In secondary schools, principal teachers of biology, chemistry or physics provided good or very good leadership in almost all departments. Leadership in relation to S1/S2 and other Science courses was good or better in 79% of departments, and showed considerable improvement on standards reported by HMI during the period 1995 to 2000 where it was good or better in 65% of departments.

Effective education authorities had provided strategic support for their schools, making use, for example, of specific funds for Science Strategy projects. They used this money, for example:

• to second teachers to work as development officers in primary and secondary schools and to encourage cooperation between staff in both sectors;
• to develop resources, contributing to a shared national pool of materials and ideas, as part of the Improving Science Education 5-14 project;
• to provide opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD); and
• to provide science equipment and other resources, including ICT, for their schools.

Features of effective leadership

Effective leaders created a working environment in which all staff and pupils felt valued, shared a common set of goals and were willing to reflect on their individual and collective achievements. Staff worked very well as a team and had consistently high expectations of pupils' attainment and behaviour. Such leaders demonstrated up to date knowledge of national developments in science and education more generally. Their clear vision for school or departmental improvement was communicated effectively to others. They had established systematic approaches to monitor and evaluate the quality of classroom practice and pupils' attainment at all stages. Whilst guiding and supporting staff, effective leaders did not avoid tackling difficult issues which affected the quality of pupils' learning and attainment. They encouraged staff to be innovative and to evaluate their own work critically. Where the need for improvement was evident, they ensured that necessary action was taken.

Development tasks were well planned and focused on ways of improving teaching and learning rather than on products such as worksheets and assessment materials. Key outcomes were achieved within agreed timescales and impacted positively on pupils' work. Overall, they had created a culture in which staff felt valued and not threatened, and in which teachers were willing to support and learn from each other's best practices.

Main areas for improvement in leadership

In some primary schools, school managers did not ensure that pupils' experiences in science were sufficiently frequent and of appropriate quality. Weaknesses arose when staff were unclear about the science, including key knowledge and skills, that pupils should be taught. In too many primary schools, insufficient attention was paid to assessing and recording pupils' attainment in science. This made it difficult for school managers to track pupils' progress and monitor the school's overall performance in science. It also led to secondary teachers in S1 being uncertain about pupils' prior attainment.

In a minority of secondary departments, individual responsibilities for the corporate management of Science courses were still not specific enough. This resulted in a lack of proper accountability for Science as compared with the separate sciences. Typical outcomes of this were that:

• 5-14 developments were given lower priority;
• overall attainment in S1/S2 science received much less attention than attainment in SQA courses; and
• improvement plans for science were relegated to a minor position within more extensive plans for biology, chemistry and physics.

Senior managers often compounded these problems by not including sufficient discussion of them in departmental reviews.

In both primary and secondary schools, managers and heads of department often gave too little attention to monitoring the quality of classroom practice in the teaching of science. They rarely visited classes to formally observe practice or sampled pupils' written work to check standards and consistency of approach. This made it difficult for them to identify and spread best practice, and to target advice and support where necessary. In some secondary departments, records of pupils' progress in each class were not kept systematically enough, or used to set targets for pupils or identify pupils requiring additional support or challenge.

Some education authorities had not given a clear lead to ensuring the steady development of pupils' learning in science as they progressed from primary into secondary school. As a result, primary schools in a cluster failed to agree a common science programme with the result that many secondary science departments covered work in S1/S2 that was more appropriate to pupils at the primary stages. As a consequence, pupils were under-achieving in science.