• Blueprint 5-year plan
    • Why a 5-year plan?
    • What is Blueprint?
    • Products for Blueprint
    • Progression maps
    • KS3 Syllabus
    • Kickstart Tools
    • Knowledge structure
    • Mastery assessment
    • Thinking processes
    • Scientific thinking processes
    • 5A’s learning pathway
    • Curriculum time
    • Unit planners
    • Year 7 units
  • Mastery Practice Books
    • Details & pricing
    • Buy the books
    • Answers (GCSE /Y9 Book)
    • Apply thinking process
    • Support material
  • CPD
    • Kickstart your 5-year plan
    • Science Done Right Conference
  • Blog
    • Bad teaching
    • 5-year curriculum
    • Mastery
  • About
    • About us
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact
  • Login
    • Join
  • Shop

Mastery Science - for the big ideas, 5-year science curriculum to GCSE and beyond

Adopt a well-designed big ideas curriculum for science. Free 5-year plan for GCSE, with high assessments, practice and teaching materials.

You are here: Home / Archives for Mastery

January 4, 2019

Register for Science Done Right Conference 2019

Register for Science Done Right Conference 2019

Move your practice forward and share your experiences of ambitious science teaching with other innovators.  Saturday 23 March, 9.45-3.45, Open University, Milton Keynes. 10 free Year 7 Practice Books for each delegate. The 2nd Science Done Right conference gets down to the business of how to make mastery work in practice. Many schools are starting to […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Conference, Mastery Leave a Comment

May 4, 2018

3-steps to GCSE proof your curriculum

3-steps to GCSE proof your curriculum

So you’d like to teach students to apply and analyse knowledge from year 7? And you’re ready to transition from a ‘coverage’ curriculum to a 5-year plan like Blueprint ? We listened to your feedback about the challenges of switching and we’ve worked out a process to make the switch easier. There are only 3 steps but […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery Leave a Comment

April 22, 2018

Teach the way you want AND finish GCSE: part 1

Teach the way you want AND finish GCSE: part 1

It’s bad enough feeling rushed all the time as you slog through the bulging GCSE spec. But it’s even worse when you realise many students won’t have enough time to understand at the depth GCSE requires. However you divide KS3 and GCSE there’s too much stuff. When we did a curriculum time analysis for AQA, […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery Leave a Comment

January 19, 2018

Proven! Give students the right practice and they’ll get high grades

Proven! Give students the right practice and they’ll get high grades

You might have heard that it takes ‘10,000 hours’ to excel at something. But there’s a lesser known finding from research into expertise that could radically improve your students’ results by questioning our assumptions about learning. It is this: while ability matters at the beginning, in the long run it’s the quantity and quality of practice that […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery Leave a Comment

December 20, 2017

5-year plan workshop & pilot materials

5-year plan workshop & pilot materials

It’s a sobering thought – with new GCSE, teaching the content in the specification only prepares students for 40% of the marks. For the rest, they have to apply and analyse, and experience show many students never learn this. Enter ​Blueprint: a 5-year plan based on the KS3 Science Syllabus we built for AQA. Blueprint is designed backwards from the 3 GCSE Assessment Objectives. It’s organised around a progression of essential concepts and scientific thinking […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery Leave a Comment

December 18, 2017

The second law of Mastery states …

The second law of Mastery states …


 … The more problem-solving students do while learning, the better they will perform in exams. Conventionally students listen then do. They’re fine at recalling knowledge, but come unstuck when the context of an exam question is different to what they were taught (aka ‘inert knowledge’). How do you avoid inert knowledge?  Students need to connect […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery 1 Comment

December 15, 2017

The first law of Mastery states …

The first law of Mastery states …


 … 80% of student achievement comes from understanding 20% of the syllabus. That’s right, much of what we teach has little impact on exam results. But 20% of it really sets students up for success. What is the 20%? It’s the key concepts in science: fundamental ideas like force and interdependence, and scientific models […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery Leave a Comment

December 7, 2017

Bushtucker trial: I’m a celebrity science

Bushtucker trial: I’m a celebrity science


 It’s 12 years since we turned the TV series ‘I’m a Celebrity’ into a science upd8*. Bushtucker Trial is still going and the activity has been copied and imitated many times. Here is the original. Could you live on a creepy crawly diet? Many insects are high in protein and low in cholesterol. They […]

Article by Tony / Mastery, Resources Leave a Comment

November 1, 2017

Announcing the Mastery Practice Book

Announcing the Mastery Practice Book

The Mastery Practice Book can help your low and middle achievers do better. In the recent AQA Year 10 mock, the average was only 30%. One of the biggest areas for improvement, according to the examiners, was ‘applying knowledge to unfamiliar contexts’. Apply is worth 40% of the marks, so how can your students capture […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery 9 Comments

July 5, 2017

Give students 8x more ‘Apply’ practice

Give students 8x more ‘Apply’ practice

What’s the simplest way to boost understanding? Give students more targeted practice at using ideas and skills. I don’t mean simple recall and filling in boxes, I mean practice in ‘Apply’ –  being able to transfer what you know to unfamiliar situations. Most students struggle with recognising which idea to use where. So it’s obvious they need […]

Article by Tony / 5-year curriculum, Mastery 6 Comments

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

2019 Science Done Right Conference

Recent Comments

  • Hugh Gough on Progression maps
  • Tony on Progression maps
  • Hugh Gough on Progression maps
  • Tony on Progression maps

Recent posts

  • Register for Science Done Right Conference 2019 January 4, 2019
  • 6 changes teachers are making to the curriculum July 15, 2018
  • New teaching & assessment materials June 28, 2018
  • “Carrotgate” or how to avoid fragile knowledge May 23, 2018

© 2019 Mastery Science - for the big ideas, 5-year science curriculum to GCSE and beyond · Rainmaker Platform