The Regents Review - Winter 2015

The Regents Review Winter 2015

Departmental News

Science Breakfast club We have had a fantastic turn out for our Science breakfast club. Bright and early on a Wednesday morning, our dedicated Year 11s have been arriving to school at the crack of dawn to come and revise with the Science department. Hot chocolate and croissant in hand, hardworking students have been working hard to recap important ideas ready for their exams in May. Each week, Mrs Porter gives out a prize for the class with the best attendance at revision – encourage all your friends to come along so that your class can be the winners! Mrs Porter and Miss Crowe have also issued loyalty cards for our revision sessions. Every week, the students can get their cards signed and when they are full, they will get their own super Science badge! Since November, we also have undergraduate students from Southampton University coming into breakfast club to support students with their revision, but also to discuss with them about where their Science GCSEs could take them after they leave school – a valuable insight, considering that Year 11s are now applying to colleges! If you haven’t yet made it to one of our breakfast club sessions, pop along next week. Science club We have had an amazing group of Year 7s and 8s attending Science Club on a Wednesday after school. Run by Miss Groves, students get opportunities to do lots of hands on activities and fun, exciting science experiments. So far, students have: made slime; designed their own parachutes; crushed cans using Bunsen burners and brewed many concoctions. We also have some brilliant Year 9 students who help run Science Club, and they have been supporting some of the new students as they get to grips with new scientific techniques. Since November, we have also had undergraduate students from Southampton University coming into help run Science club. Students can get to see how real scientists carry out real Science. Coming up in Science Club: forensics; making snow and many more exciting experiments!

Science Museum 70 Year 8 students (and staff) were very excited to be heading to the Science Museum at the start of this half term where we were able to explore the museum, getting hands on with Science and visiting the enormous IMAX 3D screens to watch a futuristic film. We look forward to sharing pictures with you in the next edition of the Regents Review! Science Department training Our Science Department are always looking for ways to improve our teaching and learning. So on a staff training day, we took part in a training session with Dave Whittle, from the Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service, addressing the common misconceptions that students encounter in Science and how to improve building the different stages in knowledge, whilst doing a few experiments, of course! The Science team will be putting our training into practise to make our Science lessons even more engaging and progressive than ever before. Parental Evening On 23rd September, the Science Department opened its doors to both students AND their parents to run an information evening about Science in Year 11. Many sessions were held including: • Exam and controlled assessment information; • Resources room; • Studying Science at College; • Physics fun experiments; • How to revise. We had a fantastic turn out. It was great to see students motivated to find out how to make the best of Science in Year 11 and we are very grateful to parents who came along to find out how best to support their children. The Science Department would also like to thank our visitors: Ian Galloway from the Stimulating Physics Network and Amanda Humphries from Richard Taunton’s Sixth Form College for running sessions.

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