Research School Network: Speak like a scientist As the EEF launches its Primary Science Guidance Report, Katy Bullard explores how we can develop pupils’ scientific vocabulary.

The Improving Primary Science Guidance Report has been years in the making and is excitingly ready for public reading. The report divides its guidance into six areas of recommendation:

1. Developing pupils’ scientific vocabulary
2. Encourage pupils to explain their thinking whether verbally or in written form
3. Guide pupils to work scientifically
4. Relate new learning to relevant real-world contexts
5. Use assessment to support learning and responsive teaching
6. Strengthen science teaching through effective professional development, as part of a monitored improvement cycle.

Each area is further divided into sub-sections, breaking down the recommendations in easy-to-understand, manageable chunks.

Within each recommendation, there are relatable vignettes which present everyday scenarios that teachers experience when teaching science in a primary school.

Spotlight on scientific vocabulary

The first area of the report shares recommendations on how to develop pupils’ scientific vocabulary.

While reading these recommendations, I began to reflect on where high-quality learning in science begins. For me, it’s pupil participation.

Despite teachers’ best attempts at planning engaging and purposeful science lessons that are accessible to all, there are always pupils who struggle to participate fully in the learning.

Who are these pupils? 

More often than not, they are our disadvantaged pupils. In similarity to other core subjects in the national curriculum, the attainment gap between these pupils and their peers feels stubbornly hard to close.

If my aim as a subject leader, and more importantly as a teacher of science, is to close that gap and offer equal learning opportunities to all, then I must firstly ensure that these pupils can participate during lessons. 

How can a pupil participate if they do not understand the language in which their teacher or peers are using?

Developing vocabulary

To develop pupils’ scientific vocabulary, the guidance advises teachers to organise vocabulary into tiers, which is a technique highly-regarded in the teaching of English.

Tier 1 – words that are encountered everyday

Tier 2 – words that are important across many science topics

Tier 3 – words that are specific to a science topic

Within these tiers, you have polysemous words; these are words that have an everyday meaning as well as a scientific meaning.

How many times have I instructed my pupils to, ​“record your results in the table” without giving it a second thought? In a situation such as this, when I might previously have considered myself to have given clear, precise instruction, I now recognise this not to be the case. I should have explicitly taught these polysemous words and thus created a learning opportunity that all pupils could participate in.

Teaching the meaning of essential scientific vocabulary

The exposure to tier 3 vocabulary, and teachers modelling its contextual use, is simply not enough. We must explicitly teach the meaning of essential scientific vocabulary and plan for the words to be repeatedly re-visited and engaged with in varying contexts.

Visual aids, concept cartoons, etymology and gesture creation are many of the well-polished tools in a teacher’s toolkit that enable scientific vocabulary to be taught effectively.

When a pupil is able to fully comprehend the language used within a science lesson, they will begin to use this within their own speech and written work. This unlocks a pupil’s ability to participate in lessons, explain their thinking and be guided to work scientifically.

In turn, this allows teachers to make accurate assessments of their learning. The cycle of plan- teach- assess can then effectively begin to spin.

I could therefore argue that the first recommendation of this report, developing pupils’ scientific vocabulary, could be the most impactful. It could also equip our disadvantaged pupils with the oracy skills and confidence to study science when the subject is no longer compulsory.

By teaching pupils today, how to speak like a scientist, we could create our scientists of the future.