Principal Teacher
One of the most important things we wanted to do with our science show case
was not only to involve the parents and obviously the children but also involve
the wider community. One of the ways we went about this was we invited our
local secondary school to come and to participate. They brought along pupils
from their school, first years and they had actually recently just developed a
new first year science course. They brought some of their forensic
investigations. It was really good, the secondary pupils had laboratory coats
on and they got to try on the coats and get involved in what they called some
secondary science.
We also involved some outside agencies and invited them along to
demonstrate some of the science that goes on out with school. SSERC came
along and Gregor Steele came along and did some fantastic experiments and
investigations that everyone could join in with. One of the things he did was
ring gliders so people could sit down and have a go at making their own gliders
and then test it out. There was a lot of fun had with children flying these
gliders from end to end as well as dads sitting there trying to make the best
glider they could.
We also invited the oral health team. The oral health team are in school a lot
throughout the year but more often than not they are in to see children and
give a talk to individual classes whereas this gave the chance for parents and
other classes to see what sorts of things they do and how they could look after
personal health. They had some fun activities for children to get involved in
and they also had some freebies which the children liked too.
The other organisations which we invited but could not make it on the evening
were the Institute of Physics and the Young Engineers Club and they helped
out with the event by providing sponsorship for things like display boards
which we would never have been able to get if it was just out of school funds.
Having all of these people on board and in an ideal world I would get a lot
more and if I were to do it again I’d try to get local businesses involved.
It certainly was successful involving all these people and it brought the whole
thing together.