This article reports a small-scale study investigating the views of in-service teachers on the aims of compulsory secondary science education (11–16) in England. Questionnaire and interview data suggest that teachers believe that the ideal science education should be inspirational, exploratory, skillbased and child-centred. This is contrasted with the current curriculum, which is perceived as content-heavy and lacking in skills. Operating under conflicting aims, limited resources and external pressures, teachers resort to finding compromises, enacting their ideals in the classroom under the constraints of an often-prescriptive curriculum.
Tam et al. (Tue,) studied this question.