On July 8th 2016 the Biology Curriculum Committee hosted an event at the University of Birmingham for teachers of biology in schools and higher education.

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together members of the bioscience education community to discuss post 16 biology education and consider the recent changes that have taken place, how this will impact on the skills and understanding that biology students will have and how to support them into higher education. At this event there were a number of speakers discussing practical work, mathematical skills, innovative teaching and collaborations between universities and schools. At the end of the day there was a workshop on a draft document developed by the RSB Curriculum Committee which focused on practical and transferable skills that should be developed in post 16 education biology.

The delegate booklet and the RSB draft discussion document are available along with a storify of the tweets. The outline of the day and the speakers slides are below:

Agenda

Session 1 Skills development between school and university

a) Overview of changes to A level Biology & impact of reforming biology qualifications

    Dr Katherine Hands-Taylor Subject Specialist at OCR - slides
    Ann Fullick Education Consultant - slides
    Dr Nick Dixon Head of Department at Magdalen College School - slides

b) Mathematical Skills

    Dr Jenny Koenig Lecturer, Researcher and Secondary Science Teacher - references -
    slides

c) Transitioning from School to University

    Dr Leanne Williams Senior Lecturer School of Life Sciences University of Warwick -
    slides

d) Skills Discussion Panel

Session 2 Innovative teaching and collaborations between universities and schools

a) Innovative Teaching Practice in Schools and Universities

    Dr Paul Weeks Head of Biology at Oxford High School - slides
    School Biology Teacher of the Year 2015 - teaching blog biological burblings
    Professor Mark Clements Director of Education / Chair in Science Education University
    of Lincoln, Higher Education Bioscience Teacher of the Year 2015 - slides

b) Schools and University Collaborations

    Dr David Colthurst Simon Langton Boys School, Authentic Biology Programme - slides

c) Discussion Panel

Session 3 Development of the post 16 biology curriculum

a) Workshop discussing the RSB Curriculum Committee post 16 skills document.

Your input

We would like to hear from anyone interested in the work the committee are doing and welcome comments on the draft document. Within TalkBiology there is a curriculum consultation forum where we will continue to gather input from our wider stakeholders on the draft post 16 document.