Independent review of SAW

Dr Davies, previously of the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia and now a freelance expert in educational programmes carried out a report into the effectiveness of SAW in 2006. He concludes:

• ‘Initiatives such as SAW address a broad and urgent need for the enhancement of the science taught in schools.’
  
• ‘[It] is a committed attempt to broaden the appeal of science, showing science as an ordinary activity capable of producing extraordinary insight and objects of beauty.’
  
• ‘The visit of a SAW team, with all parties adequately briefed, was widely acknowledged as a valuable and enjoyable resource for the school.’
  
• ‘[It is] emancipating and empowering to both pupils and teachers.’
  
• ‘Perhaps the most revealing data by and about the pupils is to be found in the quality of the work produced.’
  
• ‘A number of things happened in the course of these projects which I suggest are likely to have a positive impact on the holistic development of the child: exposure to different technologies, living encounters with poets and scientists, public readings, the production of a book, a digital film, an exhibition of words and pictures. These... have unquantifiable effects on children’s sense of self worth and confidence, interest and curiosity, and aspirations.’
  
• I view SAW as consisting of three things: an educational ideal regarding the connectedness of science, art and writing as a motive force for the imagination; a society of interested and willing people looking to do something differently, ‘creatively’, in the area of school science; and a forum for liaison and exchange.’
  

He also includes transcripts from interviews with the children about SAW projects. Their responses are key:

• ‘It’s good. It’s fun because it’s different from what we usually learn.’
  
• ‘I think science is more about finding things out but art is more about trying things and experimenting and… it’s all about imagination. Combining the two, combining two completely different things I thought was just cool.’
  
• ‘When we did poetry and science we actually had to learn about the scientific thing to be able to write a poem about it… for that it didn’t really seem very different. It seemed like just one thing, like…’
  
• ‘I think science is about finding out facts and things that we don’t yet know.’
  
• ‘Hasn’t a scientist got to be creative otherwise you’d never come up with anything to experiment on. You’ve got to be creative to be able to do that. It’s not who’s most creative. They’re all creative.’