Rolls-Royce

Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Jo Richardson Community School
School/college address:	Castle Green Gale Street Dagenham Greater London RM9 4UN England

School phone number:	020 8270 6222
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	595
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	576
Number of staff in school(s):	130

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Dr Eliot Attridge	Head of Science	JRCS
Mr Ges Smith	Headteacher	JRCS
Mr Birendra Singh	General Inspector (Science)	Community Inspection Advisory Service
Miss Suzanne Robson	Science Teacher	JRCS
Mr Paul Hargreaves	Food Technology Teacher	JRCS
Mr Tom MacLennan	Science Teacher	JRCS

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

Eliot Attridge

An experienced head of science wanting to enhance the status of physics in school. He believes this project will be an excellent way to achieve this. He will manage the project.

Ges Smith

Head teacher. As the majority of science staff are not physics teachers, Ges sees that the students will benefit from the improved skills set of teachers.

Birendra Singh

General Inspector for science who wants to build the school's capacity in physics with a view to cascading to other schools in the Borough. A physics specialist and an expert in Assessment for learning, he will monitor and support the project ensuring the goals and targets are realistic and on track.

Suzanne Robson

An NQT and has successfully introduced a gifted and talented science club at the school. She will bring excellent organisational skills to the group and provide a female role model.

Paul Hargreaves

A food technology teacher, previously in the army. He is excited about inspiring students and wants to make radio links with a partner school in the Gambia.

Tom MacLennan

An energetic science teacher, keen to respecialise in physics. He sees the project as part of his continuing professional development and a way of inspiring students to choose physics.

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Physical Processes - Waves (including light and sound)

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

We aim to enhance the status of physics via the introduction of an Amateur Radio Station. Students will learn how to set up, operate and run amateur radio with the eventual aim of communicating with a partner school in the Gambia. Students will learn about the medium of radio in an exciting way and will be inspired to opt to take GCSE physics and AS physics in the future. The staff involved will improve and strengthen their understanding of physics and as a result build the capacity of physics in the school. Equipment will also be used to support the teaching of physics.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 11-16

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

Provide the opportunity for students at KS3 and 4 to see and use physics in a real life context: building and using radio equipment to communicate with others.
Develop in students a long-lasting interest in physics leading to more students choosing the subject at GCSE and AS Level.

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

Students need to see the subject as being worth studying but, with a shortage of lack of physics specialists, this is less likely. We decided to tackle the problem by encouraging staff to become more confident in physics themselves. Setting up an amateur radio station was seen as being an exciting and effective way of achieving this as well as inspiring students.

Building and running an amateur radio station will enhance physics skills (electronics and electromagnetic spectrum) and improve their communication skills in the process. A long-term goal is to set up a second station with our partner school in the Gambia.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

From our experience there is an acute shortage of physics specialists willing to teach in a London school. Due to this we feel that students are not getting enough inspiration to study physics further at GCSE and AS Level. We are already providing training opportunities for staff to respecialise in physics but we felt that something else was needed to enhance the subject in the eyes of students and staff.

In much the same way that setting up an ecology area would inspire students to choose biology as a subject, we felt that we needed a physics area to attract their interest. We needed to set up something that met the criteria of being exciting, inspirational whilst being achievable in terms of staffing and costs. An amateur radio station is one way of providing a â€˜physicalâ€™ learning environment which meets those goals.

Students will be able to meet weekly and learn how to build simple radios (e.g. crystal sets) and antennae. Students will be able to operate radio receivers and transmitters and understand how they work. The students will eventually work towards their own amateur radio license and communicate with other radio stations. The equipment will also be used in lessons on the electromagnetic spectrum.

The project will fit in with our school improvement plan. By enhancing the skills of the staff involved we expect the quality of the teaching of the electromagnetic spectrum to improve at GCSE and hence lead to improved GCSE results. We have the aim in 2009 to introduce triple science to students and offer AS physics. The project will ease the introduction of these new qualifications. Having the capacity to teach the unit â€˜Communicationsâ€™ in our GCSE additional applied science (which is currently focused on biology and chemistry) would also be an added bonus.

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

Team meeting with project members to clarify roles, aims and objectives

Weeks 2-3

Order equipment for the Station
Advertise the club to students
Arrange staff training for Foundation Licence in Amateur radio

Weeks 4-5

Radio station set up (once equipment has been delivered).
Club meets for first time.
Initial questionnaire issued to assess student and staff needs. These will also aim to identify how the students feel about studying physics in the future.
Lessons are planned, including health and safety to ensure appropriate focus for each club session.

Weeks 6-24

Club continues to meet on a weekly basis.
The following are the activities that will be undertaken. Some are activities which will take a few sessions to complete. Note: use of transmitting equipment will only be enabled once a member of staff has a Foundation Amateur Radio License (*).
- Theory & Practical: Learning Morse Code
- Theory & Practical: Using school walkie talkies (How to use communication protocols)
- Theory & Practical: Electrical safety
- Theory: The Electromagnetic spectrum and communications
- Theory: Frequency Bands - what they are used for
- Theory & Practical: Building a crystal radio
- Practical: Using radio sonar to detect aircraft
- Practical: Using a radio receiver *
- Practical: Sending a radio message *

Week 22

Final questionnaire issued to students and staff determine successes and issues.
Inspector interviews students to investigate effect of the enrichment.
Report on project completed.

Week 24

Team meets to discuss report and to plan the revision and growth of the project (including feasibility of students attending Africa Challenge setting up a radio station in the Gambia, 2009).
In addition the team will meet every 4 weeks to feed back on successes and issues. ATT will meet fortnightly with BS to feed back on progress and for BS to provide external verification on how the project is progressing.

Monitoring and evaluation

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

The project will have a number of checks included to ensure that progress is appropriate and to check that the needs of those involved are met.

During the fortnightly meetings between ATT and BS, BS will check that the plan is being followed and provide support as an external adviser (Borough Inspector for Science).
In the monthly meetings staff will be able to check progress and evaluate successes. The minutes of team meetings (weeks 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24) with action points recorded will be circulated.
Weekly attendance registers of club members will be kept centrally.
Initial and Final Questionnaires from students and staff collected, analysed and findings circulated.
Staff receiving radio training acquire their Foundation Amateur Radio Licences.
Club register of activities undertaken recorded.
Lesson plans are completed and filed for each club activity.
A final evaluation form to evaluate the success or otherwise of the project issued to students, staff and parents of students who attended.

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)

To assess the learning outcomes of the project there are a number of strategies which will be used.

Questionnaires will include questions from SATs or GCSE (depending upon the level of student) to assess current ability in physics and ability after the 24 weeks.
Analysis of questionnaires at start and end to identify progress or areas of weakness.
Students will be tested on Morse Code (part of the Foundation Amateur radio Licence) at the end of the 24 weeks.
The success of the built crystal radio set will be graded (based on effectiveness and quality of signal).
The number of staff receiving amateur radio licences will be an indicator for the success in improving staff skills in physics.
Evaluation of the lesson plan from each club session to indicate areas of strength/weakness.
The questionnaire responses from students who were not already going to opt for or who are ambivalent about physics as a subject to determine whether they would now seriously consider studying physics.
Interview of students by BS to ensure that an external perspective is achieved.

Budget

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