Parish News - December 2014

Great Gaddesden CoE VA School

Super Science

One of our school priorities this year is to raise the profile of Science across the school and to give all the children more opportunities to engage in hands-on practical science activities.

 Miss Groves is subject leader for Science and she is working towards the School achieving the Primary Quality Science Mark: this is a national scheme set up to drive improvements in the provision of Science in primary schools.

Last week, the whole school was turned into a huge laboratory of mad scientists! Staff and pupils arrived in fancy dress and had a day of hands-on experiments: the teachers had planned lots of activities and we were also helped by an outside company, Sam’s Simple Science. Activities included making lava lamps, silly putty, ice cream and jelly worms! At the end of the day there was a whole school ‘catwalk’ to admire the fancy dress costumes. Congratulations to Hadyn in Year 3 who won the prize for the best outfit!

 

Science teaching isn’t just happening on special days, it is embedded in the curriculum. The class blogs have many examples of practical science activities being used to enrich the curriculum. For instance, Nursery&Reception were learning about the North Pole, and found some bears trapped inside ice balloons (carefully pre-prepared by class teacher Miss Ayres!). The children had to try to rescue the bears by melting the ice as quickly as possible. An imaginative way to introduce the concepts of freezing and melting to 3 and 4 year olds. There is also a weekly after-school Science Club to provide more opportunities for practical activities, with a different class being invited to the club each term.

Christmas

The lead up to Christmas is a very exciting and busy time in the school. I would like to invite you to the following events:

Friday 12^th December – 3.15-4.45pm – FOGGS Christmas Fayre

Tuesday 16^th December – 2pm and 7pm – School Carol Service

Friday 19^th December – Christingle and End of Term

Please keep in touch with events via our website: www.greatgaddesden.herts.sch.uk

Or our blogs:  greatgaddesdenschoolhead.blogspot.co.uk

 

Alison Wilkinson
Chair of Governors

Inspired by Science

I really hope that our school focus on Investigative Science will inspire the pupils of Great Gaddesden School to be excited about Science. It was interesting to read the article in the Independent Newspaper about what children aged 9-13 think about Science in school and in their future careers.

What careers inspire you? Would you rather be a scientist or a sports star?

Post by Alison Wilkinson

 

Children would rather be scientists than actors and professional sports stars, a survey of parents has found.

It reveals that the majority of parents (72 per cent) do not think their children find science lessons boring, while more than two-thirds (67 per cent) claimed their youngsters find the subject exciting.

But it also suggests that nearly one in four (24 per cent) mothers and fathers believe their children find science difficult and the same proportion admit their sons or daughters think it is too much like hard work.

The poll of almost 1,200 parents, carried out by YouGov and commissioned by BAE Systems and the Royal Air Force, also asked about children’s job ambitions. The most popular career path that parents said their children were keen to pursue, out of a given list of jobs, was that of computer games designer, chosen by 15 per cent. This was followed by scientist (12 per cent), vet (12 per cent), emergency services (10 per cent), actor (9 per cent), doctor (9 per cent) and professional sports (9 per cent).

What job? Top ten careers children want to go into

1) Computer Game Designer (15 per cent)
2) Scientist (12 per cent)
3) Vet (12 per cent)
4) Emergency Services e.g. police force, fire brigade, ambulance service (ten per cent)
5) Actor/Actress (nine per cent)
6) Doctor (nine per cent)
7) Professional sports person (nine per cent)
8) Inventor (seven per cent)
9) Musician (seven per cent)
10) Nurse/Midwife (seven per cent)

 

 

Science Survey

Today I went into school to talk to the children about SCIENCE. Miss Groves and I spoke to one or two children from every class to find out what they enjoyed about their science lessons. We looked at their books together to find out what work they were particularly proud of and asked for their ideas about how we could make Science even more exciting.

I was really impressed by the children’s scientific understanding and their thoughtful  answers to our questions.  Many thanks to Josh, Neive, Bradley, Krysta, Kaia, Seth, Eleanor, Harvey, Harry and Grace. I really enjoyed talking to you today.

Post by Alison Wilkinson