Meeting the standards in secondary science: a guide to the ITT NC
Lynn D. Newton (ed)
Abingdon: Routledge 2005 | Pp239 | £17.99 | ISBN 0 415 23091 8
Reviewed by Keith Taber

This book is intended to support new secondary science teachers, and particularly those who have to meet the qualified teacher status (QTS) standards set by the UK Government. It is difficult to give comprehensive coverage of all the areas set out in the initial teacher training National Curriculum (ITT NC) in a single, readable book. In these terms, Newton’s book is additionally handicapped because it attempts to include support material covering science subject knowledge.  

A strong point of the book is that it covers a good deal of useful material, even if space does not allow the authors to explore issues in any depth. The chapter on learning provides a useful introduction that new teachers will benefit from. The chapter on the KS3 Strategy is informative, and offers some critique as well as description. Elsewhere, however, important issues are not adequately dealt with. For example, ‘science’ is described as a single discipline, without suggesting this might be a contentious position. 

The chemistry chapter is weak and pays no regard to several decades of research into the complexities of the teaching and learning of chemistry. Some subject matter is presented in a way that lacks a logical approach, with difficult concepts introduced as if a simple definition explains them, and includes mistakes and inconsistent use of symbolism. As one example, the atom concept is used without explanation from the first page. Twenty-two pages later, the structure of the atom is described in terms of electrons in [sic] energy levels relatively distant from the nucleus. On the following page the atom concept is, finally, introduced and the reader is told that atoms can be seen [sic] with powerful microscopes. On the next page, the author refers back to a non-existent, prior discussion of electron clouds.  

Unfortunately, the book’s final chapter gives incorrect information about the frequency of publication of School Science Review, Physics Education and Education in Chemistry. Readers are told that the latter is published by the ‘Institute of Chemistry’, and the related website address given corresponds to a religious organisation’s website.