Storytelling and Science with Jules Pottle

Primary Futures

Jules Pottle, a seasoned science educator and author, delves into the world of primary science education, exploring its current challenges and potential future. Jules shares her passion for making science playful, engaging, and relevant for children and discusses the importance of integrating storytelling into science teaching to spark children's curiosity and foster a love for learning. The conversation touches on the need for more resources, support for teachers, and a reimagining of the science curriculum to make it more exploratory and interdisciplinary.

• (00:42) - Jules Pottle conveys the challenges faced within Science Education
• (02:42) - Jules shares her experiences visiting schools and how teachers can use science in context to engage students with hands-on science
• (04:30) - Jules confronts the lack of confidence within teachers and how training can help more teachers feel comfortable with science
• (17:30) - Ed and Jules discuss the vocabulary barrier within science education and the power that language and storytelling can have within teaching.
• (25:13) - Jules looks to the future of science education, to consider how the landscape could be in five years time.
• (29:08) - Jules confronts the challenges of covering topics between curriculum areas and presents innovative teaching methods and resources that teachers can use within their own classrooms
• (36:41) - Jules discusses her past work, writing award-winning stories that incorporate scientific thinking and discoveries into real emotional stories and how such stories promote learning among young readers

About our guest

Jules is a part-time primary science specialist teacher at her local primary school. On her free-lance days she provides educational consultancy for companies such as DK, Pearson and the BBC. She also trains teachers in the Storytelling Schools method and using stories to teach science. She has written books for teachers on this topic and presents her work at conferences.

She also writes picture books which teach science through story. These books tackle common misconceptions and use an emotional, fictional story as the hook. The science is neatly woven into each story so that the children, listening, have a scenario to discuss and refer back to when they experience that science again elsewhere. The research behind the books shows that they have a very positive effect on the use of scientific vocabulary in classroom discussions. She has won two awards for these books.

Connect with Jules Pottle

Key takeaways

• Integrate storytelling into science teaching to make the subject more engaging and relatable for students.
• Consider the use of creative methods in teaching, such as the use of picture books, to explain scientific concepts.
• Make science teaching playful and joyous, but also ensure students understand the importance of paying attention and meeting certain requirements.
• Gradually build up your resources for teaching science, including everyday items that can be used for practical investigations.
• Engage with the local community and industries to enhance the learning experience for students and make science more relevant to their daily lives.

Quotes

"What makes you stay interested in something is having a bit of success. So if your skills are overlooked because they're not celebrated in any way, it's very disheartening and it makes you want to stop bothering, doesn't it?" - Jules Pottle

"It's always okay to discover alongside the children and to go, you know, I have no idea, but I'm going to find out before next lesson and then go and ask someone who can explain it and bring it back to them." - Jules Pottle

"So how do you fit in all of the curriculum when a lot of schools, although we probably should be doing two hours a week, they're actually only devoting one hour a week because they've got overload on the curriculum." - Jules Pottle

"The things the children need to know, you kind of have to almost redo the science experiment afterwards and talk them through it and point out what they should have noticed and extend that with diagrams or whatever so that we're really understanding what you've covered in that lesson." - Jules Pottle

Resource recommendations

Artful Fox Creative. Picture books to support science curriculum in primary schools.

Storytelling Schools. Training and resources on the Storytelling Schools method.

Thinking, Doing, Talking Science.Training and resources for teachers.

''Practitioner Perspective: Can a science storybook enhance children's science vocabulary and understanding?''available here.

''DK Stay Home Science Lab'' YouTube playlist available here.

Hamilton Science Resources, available through the Hamilton Brookes website, here.

What will you take away?

Download the Hamilton Brookes' Primary Pledge card to continue the conversation with your teaching community. Share your pledge card by tagging Hamilton Brookes on your preferred social platform.

Hamilton Brookes

Primary Futures is brought to you by Hamilton Brookes, your loved and trusted place for quality lesson plans, materials and resources that you can use in your classroom.

To find resources that work for you and your pupils, go to the Hamilton Brookes website and browse ideas for English, maths, science and cross-curricular topics. You can find more information here.

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