Why don’t we let young people contribute to cutting edge science at school?

Becky Parker, director of the Institute for Research in Schools, makes the case that we should - and that some schools are already getting students involved

If an alien visited the science lab of a 1970s school, and a school now, they would not a see difference that is commensurate with the changes in the lives of young people over that period. Then, at O level, students had to learn a whole set of formula for physics, and they still do now, for the new GCSEs. As Feynman said:

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.