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What was planned?

The project was a collaboration between INSPIRE, Hands-on Science Centre, Norwich, Wensum Middle School and Angel Road Middle School – both Norwich schools for pupils aged 8 to 12 years. Both schools serve communities with areas of significant social disadvantage. The Director of Inspire was responsible for the overall co-ordination of the project. The aim was to help young people to investigate scientific principles by building their own hands-on exhibits, developing practical, creative and analytical skills. The aim was that the project would motivate those at risk of underachievement, develop team skills and build self-confidence. The aim was to quietly encourage participation by some young people who were at risk of underachieving or who might have their confidence and self esteem boosted by achieving success on the project. To avoid attaching any label or stigma to the groups, the resultant membership showed a good range of attainment and attitude.

What was done and when?

Sixteen pupils from Year 6 of Wensum Middle School took part in Phase One and sixteen from Year 7 of Wensum and sixteen from Year 6 of Angel Road in Phase 2.

Programme:

Phase One was a two week summer school during August 2000 based in Inspire Centre, Coslany Street, Norwich. The first two days of the summer school were structured in detail to introduce the young people to the Inspire centre. There they explored the hands-on science exhibits to develop their own ideas to make exhibits to demonstrate scientific principles. On the third day there was a trip to London to explore the interactive galleries of the Science Museum and also to visit the Science Projects workshop in Hammersmith where exhibits are built for Inspire and many other museums worldwide. Since the aim of the project was to encourage the young people to make decisions about what they wanted to do, the preparation for the following days of the summer school was less detailed.

By the end of the summer school, the groups had produced the following exhibits amongst others:

• A Bubble Machine: a machine constructed to blowbubbles of different shapes.
• Persistence of vision exhibits: The main exhibit was a bicycle on a stand with a projected image on the rear wheel; when the wheel was spinning the image became visible.

On the final day of the summer school relatives and friends of the participants were invited to the centre to view the outcomes of the work with a video recording of the event and the exhibits. Subsequently the young people presented their work to a school assembly.

Phase Two built on the success of Phase One of the project. Further funding was allocated to develop 'After School' clubs from February to August 2001 and two summer schools, one for each of the two schools. The 18 after school sessions, held at each school, were broken down into three sets of six week programmes, each with a specific theme. The themes included sessions on building robots to explore power transmission and remote control, professional techniques on making presentations to audiences and product design and modelling, including visits to factories. The summer schools were replicas of the Phase One summer school.  There was no drop out from the summer schools.

What has the impact been?

The evaluation of the project produced clear evidence that there was an attitude change of the several pupils who had been identified prior to the summer school to be at risk of underachieving because of lack of motivation. There was a strong group vote by the young people that the project had made them more positively disposed towards science in school.

The unexpectedly high quality of the products of the students taught the staff to have high expectations and not to underestimate potential achievement.  Their pride in the quality of the exhibits produced came through prominently in the list of things the young people in Phase One liked most about the project. When asked to list the personal skills they thought had been developed by the project, the consensus of the group was that they rated highest the skills of teamwork, taking responsibility and the development of self-confidence. In practical terms teachers as well as students gained from the expertise, skills and resources of the centre partners. Specific examples they referred to were a more detailed understanding of circuit building, techniques of video recording and lighting experimentation. The project gave teachers the confidence to approach 'design and build' activities in a more open-ended way and made them more likely to use such activities in their day to day teaching.

What was learnt and what were the next steps?

The schools sought to disseminate the experience of the project in order to feed into the school development plans for improvement in teaching and learning in science and technology. The staff at Inspire are very keen to build on their experience from the project and go on to develop further partnerships with local schools.