Science workshops

A series of specialist Science workshops, covering Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

Aims

To ensure that students experience Science activities that they could not do in their own school.

Background

Our Head of Sixth Form is a governer at St Vincent's and is already working with them on work experience for our Senior students. He put our Head of Science in touch with St Vincent's Science Coordinator as they wanted to work with a secondary school in order to use the laboratories, speacialist equipment and to dovetail the learning that takes place in primary school with experiences that only subject specialist can offer.

These workshops began in October 2017.

Resources

Two specialist Science teachers, lab technicians, laboratories, equipment and apparatus are critical to this project. Two teachers taught each session which lasted for 2 hours and required approximately 4 hours preparation time. Queen's College covered the costs of teaching staff's time and consumables.

Impact

The St Vincent’s students get to experience Science in new ways that cannot take place in their setting. The learning was linked to their curriculum so built upon work they had already completed and set up new ways of thinking about science. The St Vincent’s staff learnt more about secondary Science and developed their own subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Queen’s staff learnt more about primary Science and this will help make for smoother transitions from primary to secondary Science teaching and learning.  Students feel more positive about Science and have a deeper understanding about how theoretical Science links to practical application. All staff have a better understanding of cross-phase learning in Science.

 

Pupil Involvement

Two or three Senior students from Queen's College were there to help with each session that taught students in year 4, 5 and 6 from St Vincent's.

Frequency

There are four two hour workshops during the academic year. These started in October 2017 and are ongoing.