ABSTRACT
Despite a need for research into student learning in the increasingly demanding language environment represented by senior science, limited research has been carried out that focusses on the nature of these language demands, student experience of this or pedagogies appropriate for supporting learning at this level. In this chapter, we first focus on the contextual challenges associated with senior school science that act to inhibit serious attention to literacy practices that would support quality learning and highlight the increased literacy demands of senior science using examples from each of the sciences and the implications of this. Next, based on our experience of working with teachers in the Multiliteracies in Senior School Science (M3S) project, we identify a range of contextual challenges for developing these literacies, including the prior knowledge and skills of students, teachers’ disciplinary literacy knowledge, the language issues experienced with special groups of students, the influence of the high-stakes assessment regimes operating at senior school level and the traditions of constrained pedagogical practices that are part of the culture of teaching senior science. Finally, we outline the pedagogical interventions pursued in the M3S project and signal the development of a coherent pedagogical framework arising from this.
