A breath of fresh air
T Level Science
Alison Ackroyd, Lecturer at MidKent College has been in the news recently; she was awarded a Teaching Fellowship 2022-23 by The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Alison’s Fellowship will enable her to build upon her professional experience to help other educators develop their course delivery, with a focus on technical skills and behaviours in T Level Science.
So, how is it going for T Level Science students at MidKent College?
After reports of providers struggling to recruit to the new Health and Science route, it’s refreshing to hear of a healthy cohort of T Level Science learners who are doing well.
Alison explains: “I have 17 lovely students with a range of abilities. They are all interested in different aspects of diverse careers. They will have practical and technical skills to take forward to employment or for use in a science or STEM academic degree, higher technical qualification (HTQ) or degree apprenticeship, and that will hold them in good stead. They’ll have an advantage over many A Level students and they’ll certainly know their way around a lab.”
Alison is enjoying the creativity the T Level Science offers. She says: “I look for natural opportunities to make lessons more interesting by bringing in current affairs, news, practicals and external speakers to include employers and STEM ambassadors.”
But with such a new qualification, the workload involved in getting to grips with it could surely be very significant, so what are her tips and tricks for supporting other teachers of T Level Science?
“I’d advise other colleges to play to the strengths of their staff. One of my colleagues is an analytical chemist so he has lots of experience that he can use to deliver on the Good Scientific and Clinical Practice curriculum content that focuses on procedures for working in scientific environments, such as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), for example. And I don’t think you should try to teach it all: it’s better to look for opportunities to embed some units in others – and that’s what happens in the workplace anyway. For example, the Health and Safety aspects in A1 and A2 is quite dry to teach, so it’s much better to find a way of embedding that in the B Units. Similarly with ethics, there are so many opportunities to introduce that into delivery.”
In this video Alison shares the MidKent College approach to delivery of science practicals and integration of the T Level Science curriculum:
An embedded approach works at MidKent, but it’s not a universal strategy. Suzanna Butler, T Level Development Manager at Harrow and Uxbridge College tells us: “We have tried embedding units, but it seems to confuse the students and it can make it difficult to revise for the paper.” Suzanna feels that the academic background of the College’s teachers is probably a factor in their approach. She adds: “Our tutors are very keen that the assessment is properly understood, they are coming from an academic standpoint, they don’t necessarily have that industry knowledge and experience”.
At Harrow and Uxbridge, T Level science student placements are already well underway, and the College has worked successfully with the local council to source placements from local employers. With placements in great demand, it’s a strategy that Suzanna says has worked well: “We contacted every commercial lab in London and every brewery too. It’s very competitive locally for placements, so it’s worth getting in touch with the local council because they will have a list of businesses that are legally required to support the community.”
Alison Willetts, who is delivering most of the T Level Science units at Lakes College, is adopting an approach that embeds some of the units but also covers them explicitly. To make this approach work, she’s letting her creativity well and truly loose: “I’m using scenarios. I’ve invented a fictitious company with several different departments. There’s a microbiology department for the work on aseptic techniques and a radiological department to cover the T Level content on that. Mostly, it’s based in the analytical department because all of the practical work in Core A and Core B fits into that scenario.
“As an example, I set up a scenario in the analytical services department in which the people in the Quality and Standards department had noticed some discrepancies in data, so were sending the Analytical Services Department some mystery samples to analyse. And from that, students had to write Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for using the colorimeter and for titrations and standard solutions. They carried out the techniques, produced graphs and analysed their results to produce a report that was sent back to Quality and Standards. So, they had to do risk assessments – great for the content on Health and Safety.”
At Truro and Penwith College, the size of the science department lends itself to a different approach, as Matt Bennett, Programme Team Leader for Science at Truro College, explains: “We are a big department of 30 science lecturers and four technicians, so we can compartmentalise the specifications according to our pool of experience, insight and expertise. We are delivering the units as separate strands: the Core B is split between our biology, chemistry and physics specialists while Core A is split between two staff members. We have made sure the structure of the qualification is clear in terms of staff oversight, delegation of content and development of resources and on the Employer Set Project side of things.”
Matt also speaks about the team’s work on assessment: “We are putting a lot of emphasis on internal testing, writing tests internally and using them every four weeks or so. We are getting the students used to answering questions in test conditions.”
Although different approaches are evident across different T Level science providers, there’s a common enthusiasm for this new qualification. Matt says: “There’s a clear need for a course like this with a greater emphasis on industrial placements. It fits that gap in the Level 3 provision offer. This qualification has skills aT Lnd knowledge development that are specific to the workplace. It has the right balance of workplace time and college time. It feels very unique, it’s like a breath of fresh air.”