ABSTRACT
Before the introduction of the National Curriculum what little science was done in the primary school tended to be natural or biological rather than physical science. Now, as one of the three core subjects, science has taken on far greater importance. As this is a very recent development, many teachers do not have academic science backgrounds and have limited experience of teaching science to young children. Consequently they lack self-confidence, perceiving themselves to have low levels of competence to teach the subject (Barnes and Shinn-Taylor 1988, Bentley and Watts 1994, Wragg et al. 1989). Therefore the science co-ordinator is involved in ensuring not only that the children have an appropriate and progressive science curriculum using suitable materials and equipment, but that their colleagues’ competence, enthusiasm and confidence to teach science is also developed.
