Trust Projects

King's College, London Centre for the Advancement of Thinking - CASE@KS2

The CASE project is well known for its work in Key Stage 3 and the long term effect this has on pupils' thinking and academic achievement. This project is based on the success of the primary CASE@KS1 project which has used the same principles to develop a set of activities and teaching methods which promote young children's thinking, especially in a science context. The beneficiaries will primarily be young people, their teachers and their schools. If the project follows the pattern of previous CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) projects, the lessons learned may benefit pupils and teachers in schools across the country and beyond.

The project involves co-operation between schools and an internationally renowned centre of research. It extends King's collaborations with teachers in two boroughs: Harrow, in outer London; and Hammersmith and Fulham, in inner London. It sets out to achieve success in three ways:

  • to develop scientific thinking in 7 to 9 year old pupils based on the principles of the CASE model
  • to develop science teaching in two clusters of primary schools in diverse areas of London through the application of proven models of collaborative teacher development
  • to develop curriculum materials that will provide a resource for those schools involved and a means to disseminate the work of the project beyond the original partnership.

Aims

The project aims to achieve:

  • the development of a set of science activities for Year 3 (hopefully to be extended to Year 4) which emphasise the thinking skills characteristic of science appropriate to this age group
  • the description of a pedagogy which effectively promotes such scientific thinking, and the design of professional development materials and methods which introduce this pedagogy to Year 3 and 4 teachers and to science co-ordinators and school managers
  • the exploration of a system of continuing professional development of Key Stage 2 science teachers which could be economically maintained within a local education authority after completion of the project funding.

It is intended to develop about fifteen activities in the first phase (Year 1 of the project) each designed to take between forty minutes and one hour.

Contact

Philip Adey, Professor of Science, Cognition and Education and Justin Dillon, Director of the International Education Unit. Both are in the School of Education at King's College, London.