Rolls-Royce

Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Littledean Cofe Primary School
School/college address:	Church Street Littledean Cinderford Gloucestershire GL14 3NL England

School phone number:	01594 822171
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	44
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	42
Number of staff in school(s):	12

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Mrs Valerie Huggett	Headteacher	Littledean School
Mrs Carole Greening	teacher	Littledean School
Ms Laura May	teacher	Littledean School
Ms Helen Welsh	parent	Home
Mr Paul Foster	parent governor	self employed builder
Mr Ray Wright	parent governor	Clearwell Caves

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

Valerie Huggett
Coordinating and motivating.

Carole Greening
Enthusiastic leader of all things related to the environment and school grounds.

Laura May
Science coordinator and ICT whiz.

Helen Welsh
Chief mover and shaker with anything connected to the grounds.

Paul Foster
Knows his stuff in anything related to building and developing and he gets things done, also makes excellent links to the community.

Ray Wright
Key figure in the locality, incredibly supportive of the school and a man of many talents.

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Physical Processes - Forces and motion

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

The theme would include many aspects of physical science to provide children with access to a variety of 'powers' e.g. sound strips (making different sound), waterways to experience different forces, light strips (to experience transparent, opaque and translucent lights) etc. Making wind work for us. Primarily we need to build on the excellent work we have done developing the garden and to harness this enthusiasm to experience physical sciences.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 3-11

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

Children will be able to make a mess, make a noise and let themselves go in experimenting with materials, and therefore have a better understanding of the physical side of science. We want them to love this side of science as much as they love the garden.

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

The children have shown they find physical aspects of science difficult to understand and have said they would like to engage in more experiemnts on a grand scale. We have a diverse population and we hope to engage our children with disabilities, our gifted children alongside the others, as these groups have been side-lined in the past. Children, staff and our governors have identified the need to continue developing our outside classroom with specific reference to enhancing scientific inquiry.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

We would develop a science trail which would include sound, texture and light strips, these would be supported on wooden structures which would be sympathetic to the schools surroundings. We would include a stength zone for making structures (e.g. to be supplied with a variety of building materials that can be safely handled to make temporary structures). This would require housing for the materials.

We would like a water zone for testing a variety of boats and water mills e.g. a system of waterways raised off the ground to facilitate work of children in wheelchairs. This would require a power source and preferably a brick surround to support the waterways which could be made from large plactic pipes sawn in half.

A wind zone for experimenting with a variety of wind mills, and an assortment of materials to see how they respond to wind. Also a platform to launch helicoptors etc from.

We would draw upon the very varied expertise of parents, but we could also utilise the help of the Community Payback team who have already made great improvements to our site and helped develop our pond. Their labour is free but materials are not.

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)

Draw up plans with team and Community Payback unit
Check with local council that plans are in line with the position and nature of the school
Liaise with neighbours
Ask children and parents for their comments
Staff to draw up activity schemes to link with the curriculum for using the trail with their classes

6 weeks

Finalise plans
Order materials

2 weeks

Community payback unit to develop the site at weekends, liaising with team members and having continual feedback from all stakeholders

12 weeks

Classes to trial the trail and make comments

Monitoring and evaluation

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

Monthly meetings of the team to look at cost implications, disruption to the life of the school
Weekly meetings by members of the team and the Community Payback team, to look at quality of work and adherence to the plans
Comments collected from all interested partners to be relayed to the team and from them to the Community Payback team
Liaising with local council and neighbours about their feelings on the project

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)

At the beginning of the scheme we will ask the children to make a mindmap of their knowledge and enjoyment of one aspect of physical science their class will be able to experience using the trail, and then make another mindmap at the end
Team will monitor children using the trail
A family evening will be held whereby the community can comment
Governors will be asked to monitor classes using the trail
LEA advisor and SIP advisor will be asked to monitor the effectiveness of the scheme

Budget

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