4 week Science Partnership

In the Summer Term, Alderley Edge School for Girls completed a 4-week Science partnership with St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School in Heaton Norris, Stockport. Ten children joined us from St. Mary’s to participate in a number of fun and educational Science experiments.

The aim of our partnership was for local primary school children to experience life in Senior School laboratories and to provide them with the opportunity to learn through kinaesthetic activities. Each week had a different theme, from learning about acids and alkalis and making bath bombs, to using cornflour and water as an example of a non-Newtonian fluid. 

Whilst at our School, the pupils also took part in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) sessions, teaching them how to use the coding apps such as Swift Playground, which enabled them to race drones and also access to our virtual reality (VR) headsets which were used to learn about other countries and to explore submarines for example.  The pupils loved taking part in the activities and really enjoyed the input from our Sixth Form students who not only guided them through the experiments, but also talked to them about their aspirations for the future.

The children returned to St. Mary’s each week with a bag of materials, funded by Alderley Edge School for Girls, which enabled them to complete the experiments demonstrated with the rest of their peers.

At the end of the project, the children were awarded with a certificate from the Royal Society of Biology. These sessions were at no cost to St. Mary’s and transport was provided free of charge in our minibus.

Resources

An experienced Science teacher and Science Technician were heavily involved in the organisation of this project.

Pupil Involvement

Year 5 boys and girls from St Mary's were invited to participate in our initiative. Our Sixth Form pupils supported with the project. 

Frequency

We will participate in this project every year and hope to be able to open it out to more schools. Next academic year, we are looking to run a separate Virtual Reality project at St Mary’s.