The scientific disciplines: what comes first among equals?

The government has increased considerably its targets for recruiting chemistry and physics teachers, with a view to increasing the numbers taking separate sciences and to boost science uptake post 16. This article charts the establishment of the science disciplines, rejecting a hierarchy of subjects and the simple splitting of science into three disciplines. It argues that science teacher education (training) should be lengthened to allow science graduates to develop their knowledge and understanding of a wider range of disciplines and calls for the implementation of the teaching of a coherent and inclusive form of Natural Sciences to the age of sixteen, with specialisms taken only beyond age sixteen