Under an exclusive license from The Oxford Trust, the Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT) is, from 1st June 2024, the lead national partner for the ongoing delivery of Thinking Doing Talking Science (TDTScience) courses across the UK. Courses in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire will continue to be delivered under The Oxford Trust’s Science Oxford team.
Multiple TDTScience courses over 10 years have been delivered across England so far by Science Oxford under the expert guidance of Bridget Holligan and the late Helen Wilson, all thanks to the support of organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the PSTT, and other regional partners.
The four days of TDTScience training are spread out across a school year and the training is delivered by accredited TDTScience trainers.
Key course content includes:
- Developing all children’s knowledge and understanding through higher order thinking skills
- Activities to use in the classroom straight away
- Practical science focused on children’s knowledge and skills development
- Focused recording for effective assessment
- Strategies to support all children in progression across the curriculum
- Application to all primary year groups and science curriculum topics
The EEF-efficacy trial in 2012 showed that, on average, children taught by the TDTScience-trained teachers made three additional months’ progress in science, with a particularly positive effect for girls and for children with low prior attainment (four months’ progress). TDTScience also had a significant positive impact on children’s attitudes to science and there were indications that the approach was particularly beneficial for children eligible for free school meals (5 months’ progress).
EEF are interested in re-testing TDTScience to understand if the effects seen during the efficacy trail are maintained when the intervention is scaled up. An effectiveness trial (a randomised control trial comparing Year 5 pupils who receive TDTScience teaching with Year 5 pupils in a control group) is currently being evaluated. A pre-trial report published in September 2023 is available here. The evaluation report will be published in Spring 2025.
Find out more about TDTScience courses and the impact on teachers and children.
