The Royal Society is a Fellowship of more than 1400 outstanding individuals from all areas of science, mathematics, engineering and Medicine. The Society is committed to an evidence-based approach to supporting responsible policy-making within science and education, drawing upon high quality information and advice from its Fellows and Foreign Members, the wider scientific and education communities and others to achieve this. The Society’s remit in education covers science and mathematics education for 5-19 year olds across the UK. We work with Governments (including those in the devolved nations) on issues in STEM, both directly and in collaboration with partner organisations. Our policy work is also informed by our work with teachers through our outreach initiatives.

The ‘state of the nation’ project took place between 2007-2011, and aimed to provide a detailed picture of science and maths education across the four nations of the UK, based on data (eg school and national statistics). The first report aimed to analyse the teaching workforce and looked at the challenges of recruitment and retention. The second analysed performance and participation in science and maths by 14-19 year olds, and the factors which affect it. The third report did a similar exercise looking at 5-14 year olds. The fourth and final report – which will be discussed in this presentation - extended the findings from the second report, by delving in much greater detail into the combinations of science and mathematics subjects studied by 16-19 year olds, with the implications this has for entry to STEM degrees at university.

In this final project, we aimed to quantify the ‘pool’ of students available in the UK that would be qualified to enter HE to study STEM degrees. To undertake this project we analysed several million pupil records on exam entries and performance, covering A-levels and Scottish Highers/Advanced Highers. These qualification types were chosen because they are the main qualification that students possess on entry to higher education – we acknowledge that there are other valuable qualification pathways to studying STEM at HE, including vocational routes, but these were outside the scope of this study. We were particularly interested in ‘core sciences’ – biology, chemistry, physics (and human biology in Scotland, where a large number of pupils study it).

In this figure, the total number of people show the size of A-level or Highers cohort. Red people are the ones taking core sciences (with or without mathematics). From this we can see that there is proportionally much greater participation in science post-16 in Scotland than the rest of the UK. This gives an indication of the size of the pool of students available to study STEM at HE. Looking at trends since 2005, the number of students taking core sciences remains level in NI and S, and is actually decreasing in E and W.

We looked at the popularity of different combinations in the sciences. With many HE providers expecting more than one science subject for entry to STEM HE (2+ for A-level, 3+ for Highers), this has important implications. The overall size of the ‘pool’ is reduced by students taking only one science subject. Note that in the figure for Scotland, B includes human biology as well.

Now including mathematics. You can see here that a greater proportion of students in Scotland are taking mathematics with their science subjects – this is welcomed for the support this gives students when studying STEM at HE.....

.....and there is much greater overall participation in maths in Scotland. Overall across the UK, there is a trend towards more students taking maths, whether alone or in conjunction with their sciences, so it appears that the message about the importance of maths is getting through.

An important caveat - It is not just the subjects taken that has implications for the size of the pool, students will often be expected to gain A-C grades to study STEM at HE – this was also analysed. Only 70-80% of students who take the right subjects to study STEM at HE will also attain good enough grades – the pool is narrowed further. But here again, Scotland performs favourably compared to other nations.

Particular findings from Scotland.

So overall, the picture of Scottish participation is looking healthy, providing these trends do not start to slide backwards.

What might be the reason behind the increased participation in Scotland? Students generally study 5 Highers, but only 3 A-levels – a greater breadth and choice of subjects might mean more students opt to study science and maths. The Royal Society has suggested that A-levels should be reformed to allow greater breadth, and there is a need to identify the factors that make the Scottish education system so successful in encouraging the uptake of science subjects.

Data to keep an eye on.... Although the number of entries to Higher/Advanced higher physics increased over the period studied – and the proportion is greatest in Scotland compared with the other nations - there was a decrease in the number of institutions offering the subject post-16. The same trend is seen with mathematics. Might this be caused by a shortage of specialist physics and mathematics teachers to teach this subject post-16? Or could there be other explanations such as some institutions increasingly teaching qualifications other that Highers?

One of the key factors influencing student’s participation and performance in science and mathematics is their access to good quality teachers, and the Society believes that there is an urgent need to increase the numbers of specialist teachers in both primary and secondary schools. As we can see, the fraction of specialists in primary schools in England is tiny (the situation is the same in NI, data are not available for Scotland or Wales).

Similarly at secondary level, consistent under-recruitment of science and maths teachers means that England is facing a severe shortfall. Finding data on the numbers of specialist teachers practising across the UK, and where they are deployed is very difficult due to a lack of reliable record keeping. Making comparisons across nations is almost impossible. However, given that performance and participation in science and mathematics is better in Scotland that the rest of the UK, it is possible that there are a greater number of specialist teachers in Scotland. We would be keen to get your views on this.

Questions to be asked of the audience?

Improving 16-19 science and mathematics participation: what can the rest of the UK learn from Scotland? Dr Andrew Hughes Durham University  

The Royal Society’s ‘state of the nation’ project  

What did we want to find out? What do the available data tell us about the state of science and mathematics education across the whole of the UK? What needs to happen in order to improve the quality of science and mathematics education for young people, and the performance of the education system as a whole?

The ‘state of the nation’ project

Preparing for the transfer from school and college science and mathematics education to UK STEM higher education  

Key findings across the UK  

Participation levels in the four nations (2009) Variation in England 27.7% (2009) ≡ 78,540 28.6% (2007) 28.9% (2005) Variation in Wales 26.6% (2009) ≡ 4,008 27.5% (2007) 32.2% (2005) Variation in NI 37.4% (2009) ≡ 4,412 38.2 (2007) 37.6% (2005) Variation in Scotland 49.7% (2009) ≡ 18,233 50.1% (2007) 49.4% (2005) England =28% Wales =27% N Ireland = 37% Scotland =50%

Popularity of subject combinations (2009)

Popularity of science with mathematics (2009)

Popularity of mathematics (2009)

Attainment: reveals the ‘true’ pool Proportions taking 3(+) A-levels and gaining A‒C in at least two sciences with/without mathematics (E, W, NI) compared with proportions taking 5(+) Highers and gaining grades A‒C in two or more sciences AND mathematics (2009)

Scotland  

Key facts and figures from Scotland (1) The number of entries into Highers/Advanced Highers in core sciences and/or mathematics increased by 5% during the period 2005–09, although the proportion of the cohort taking these subjects remained stable. The proportion of students studying 2 or more sciences at Higher/Advanced Higher rose by 13/42% respectively during 2005-2009. Over 60% of individuals taking core sciences Highers in 2005, 2007 and 2009 took combinations that included biology and/or human biology.

Key facts and figures from Scotland (2) The proportion of students studying core sciences together with mathematics at Higher/Advanced Higher level has increased. The proportion of students taking at least five Highers who gained A–C grades in at least two core sciences and mathematics rose from 15% to 24% between 2005 and 2009.

Reasons for greater participation in core sciences/mathematics in Scotland Breadth of study Intermediate II qualifications as a ‘stepping stone’

Provision of physics

Reasons for low participation in science and mathematics across the UK  

Key factors: specialist teachers (1) Numbers of in-service primary teachers with specialist degree and initial teacher education qualifications in science and mathematics as a fraction of the total number of registered practising primary teachers (England, 2010) 18

Key factors: specialist teachers (2) Cumulative shortfall in meeting science and mathematics teacher recruitment targets

Other major reasons Diversity of educational institutions Curricula Qualifications Access and uptake of subject-specific CPD Poor access to high-quality careers advice Shortages of lab technicians Physical resource constraints (eg lab quality, old/shortage of equipment) Demographic, socioeconomic and other variation

Moving forwards...  

Key messages We need a broader system of post-16 courses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – closer to the situation in Scotland where students study science and mathematics for longer. Governments need to define, recruit and retain high quality specialist science and mathematics teachers and support subject-specific CPD. Evidence-based policy-making should inform any reforms, which will need enough time to bed down properly. The devolved administrations need to continue to liaise with each other over key STEM objectives, particularly in education

Questions... Is a baccalaureate-type model, allowing a greater number of subjects to be studied, the best approach to post-16 education? How should this be structured? Is the increased participation of Scottish students in science and maths post-16 mirrored in participation post-19? What factors (including specialist teachers?) might be influencing the greater participation rates in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK?

Thank you! education@royalsociety.org