Encouraging Small People to Think Big

Maker Education Maker Futures work completed at home during Lockdown 1. I have become so passionate about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Education over the last 5 years- having been inspired during my ongoing Primary Science Education learning journey.    I was really impressed when I met Dr Alison Buxton and learned about Maker Education (which has become increasingly popular in this country after being developed in the USA). She is an expert in her field and feels passionately about supporting children, particularly from under-represented groups, in engineering.  It made real sense to me that we should continue to support our pupils at school with skills including cutting, creating and building- these seem to have had a diminished focus in education more recently, in favour of more academic study. These are core skills required in life and when learning, so to develop resilience, patience, determination and problem solving skills.   Initiall...

Our recent OFSTED Inspection September 2021 GOOD   Science-Strong   Since I joined our school, our team have been working to get to OFSTED recognised ‘good’. We were due an inspection anytime when Covid19 hit. During lockdown we had an online inspection and subsequently, when we started this academic year in September, we knew a visit was imminent.   OFSTED arrived and as part of their visit we had a Science ‘deep dive’ in the third week of the Autumn term.    I thought I would share some of the key points raised so to give an insight for colleagues/ fellow Science Leads at you head towards inspections in your own educational settings!    I was asked to provide vital documents to the inspectors by 9am on the day, including-   Action plan  (we are currently undertaking Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) Outreach so this was full of ongoing actions) Progression document - ours highlights vocabulary, misconceptions, whether the lesson is chemis...

Hello. I started out writing this whilst feeling sad and reflective and yet ended up thinking about what a brilliant group of friends and amazing family I have- and how Covid has brought the best out in so many people and places. I usually write about work related topics on my blog, but because we have been going through such a difficult time with Covid 19, and because I have had some time to reflect on the journey so far, I decided to share my thoughts here. I realise every family has important stories to tell; I think and hope this is going to help me to be positive and manage a day of uncertainty today! Covid 19-  Jonathan After nearly 18 months of living with- and understanding more about- Covid 19, my family have been hit increasingly hard in the last few weeks by this horrendous virus. My brother Jonathan, who has multiple Special Educational Needs, is currently in one of the high dependency wards at Hull Royal Infirmary battling Covid and pneumonia- in a stable condition. As...

Hi Everyone, I hope you are all well. I thought I would share some STEM visits/visitors accessible over the last few months as well as brilliant ways to engage pupils online. Teaching during a pandemic has become something we are all now used to and have adjusted to. Sadly, getting our pupils out on inspiring visits and inviting role models, experts and other visitors in, is sadly off limits. I have worked hard to engage our pupils- from Year 3 to Y6- with some amazing guests from across the Science/STEM field. There are some great people who have kindly offered their time free of charge, and also many resources and incentives out there that mean we can still offer our pupils some brilliant experiences. Some were already in action anyhow-for access to places further away- but have now, for the time being, taken the place of visits out of school. Hopefully indoor visits and visitors will be accessible soon. I hope these help you to think about bringing more virtual visitors and links in...