Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Bishopstone CE Primary School
School/college address:	Bishopstone Swindon Wiltshire SN6 8PW England
School phone number:	01793 790521
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	14
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	30
Number of staff in school(s):	12

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Ms Susan Walton	Headteacher	Bishopstone CE Primary School
Mr Phil Anley	KS2 teacher	Bishopstone CE Primary School
Mr Adrian Dent	Research Strategist	Germina
Mrs Jill Perkins	Teaching Assistant	Bishopstone CE Primary School
Mr Jasper Ackroyd	Head Chef	Helen Browning Organics
Mr Peter Le Coyte	Governor	Bishopstone CE Primary School

The key skills, strengths and roles of each team member are: (200 words)

Sue Walton
Headteacher. Has spent 20 years encouraging children to use their creativity to benefit the arts and the environment. Her role in this project is as an inspirer, teacher and leader.

Phil Anley
NQT whose passion is to excite children with the potential of past and future technologies (core contributions: ICT and construction).

Adrian Dent
Research strategist and project manager working in both academia and industry with a background in food microbiology and more recently manufacturing engineering and healthcare (core contributions: microbiology and project planning).

Jill Perkins
Teaching assistant with a background as a food technology teacher. She is particularly interested in encouraging responsible eating (core contributions: food science and hygiene).

Jasper Ackroyd
Head chef at the Royal Oak in Bishopstone, part of the Bishopstone-based Helen Browning organic food empire. He is a trained meat curer with a mission to recreate old fashioned values in food (core contributions: demonstrations, explanations, and a love of food).

Peter Le Coyte
School governor and retired dentist. He has recently sailed round the world. His energy and dedication to the community make him an ideal mentor and monitor (core contributions: engineering and evaluation).

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Processes and Living Things - Life and Living processes

Briefly, the aim of our proposal is: (50 words)

We will inspire children to discover ways in which past and present applied scientific innovation can lessen the environmental impact of communities through the creation, care and preservation of natural produce. We will achieve this through a structured programme of participative activities that will include research, practice, investigation, data gathering and analysis, contact with practitioners and professional organisations and the discovery of the delights of scientific understanding.

This project builds on the children’s assistance in creating a community allotment within the village over the past year.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 3-11

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

• Children learn that science is exciting because it is involved in almost everything we do every day.
• Children have an appreciation of the effects that modern technologies can have on the environment.
• Children can apply basic scientific principles to everyday needs as a result of hands-on opportunities.

Our reasons for developing this particular proposal: (100 words)

We are privileged to live in a rural environment. The countryside and its nature are part of our teaching resource. Our (relatively) isolated school has made staff increasingly aware of the need to create sustainable communities.

Our proposal stems from the experiences gained by staff, children and the community in the creation of an allotment in the centre of the village and a full year of growing and eating produce. It also builds on discussions of this invitation for proposals with children, parents, teachers and governors.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

Our aims will be achieved through building upon the children’s work in the construction and maintenance of an allotment and learning about growing and valuing vegetables and the underlying science.

We will use the outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda to inform the planning and execution of the project. Thus:

• The children will be healthy through investigating the innovative science (new and old) behind the preparation and preservation of vegetables from our allotment, dairy products and meat (microbiology, fermentation, decay processes, material properties).
• The children will stay safe by participative discussions with HSE and food technologists and experimentation with food decay and microbiology.
• The children will enjoy and achieve through an exciting hands-on approach to investigating the science behind everyday foods and activities; comparing fruit and vegetable preservation (pickling and preserving), dairy products (cheese, yogurt), meat preservation (curing and smoking) and creative technologies through the construction of an ice house and a stirling engine. They will visit food research laboratories and manufacturers(Oxford Brookes University). They will have the opportunities to prepare produce in different ways, make predictions, carry out fair tests, collect and analyse data, draw conclusions, and relate to practitioners and professionals.
• The children will make a positive contribution to their community by visiting local shops and restaurants to see where foods are sourced (food miles) and how they are processed (fresh, tinned, frozen) and assess their impact on the community and environment (carbon footprint). Community contributions will include articles in the village newsletter, a video for self-learning, and a colour brochure (hot tips!).
• Achievement of economic well being will be through the children’s appreciation and understanding of the financial values associated with purchase of foods from various sources and their process costs.

Putting our proposal into practice

Outline of how our team would implement our proposal over a period of not more than 24 weeks: (300 words, bulleted lists accepted)

Pre-project start: September 2008

• Growing fruit and vegetables on allotment (will happen anyway).
• Ongoing discussions between team members.
• Confirmation of detailed plans with non-school team members and organisations.
• Ordering resources.

Some activities below will flow into future weeks depending on nature of the experiments. Activities are primarily targeted at Key Stage 2, but our philosophy is inclusive and embraces the whole school.

Week 1

• Begin video diary (Phil)
• INSET day for staff (project familiarisation/ responsibilities). (Sue)
• Costing your carrot - supermarket visit. (Sue/Jill)

Weeks 2-3

• Safe and sure - visit from HSE (Environmental Health Officer). (Jill)
• Good bugs - bad bugs - investigating how and why foodstuffs decay. (Sue & Adrian)

Week 4

• An army marches on its stomach - researching the history of food preservation. (KS 2 teachers)

Weeks 5-8

• Wheying it up - participative experiments in cheese and yoghurt production. (Adrian & Jasper)

Weeks 9-13

• Sailor’s victuals - demonstration, explanation and tasting of cured meats. (Jasper)
• Stop the rot - design/execute food preservation comparison experiments (vegetables and fruit)(ongoing to project end). (all)
• Visit Oxford Brookes University Labs with Dr Neil Heppell.

Weeks 14-19

• Fridges for Free (1) - visiting speaker Prof Jorge Kubie, Napier University. Natural power generation and Stirling Engines. Research, design, construct, test model Stirling engine for food cooling. (Phil, Peter)
• Fridges for Free (2) - research, design, construct miniature ice-house. Visit Lydiard Park Victorian ice house. (Phil)

Week 20

• Bottling it up - visit commercial food preservation company to see science learnt applied. (Jill, Sue)

Weeks 21-23

• Editing video diary. Preparation of glossy leaflet with home tips. (Phil, all)
• Completion of children’s personal project files.

Week 24

• INSET day for stakeholders - evaluation and moving forward. (Sue)
• A feast for the mind - school open day/exhibition. (all)
• Report for Rolls Royce. (Sue)

Monitoring and evaluation

The monitoring procedures we will use during the project are: (200 words, bulleted lists accepted)

• The project team will meet monthly to review progress in terms of finances, resource preparation and responsibilities, detailed timetabling for forthcoming period, learning outcomes. Peter Le Coyte will chair the meetings and report back to the governors at termly meetings.
• Peter Le Coyte will observe and participate in a number of the activities over the duration of the project and report back to the governors.
• A scrutiny of children’s work will be carried out by teachers throughout the course of the project to judge progress in terms of scientific skills and understanding.
• The School Council will contribute its views on the project at monthly meetings and the chair of the Council will report any issues or comments to the project team.
• The project will be a fortnightly agenda item at our staff meetings to give members of staff not on the team the opportunity to provide insight into the progress of the project and to reflect on their own professional development. Headteacher feedback from these meetings will be given to the whole project team.

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)

The thrill of discovery and innovation in science (by children and all participants) will be qualitatively assessed at the end of the project through discussion and formal questionnaire.

Lessons learnt: a formal evaluation day will be held at the end of the project with all stakeholders, including pupil representatives, to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the project.

This will include using the evidence collected throughout the project to evaluate:

• pupils\' attitudes to science
• pupil development in scientific skills and understanding
• staff professional development
• the extent to which learning outcomes have been achieved.

The results of the evaluation process will be used to plan future initiatives.

Budget

Itemised costs of putting your proposal into practice within a maximum budget of £5,000 or equivalent in Euros:

Budget Item	Cost (GBP)
INSET supply costs	960
Additional PPA time for staff	280
Microscopes x 4	600
Video camera/accessories	450
Children’s visits travel (x4)	1200
Visiting speaker costs (Prof Jorge Kubie & Dr Neil Heppell)	350
Hot tips brochure	420
Materials (ice house and Stirling engine)	320
Consumables	400
TOTAL	4980