Newstead Wood School for Girls

1
Newstead Wood School for Girls

• Selective school tests sat by some 730 girls for
  130 places
• Location Orpington, Kent (London Borough of
  Bromley)
• 7.5 mile catchment radius
• Specialist Engineering School
• 7 of students have EAL

2
Gifted talented at Newstead

• Newstead students fall within the top 8 of the
  national profile
• So, most, if not all, are gifted talented
• We regard our top 5-10 of students as being
  exceptionally able

3
My research project

• Provision for gifted talented students is
  important
• Provision of activities aimed at the
  exceptionally able increase the motivation of
  all students
• Newsteads gifted talented policy SoW should
  include provision for the very able, including
  extension topics, independent study open ended
  lines of enquiry

4
The impact of extension topics aimed at
exceptionally able students on the achievements
of these students and on all students within that
class
5
8W

• 29 mixed ability students formed the study group
• Weekly one-hour biology lessons
• Extensions tasks (additional to homework)
• Individual interviews (Sep 05)
• Questionnaires (Sep 05, then Jul 06)
• Collection of biology-related newspaper articles

6
What is it like to be a scientist?

• A scientist is someone who does what they love
  as a living to make the world a better place
• They investigate things and work in a lab
• I think a scientist investigates and works out
  solutions and tries these ideas to see if they
  work

7
What is it like to be a scientist? (cont.)

• A scientist does science. Science comes in many
  forms and there are many different kinds of
  scientists. Some work in pharmaceuticals
  companies studying medicine. Others are
  astrophysicists who study space. Some work with
  washing up companies on finding better washing up
  formulas. Medical science is very important

8
CAT scores
9
CAT scores of exceptionally able Science
students
10
Identification of exceptionally able Science
students at Newstead

• Very good observational skills
• Lateral thinker novel questions
  interpretations
• Curious asks What if.?
• Misses out the simpler steps in explanations
• Perceptive explanations of hypotheses
• Readily understands relationships between
  variables
• Can extrapolate from data with ease
• Draws on prior knowledge to make links with new
  material

11
Some findings from the initial questionnaire

• Overall favourite subjects
• Art, Drama, PE
• Interest in Science has increased since coming to
  NWS
• 64 agreed, 24 disagreed, 12 did not know
• Questions from the Thinking through science
  text book made me think
• 68 agreed, 16 disagreed, 16 did not know

12
Best way to learn Science
13
Best way to learn Biology

• Role play
• Making models
• Carrying out practicals
• Teacher explanation
• Videos
• Class discussion
• Self-study

14
Teacher feedback
15
Newspaper cuttings

• Produced a huge book
• Limited time but we did try to discuss the
  articles
• Interestingly, many articles contributed by one
  of the lower achieving students

16
Extension tasks

• Overall, throughout the year 14 of 29 students
  had a go at an extension task
• Only 1 of the 3 students identified as
  exceptionally able completed these tasks
  regularly

17
What is it like to be a Scientist?

• Scientists are important in todays society
• A scientist tries to understand and reason with
  hypotheses and conclusions. They carry out
  experiments to help with their understanding
• I think that they research other things like
  diffusion and energy in foods as well as
  medicine
• In general, they research, discover and teach
• Studies things to see why things are like the
  way they are
• I do not really understand what a scientist does

18
Conclusions

• Extension tasks should be embedded into all SoW
• Extra activities in lessons can impact on low
  achieving students
• Questionnaires can help teachers to get to know
  their students

19
This year

• The Biology department has a news board, where
  current scientific newspaper articles are linked
  in with the syllabus
• Other subjects are using current affairs in
  lessons
• There is more dialogue between the teacher and
  the class as to how that class would like to
  learn