Education Scotland’s recently published advice and guidance includes exemplification of skills appropriate to National 4 and National 5. These have been exemplified in a biological context for National 4 Science, and in a physics context for National 5 Physics and can be used by practitioners to consider the level of challenge appropriate to N4 and N5 in terms of Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for Learning, Life and Work, the SQA’s Skills Framework, and the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.

One area of numeracy you may be planning to explore with learners is the issue of causality and correlation. Can we use data to draw conclusions? Among the examples included in the advice and guidance for science is a consideration of whether or not there is a link between Type 2 diabetes and obesity. A starting point for discussion comes from the BBC’s Go Figure series in this article Watching out for Wimbledon-washing machine links. Does Wimbledon fortnight really affect demand for washing machine repairs?