Entrant's address and contact details

School name:	Upton Hall School
School/college address:	Moreton Road Upton Merseyside CH49 6LJ England
School phone number:	0151 677 7696
Lead school:	Upton Hall School
Partner schools:	Christleton High School, Chester Mosslands School, Wallasey
Number of pupils in school(s) - male:	2000
Number of pupils in school(s) - female:	1550
Number of staff in school(s):	220

Our team leader and our team

Name	Position (e.g. Headteacher, parent, etc.)	Organisation
Miss Sheila Taylor	Assistant Headteacher	Upton Hall School FCJ
Mr David Evans	Physics, IT and Maths Teacher	Christleton High School
Mrs Aideen Hood	Head of Physics	Mosslands High School
Mrs Elaine sargent	Head of Science	Upton Hall School FCJ
Mr Paul Madigan	Teacher of Biology	Upton Hall School FCJ

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

Sheila Taylor

Former Head of Science (Chemistry) who has whole school responsibilities with regard to IT. Sheila has learnt a lot from spearheading three RR Science Prize teams.

David Evans

Experienced Physics, Maths and IT teacher, participated in RR Science Prize finalist team 0708. Dave brings experience and enthusiasm and a flare for distance learning. Dave offers a contrasting school for our project. Dave’s experience in IT will be invaluable with using Adobe Connect and the collaborative project.

Aideen Hood

New to our Rolls-Royce team. Aideen offers a contrasting school for our project. Aideen is an enthusiastic practitioner of physics and is determined to raise the profile and spread the word about physics.

Elaine Sargent

New to our Rolls-Royce team. Elaine is our musical biologist. She wishes to further develop the use of song and raps to promote enjoyment and learning in science.

Paul Madigan

A member of the 0708 RR Science Prize finalist team. Paul has trialled a cut-down version of animation software with a small group of pupils as a spin off from our Missionmaker RR project. Paul will lead training of pupils and staff with the animation software.

Our proposal

Topic area of proposal: Generic Issues - Teaching and learning

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

Scientific animations and musical output will be produced for topics across the three sciences. Animations along with video footage of experiments and interviews with worldwide industrial scientists will be built into interactive webpages incorporating a variety of assessment techniques, achieved through the use of online collaborative tools.

Our proposal will extend beyond secondary education as we build upon our experience as a training school working with the general public. Pupils will be engaged in surveying the needs of the general public, analysing and evaluating the data and responding to identified needs by producing scientific material in a variety of accessible forms.

Pupil type to benefit: All

Age range to benefit from proposal: 11-16

Learning outcomes from our proposal: (50 words)

• Raise science standards in three schools as pupils own the science being immersed in collaboratively developing scientific animations and music
• Develop visual, kinaesthetic and aural learning techniques in science
• Develop ICT/science skills, working collaboratively at a professional level across schools from different socio-economic areas

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

The need to involve pupils in the development of their science has become more evident since taking part in the Rolls-Royce projects. We have found that pupils who are engaged in their science both within and outside lessons have been found to benefit the most, the ownership and sharing of science at a pupil level is essential.

A mini-project on the use of animations in science has fuelled our determination to allow our staff and pupils to learn their science in this way.

Many science pupils in many classes rely too much on the teacher to teach science and not on themselves to learn and take responsibility for their science.

Detailed description of our proposal: (300 words)

Communication of science concepts and enabling pupils and members of the public to gain a clear understanding of science through enjoyment and owning the science is our challenge.

Our project will attempt to produce animations and songs/raps for three sciences and in addition to identify and produce animations of the popular science concepts that members of the public feel that they need to embrace as more science and technology become the norm in the media and our lives.

Staff and pupils:

• Will prepare questionnaires both online and on paper to identify immediate areas of concern within the school curriculum but also for distribution within our local community.
• Working collaboratively will be trained in the development of science animations through the purchase and use of Flash software.
• Will work collaboratively on projects using for instance the collaborative tools of Adobe Connect where they can share control of software applications and desktops in diverse locations – true collaboration using technology. Connect would ensure that the schools could also work with professional animators and industrial scientists as care must be taken to ensure that curriculum time is not lost when site visits in the past have been needed.

This project would enable the development of high quality animations and resource material to be included on interactive webpages. All good projects require assessment and so the website would also include a variety of interactive questioning techniques.

The animations would be available for DVD distribution to other schools as examples of good practice and to enable science to be shared not just with other schools but also to enable the communication of science and understanding of science to the general public at exhibitions and events held nationally through the SSAT, ASE and the Science Learning Centres, all of which the school has contributed to in the past.

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)

• Celebration and Planning meeting with the host Headteacher and other Headteachers/representatives invited. The inaugural meeting of the Rolls-Royce Science Prize Finalist Board. Clarification of roles, aims and objectives.
• Identify an initial topic within each Key Stage for staff to prepare exemplar collaborative animation project to illustrate to pupils the methodology underpinning the school’s project.
• Purchase the software and hardware asap.
• Training sessions for staff in the use of Flash, the online collaborative resources of Connect, recording and assessment techniques.
• Simultaneously within the three schools using the online collaborative Connect, the project will be launched. Communication with the Press will be important as the project will ultimately have an impact on and require input from our local community.
• Pupils trained in and then create questionnaire to survey pupils within each school. Pupils present their findings to the Rolls-Royce Science Prize Finalist Board. Board and pupil representatives establish the priorities for the curricular topics.
• Evaluation of the survey at this point will inform the future planning of the Community Survey which is to be distributed via all three schools, local industries and our well established link to the employees of Arrowepark Hospital.
• Pupils trained in the use of all software and hardware and the necessary protocols required. Peer training by staff and pupils will be an integral part of the project, we will be building on our expertise within our school communities and earlier Rolls-Royce Projects.
• Implement curricular science animation projects and develop the science project for society.
• The project would culminate in a science day for all school contributors and the local public.

Monitoring and evaluation

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

Using the monitoring procedures established through our 3 specialisms:

• the pupil teams and RR Science Prize finalist board will establish the criteria for the success of the project and milestones throughout the 24 weeks of the project will be published
• the board and the project teams will maintain a visible timeline of their activities within the three schools
• monitoring forms which are reported to the board on a monthly basis ensure the quality and delivery of our project.
• Presentations by pupil groups at the SSAT National Conference (Nov) of the project developments to date and also at the national ASE January meeting and the late Spring Heads of Science meetings will be suitable milestone for external monitoring of the project.
• The published deadline for the animations and music output to be distributed on DVD.
• The project will be presented at the Wirral and Cheshire Heads of Science meetings and advertised on our websites and the output delivered through the Internet.
• The project would culminate in a science day for all school contributors and the local public.
• At each stage of the monitoring process data provided by questionnaires etc will inform the board and our Rolls-Royce Science mentor if we are on target to produce the output from the project in time and on budget.

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)

Evaluation of our project against criteria established by RR Science Prize board, eg the output will be evaluated by:

• number of scientific animations and songs
• diversity of the animations and music across the three sciences and Key Stages
• number of pupils participating in the project
• production of science animations that meet the identified needs of the local community
• number of occasions that Adobe Connect enables collaboration between the schools and also collaboration with external professionals within the science industry or further education
• number of hits that the interactive webpages on the websites achieves
• effect that science project has upon other science teachers and subject areas - science should lead the way!
• community questionnaires assess effectiveness for the community.

The professional development of staff and the development of pupils will be evaluated.

A comparison of baseline skills with regard to:

• creating animations
• development recording skills and digital manipulation of the sounds
• creation of both static and interactive webpages
• use and preparation of interactive assessment techniques
• skills needed to use Adobe Connect within the project and classroom environment.

Our evalution will flow from our monitoring forms and questionnaires - external validation has been identified within the monitoring section.

Budget

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

Budget Item	Cost (GBP)
Adobe Flash	300
Adobe Connect within three schools	3500
High quality webcams for the three schools	500
Travel expenses between the three schools	200
Contribution to Residential course for pupils from three schools	300
IT technical support	200
TOTAL	5000