6 April 2020
The true value of the relationships built through Abingdon School’s partnership work has really come to the fore in present circumstances, with local and national partners working closely with Abingdon Science Partnership, ASP, to produce remote learning resources, for use both in schools supporting key worker children and for parents and children at home. ASP Co-ordinator Jeremy Thomas has developed a set of science lesson plans for flexible use in primary schools with invaluable, primary planning expertise provided by Holly Irving, Year 2 teacher and Science Co-ordinator at Caldecott Primary School, and Ruth Barnett, Year 1/2 teacher and Science and Maths Co-ordinator at Sunningwell Primary School. These resources can be found online thanks to the efforts of Megan Milarski, ASP Assistant, who has re-purposed the ASP’s online workshop booking portal in a very short time to allow this to happen.
Through this facility we are also able to collaborate with our friends and colleagues running Oundle School’s OPEN Learning Partnership and offer the web portal as a joint facility to allow sharing of Home Science resources that they have developed in collaboration with their partners at Imperial College. These are also available, free to anyone interested, via the link above. The collaboration with OPEN is a great example of the value of belonging to the Schools Together network, allowing the sharing of good practice, ideas and resources between state and independent schools across the whole country.
As well as primary level resources, the ASP online portal has a secondary level section listing many, useful online resources for older pupils, all accompanied by reviews and suggested uses by ASP staff. In addition, there is an All Ages section with ideas for anyone interested in science to take this opportunity to take part in Citizen Science projects or learn more about subjects like astronomy, including via a link to a growing section of GCSE astronomy lesson plans to support ASP’s weekly, partnership astronomy class which is usually attended by students from four, local secondary schools.
ASP Co-ordinator, Jeremy Thomas, commented, ‘We may not be able to offer any hands-on workshops or activities in our bespoke Partnership Lab for the foreseeable future, but we are determined that all the valuable work and expertise built up over the past five years is instantly put to use in supporting anything science-related that we can do remotely with our partners. In particular, we would like to thank Holly Irving at Caldecott, Ruth Barnett at Sunningwell and Steve Adams at Oundle for the enthusiastic and positive ways in which they have worked with us as true partners in science education.’
The photos below show some of the simple, easily resourced activities we have developed for primary/home use:
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Investigating slippery surfaces
- Ideas from Caldecott Primary School pupils for the crystal creations resource
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Sunningwell Primary School pupils demonstrate the rainbow collectors activity
