Rolls-Royce

Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Cottenham Village College
School/college address:	High Street Cottenham Cambridgeshire CB24 8UA England

School phone number:	01954 288944
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	473
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	501
Number of staff in school(s):	61

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Ms Zoe Davis	Advanced Skills Teacher - Science	Cottenham Village College
Mrs Diana Adamson	Head Technician	Cottenham Village College
Dr Kev Geall	Head of Science	Cottenham Village College
Miss Liz Kenefick	Deputy Head of Science	Cottenham Village College

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

Zoe Davis
A chemistry enthusiast, whose main interests are engagement of students in science and new approaches in teaching science. She will co-ordinate the project and will oversee the staff training in the use of new technologies.

Diana Adamson
Keen to encourage more teachers and students to try out chemistry experiments. She always has ideas of new demonstrations and practical activities and will help oversee the safe running of all experiments needed for the videos.

Kev Geall
Specialises in student attainment and is also very interested in engagement in science. He enjoys trying new things and is curious how the students will respond to this challenge. He has managed teams and budgets and will share his expertise on this project.

Liz Kenefick
Keen to improve her ICT skills and wants to become involved with this project so she can incorporate different technologies into her lessons. She has excellent organisational skills and will help manage deadlines.

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Material and their Properties - Materials and their properties

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

The project aims to improve the understanding of the behaviour of particles using models and digital media. Students will construct models and use these to make videos accompanied with details of a scientific concept. These concepts can then be downloaded as podcasts by other students and/or the materials reviewed online using a school wiki.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 11-16

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

To increase students' understanding of the behaviour of particles and share their understanding with other students through new technology such as podcasting, digital videos and their own wiki sites.

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

Technology is a large part of the modern student's life. Models help students to understand complicated scientific concepts. By combining something that they feel familiar and comfortable with, with something they find difficult and unfamiliar, we hope to increase the understanding of students and also their ability to explain how concepts work.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

We will build a bank of materials on the school website which will be accessible by all learners.

The website will contain video media of the learners doing different experiments. The video will be accompanied by models to explain what is happening in the experiment, which may be shown as video or still images. The website will be a wiki, so that students may also contribute more ideas or exciting weblinks to help them understand how these reactions work.

The wiki will contain materials from Year 7 to Year 11, so that the whole school can benefit from the material the students make.

The objectives for this project are to:

Increase student motivation in explaining scientific concepts by using new technology
Improve the use of models in explaining scientific concepts.
Use a wiki to record all findings. This area will be designed by students and is for all students to use, and is available at any time and any location on the Internet.
Motivate students so that they want to try to explain scientific phenomena as they increase their confidence by using technology that they are familiar with.

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)

Week 1

Share aims, objectives and outcomes of the project.
Discuss outline plan for project and deadlines.

Week 2

The science team decides upon suitable topics that can be modelled from KS3 and KS4.

Weeks 3-6

Resources required need to be ordered (materials and cameras).
The classes from each year group involved need to be selected carefully.
The wiki page/web page needs to be prepared so that is is ready for use.

Weeks 7-8

Training meeting for staff: how to use the website, how to use digital cameras for still images and video files.
Staff to review the materials available for model building and contribute final thoughts and ideas.

Week 9

Final plans to be written up in detail.

Week 10

Final plans to be distributed to all staff involved and last minute checks before the project begins.

Week 11

Teachers discuss the project with the classes involved. Students work in small groups and begin to think about an experiment and how to model what is happening to the particles involved.

Week 12

During lesson time, experiments are carried out and videoed using digital cameras.
Videos are uploaded for editing.

Week 13

During lessons students design and test models to show what is happening in the experiment.
Students make models and record a video, with/without audio.

Weeks 14-16

Students upload their resources onto Wiki. Each experiment will have two videos to play. One video shows the experiment, the other shows a video of a model of what is happening to the particles. An explanation may be added by text or an audio file attached to the video.

Weeks 18-20

All students have rights to edit Wiki. They can add comments, photographs, weblinks etc.

Week 21

Students answer a questionnaire about the project, with emphasis on motivation, self-confidence and understanding.

Weeks 22-24

Random sample of school pupils not directly involved surveyed about their opinions on project.
Team to meet to evaluate findings.

Monitoring and evaluation

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

To monitor the outcomes of the project we will use clearly defined deadlines and the project manager will oversee all work done to ensure it is completed on time.
The staff involved will meet regularly as a group to discuss progress and issues arising. The project manager may then make any amendments if required.
Students will be monitored at all times during the project in terms of engagement and understanding and the findings will be shared amongst the team members on a weekly basis through personal meetings, e-mails or use of the wiki.
Everyone involved in the project will complete a summary questionnaire on completion of the website. After two weeks of being live, random students from the school who were not directly involved will also be sampled for their opinions.

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)

Use the wiki to see how many students have contributed their thoughts and ideas. Has all the work been done in class or have they also looked at the site in their own time? Can students explain scientifically what is happening in the experiments that were videoed in their class?
Teacher observations of student motivation and involvement and the questionnaires completed at the end of the project will help show if using new technologies has improved students' confidence in their understanding of concepts.
Do teachers and students feel the project was worthwhile? Have they made any suggestions for how to extend the project or take the work forward?
The evaluation of the procedures will take place throughout the project as well as at the end. Certain aspects of the project may need to be adapted in the future and we will consider each of the stages involved in the project, rather than an evaluation of the whole project as one.

Budget

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