroom learning to opportunities for students to practise specific techniques and procedures.

The booklet defines practical work in science and explains...

If you travel from the UK to France via the channel tunnel, your carriage is riding on rails made of a particular kind of steel that Harry Bhadeshia invented. He has also developed the world's strongest armour, called 'super bainite', in part through the discovery of a steel that seemed to sing.

He has done...

This guidance booklet from the National Strategies aims to support schools in developing good practice in identification, particularly in relation to under-achieving, gifted and talented learners, and those groups who are not traditionally well-represented in gifted and talented populations.

The resource...

Produced in 2007, this is an an International Review of Curriculum and Assessment (INCA) thematic probe to compare compulsory assessment systems which the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) asked National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to undertake. It gathered information via the 20 INCA...

These INSET resources from the National Curriculum Council (NCC) provide a range of activities for teachers of Key Stages One to Four to help them achieve continuity and progression in their design and technology lessons. The programme gives a picture of the practice at the time (1991) in a rapidly changing area of...

These resources are provided by the Nuffield Foundation who, in 2007, commissioned a team from the University of Oxford to review the available research literature on how children learn mathematics. The resulting review is presented in a series of eight papers.

Paper 1 Overview - summarises...

Mah Hussain-Gambles is a biker, a rock music fan and a pharmacologist. Her childhood began in Pakistan and ended in Hull, where she was the only student with Asian heritage at her comprehensive school.

Following a degree in pharmacology, success as a scientist in industry and as social scientist in academia...

Mark Richards is a scientist and a DJ (DJ Kemist). He was born in Nottingham in 1970 to parents who had emigrated from Jamaica and remembers successfully 'battling with the boffins' at his comprehensive school, often coming top in chemistry.

Following a degree in chemistry, he has worked (getting a PhD along...

In 2009, the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME), who provide these resources, embarked on the Mathematical Needs Project to investigate how both the national needs and the individual needs of students, from age five to nineteen in England, could be met by a curriculum, delivery policy and...

This glossary, from the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), was first developed in response to requests from teachers and others during the National Curriculum consultation in 1999. The explanations of mathematical terms refer to the terms as they...