| School name: | St Anne's and St Joseph's R.C.P. |  |
| School/college address: | Sandy Lane
Accrington Lancashire BB5 2AN England | |
| School phone number: | 01254 233019 | |
| Number of pupils in school(s) - male: | 181 | |
| Number of pupils in school(s) - female: | 130 | |
| Number of staff in school(s): | 11 | |
| Name | Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.) | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| Mrs Winifred Holden | K.S.2 Leader/ Science Coordinator/ Teacher | St. Anne's and St. Joseph's |
| Mrs A.M. Robinson | Science Coordinator/ Teacher | St. Anne's and St. Joseph's |
| Mr E. Richards | Head Teacher | St. Anne's and St. Joseph's |
The key skills, strengths and roles of each team member are: (200 words)
Winifred Holden
An experienced teacher with many years as science coordinator. We have recently had a science subject inspection in which leadership of the subject was considered to be outstanding. Also an experienced KS2 Teacher.
A M Robinson
An experienced teacher with many years of experience at leading KS1 science. Always worked as a team and is now keen to develop new initiatives in regard to cross-curricular science. Also recognised by OFSTED as an outstanding subject leader.
Elaine Richards
Head teacher. Keen to raise the profile of science throughout school. She believes this project is a way of embracing the Creative Curriculum and is keen to see it developed cross-phase.
Topic area of proposal: Generic Issues - Cross-curricular
Briefly, the aim of our proposal is: (50 words)
We will develop the use of our role-play area to include children from KS1. In Autumn 2007 we had a subject inspection of science. The H.M.I. reported that "The school is creative in its approach to the curriculum -Professor Molecule’s Laboratory is a good example of this. As well as providing exciting and challenging problems for the children to solve, it also provides teachers with a useful opportunity to assess children’s investigative skills and levels of understanding."
Pupil type to benefit: Boys
Age range to benefit from proposal: 3-11
Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)
• Develop effective cross-curricular links between literacy and science
• Improve boys’ writing
• Develop investigative skills
• Improve standards in science, especially Level 3 at the end of K.S.1 and Level 5 at the end of K.S.2
• Enjoyment - to give children a life-long love of science
Our reasons for developing this particular proposal: (100 words)
This school year we are developing our delivery of the creative curriculum. Science has been made central to our School Development and we are keen to address the imbalance, locally and nationally in boys’ achievement in writing. This initiative has been trialled over the last 2 years with one class and we have already achieved success.
We would now like to use this approach with other groups within school and in particular with K.S.1.
Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)
We will set up a role-play area Professor Molecule’s Laboratory. In it the children will assume the role of either Scientist or Assistant (they will dress up). Initially the professor will communicate via e-mail to ask for their help, as a group of Aliens have landed and the Government has asked for his help in keeping them alive until they can return home. This will be a Top Secret task
The Professor will then write via e-mail to the children on a weekly/fortnightly basis and set a task which will be taken from the science programme of study for that year group and involve a piece of writing of the text type being studied e.g.
• Properties of materials - using evaporation to grow Salticles (the aliens eat them) then leaving instructions of how they did it
• Forces - how many Aliens can fit into a paper boat without it sinking followed by a recount telling the Professor how they did it
• Life processes - the characteristics of living things, the Aliens think a toy is human, children write a letter to explain why a toy is not human.
There are many other possibilities for this to develop depending on area of science and literacy focus.
It will also address many speaking and listening objectives and will encourage team work, leadership and independent learning.
Outline of how our team would implement our proposal over a period of not more than 24 weeks: (300 words, bulleted lists accepted)
Week 1
• Meeting to plan with all staff involved (all staff WH to lead)
• Collate children’s writing scores from summer
Weeks 2-3
• Work with children on meaning of role-play
• Establish roles of Scientist, Assistant, Security
• Set up lab
• Agree guidelines for use of Lab, write rules literacy link
Weeks 4-5
• Contact from Professor via e-mail to set first task e.g. growing crystals to feed Aliens changing materials
• Use computer microscope to photograph
• In rota children work on task set
• On completion children leave, Professor recounts literacy link
Weeks 6-7
• Meeting with staff to review progress
• Second task set e.g. Aliens are curious about sound - does it need a medium to travel through?
• Children make notes of progress - recount for Professor literacy link
Weeks 8-9
• Aliens have had young
• Torn glove problem - one of them has some human DNA
• Who wore the torn glove?
• Alien can speak but does not understand technical language - dictionary of technical language literacy link
Weeks 10-18
• Continue meeting with staff to review progress and plan further investigations with a clear writing task at the end of each
• Children continue to work in Lab on rota basis
• Assess all children working in Lab on investigative skills at some point (Levels 1-5)
• Stage break-in at Lab - use video to photograph burglar
• Wanted posters literacy link
• Newspaper account of burglary literacy link
Weeks 19-21
• Aliens are in danger and need to get home
• Children design and make rockets out of junk material - DT link
• Aliens leave
Weeks 22-24
• Formally assess children’s writing, measure progress
• Staff meeting to review success/consider improvements
• Write up findings
The monitoring procedures we will use during the project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)
• Record children’s writing scores at start of project.
• Staff involved to draw up plan outlining both science and literacy learning outcomes/plans scrutinised.
• At end of each task staff to review against learning outcomes.
• Monitoring of plans and some activities by W.H.
• Meetings to discuss progress/make improvements.
The evaluation procedures we will use at the end of the 25 weeks to check the effectiveness of our project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)
• Formal assessment at conclusion of writing and investigative skills.
• Formally report on outcome to staff and Governors.
Itemised costs of putting your proposal into practice within a maximum budget of £5,000 or equivalent in Euros:
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