Welsh Primary School Leavers’ Perceptions of Science

The low take‐up of science by secondary school pupils has frequently been attributed to negative attitudes towards the subject which may develop as early as the primary school. This project, therefore, set out to examine whether children had adopted negative perceptions of science at the time that they left primary school, and whether the introduction of the National Curriculum in England and Wales in 1989 had influenced attitudes. To this end, in 1991, and again in 1993 and 1995, the views of 120 pupils in their final term in primary school were sought by means of interview. It was found that, although science was not an extremely popular subject, it would be wrong to conclude that pupils had negative perceptions of it. It was also discovered that the National Curriculum had effected a small change in attitudes.