Science Week @ Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks School organises and hosts a large outreach ‘Science Week’ annually, aimed at local primary and secondary school students. The event was set up over seven years ago, and is now an established outreach activity for the majority of local schools. The event regularly attracts over 10,000 students aged from 4-18, and tickets are usually taken within a few hours of the event being launched.

The aim of the project is to offer our facilities, science expertise and access to science shows to our local state and private schools. As STEM is such an integral part of the curriculum, schools are always looking for opportunities to enrich their students’ learning, and ’Science Week’ satisfies that objective. 

Aims

Sevenoaks School organises and hosts a large outreach ‘Science Week’ annually, aimed at local primary and secondary school students. The event was set up over seven years ago, and is now an established outreach activity for the majority of local schools. The event regularly attracts over 10,000 students aged from 4-18, and tickets are usually taken within a few hours of the event being launched.

The aim of the project is to offer our facilities, science expertise and access to science shows to our local state and private schools. As STEM is such an integral part of the curriculum, schools are always looking for opportunities to enrich their students’ learning, and ’Science Week’ satisfies that objective.

 

 

 

Background

 

The 2016 Science Week will be the seventh such event the school has hosted. The project was set up by our Director of Innovation and Outreach, who is a STEM Specialist, and passionate about enabling science and technology learning in smaller, local schools.

 

Resources

The cost of the week (venue, refreshments and marketing) is funded by Sevenoaks School, as well as by sponsorship raised by the school. This means that the event is free for all attendees. The activities that take place throughout the week utilise various school facilities and venues, and a variety of staff from the school are involved in the planning, set up and hosting. Activities in the past have included events such as a live link to the Space Station, generating a blanket of snow across part of the school campus, and an aeronautical engineering week culminating with an air display over the campus. In addition the event has also included visitors from the Antarctic Expedition team, Ice Sculptors, prominent climate change scientists.

Annually we have representation from the London Science Museum outreach team, Young Engineers, robots, planetariums, Zoo buses, and indoor pyrotechnics teams.

The week costs in excess of £10,000 per annum, and Sevenoaks School funds for the facilities, resources, catering and staffing of the event. The school arranges for donations from STEM based sponsors to help offset some of its costs.

Impact

Qualitative feedback is captured at the end of the week from all attending schools. Schools actively look forward to the event, and repeat book annually, so we are aware that they deem the event to be of educational importance and use.

Pupil Involvement

The pupils attending (largely from other schools) are aged 3-18 years, and fully co-educational. Whilst all of the students at Sevenoaks School attend at least 1 show, the majority of the shows are aimed at visiting schools.

Some Sevenoaks School students are involved in the setup, marketing and logistics of the event.

 

Frequency

It is an annual event (Feb / March) and has been running for 7 years. The school plans to continue to run it for the foreseeable future.