Here we go again – time for another shake-up of GCSE science teaching.
While I’m sure GCSE science is deeply dull, and I’m hardly in the camp that chants ‘they have to learn to walk before they can run,’ something about this does worry me. For example, how can one discuss the MMR nightmare in an informed way, without having done any formal statistics? This is, of course, the basic problem with the MMR situation – what’s perfectly reasonable for individuals is a bit of a disaster for the population as a whole.
Besides, haven’t we heard all this before? Wasn’t the whole GCSE thing, back in 1988, supposed to be about relevance and practicality? These may be good intentions, but are they actually new?