Title: Using Science to Develop Thinking Skills at Key Stage 3
Author: Pat O’Brien  
Publisher: NACE/Fulton
ISDN: 1-84312-037-2

For secondary science departments seeking to develop their practice with regard to provision for more able children this is a very useful book indeed. In recommending that departments must arrive at “a shared view of what is meant by a gifted student in science,” Pat O’Brien correctly places the emphasis not on theoretical debate around the generic nature of high achievement but on a pragmatic examination of the skills and competencies that constitute above average subject-specific performance in a cohort of young people at Key Stage 3. As the majority of learning in the secondary curriculum is delivered in subject blocks and as the skills and talents of most individuals are, likewise, discipline or area-related (excellent mathematicians not always being equally able linguists, for example), it is both fitting and timely that departments begin to develop their provision in this area by asking the question, ‘What is it that characterises and underlies very good performance in science at this school?’

While clearly focussed on the journey which individual departments need to take in, first, answering that question and, second, developing provision which then nurtures the identified competencies among their KS3 students, the text does, however, provide clear guidance and practical support for this development. The clue to how this is achieved lies in the sub-title of the book – materials for Gifted Children. The basic methodology of the text is to introduce the theoretical background on a full range of issues relating to high achievement in science and then to draw on that theoretical underpinning to put forward a powerful body of exemplar materials for lessons and schemes of work which emerge from the theoretical discussion. The virtue of this tried and tested method in Pat O’Brien’s book, however, is that the theory is judiciously selected and clearly summarised (around, for example, attainment and gender; brain function and intelligence; thinking skills; learning skills; AT1 in schemes of work; masterclasses and enrichment programmes) and that it is then backed up by a significant number of detailed practical suggestions which may be directly incorporated into the current KS3 curriculum and/or used to model the development of similar, school-specific work by science departments seeking to extend the level of challenge in their programmes of study.

For hard-pressed departmental teams, therefore, this book can provide an accessible and highly practical support to in-house professional development programmes and/or curriculum development initiatives where the need to broaden appreciation of how learning works in science is combined with the need for speedy access to materials for improved provision around the areas of differentiation, personalisation, thinking, study-skills, language, creativity and much else that is of pressing concern in schools today. While the text can be used by science departments simply for its wealth of practical examples (two paragraphs on creative and critical thinking, for example, being followed by 5 pages of examples of work on Galileo’s dilemma, history and creativity in science, and creative problem-solving), it is also true to say that the incisive and well-integrated overview of how the major theoretical and research-based advances link to learning in schools has a usefulness stretching beyond the science department into the whole-school debate regarding provision for the more able. Highly recommended.