Two students in Year 12, Ash & Livia, elected to complete their work experience week in The Cooper School Science Department. They were introduced to a number of roles within Science education as they started the week shadowing, questioning and helping the following groups of people:

Members of staff in the ACE
Science technicians
Science teachers

The overall plan for the week was to help them build their knowledge about teaching and their confidence in a classroom to the point where they might teach at least part of a lesson themselves on Friday - a prospect which made them both extremely uncomfortable from the outset.

They spent Wednesday observing a variety of Science lessons taught by different Science teachers with the aim of finding out how teachers plan, teach, manage and assess each lesson. They were also encouraged to get involved and help individual students in order to overcome some of their social barriers. They both gained a lot of insight from the day and began to grow in confidence.

By Thursday, the thought of teaching a lesson themselves had been scaled down from absolute terror to mere panic as they spent the day planning and resourcing a lesson for me to teach that afternoon. I was really impressed with the way the students approached this task. They had clearly learned a lot from their observations and research during the earlier part of the week.

Then came the big day. The day they would prepare for and teach their own lesson to my Year 9 class in the afternoon. To be honest, I don’t think there’s a teacher in the land whose heart doesn’t sink a bit when they see on their timetable a Year 9 class, last lesson, on a Friday afternoon. So I was gobsmacked when both Ash & Livia actually came into school that morning knowing what was facing them. But they did it. After helping me with the new Year 12 induction lessons they taught a whole lesson of their own between them. They had planned the sequence of activities for the lesson, they checked their students’ understanding during the lesson, they corrected misconceptions as they arose and they got through it - intact. I think they went home about 30cm taller than they were at the start of the day.

I am so very proud of both of them, as I am of my Year 9 class for being so accommodating.

A fantastic work experience.

Livia

Ash

The Death-Stare

June 2025

UKBC Intermediate Biology Olympiad

Fifteen Year 12 Biology students from TCS chose to take part in this year’s Intermediate Biology Olympiad: A national competition in which over 17,000 students took part. The exam is an hour long and is completed online in strict test conditions.

Certificates were awarded to students in the following categories:

Gold (Top 5% of entrants)

Silver

Bronze

Highly Commended

Commended (Top 15% of entrants)

Congratulations to all students who participated. Some are pictured with their certificates below. Others scarpered as I was getting the camera ready. A special mention goes to Gytis for his Gold Award, putting him in the top 5% of those who entered - Well done!!

Dahab, Maja, Evie, Ash & Gytis

Livia, Lexie & Semilore

Albert

Mielle

April 2025

UKBC Biology Challenge Competition

A group of students in Years 9 and 10 took part in this year's Biology Challenge competition. This is an online Biology exam in which our students competed with over 4200 other 13-15 year olds across the country.

Year 10 students with their certificate.

Dylan in Year 9

An impressive set of results were acheived, particularly from Ieva and Airon with Bronze and Silver certificates respectively. This puts them in the top 20% of those who participated.

Well done to all for volunteering and for your hard work.

March 2025

British Science Week 2025

To celebrate British Science Week 2025 we held a variety of activities within the department.

To start the week I published what has become my annual video assembly. This is becoming something of a tradition at The Cooper School at this time of year. Also on Monday, students were given the opportunity to put some working scientists under the spotlight and question them with whatever they wanted to know.

On Wednesday our very own headteacher, Dr Whannel, wowed a collection of students from all year groups with a lunchtime spectacular demonstration of the Chemistry of Fire. Advertised as an opportunity to learn about the chemistry of combustion and oxidation, I suspect it was more about having the chance to set fire to some some reaally cool things. Plenty of photos of the event are shown below.

Mr Dorley and I have also been out and about with our cameras this week to capture and showcase some of the class practical sessions that students regularly engage with during the day. We've seen a range of investigative work in Biology, Chemistry and Physics classes.

It's been quite the week.

Video Assembly from Mr Upstone

2025 Change and Adapt.mp4

Practical Science

A selection of images taken during Science lessons this week...

Investigating insulators

Measuring the chemical energy in crisps

Investigating properties of light

Structure & function of a mammalian heart

Investigating energy transfers

Investigating refraction

Investigating reflection

Extracting copper from its ore

Analysing salts in water

Online Chat with some Scientists

Students from all year groups were invited to come and chat online with a group of working scientists. Using the "I'm a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here" platform, students were able to ask their own questions to 5 scientists. Our students clearly thought hard about the questions they posed, aiming to get the most out of their limited time. Questions ranged from how the scientists became interested in science to questions asking for advice on A Level choices, apprenticeships, work experience and study skills.

A full transcript of the session including the responses from all the scientists is here below:

Online chats with scientists

Live Chat – I'm a Scientist 2024_25.pdf

The Chemistry of Fire - A pyromaniac's dream

Chemistry teacher and headteacher Dr Wannel treated us to a lunchtime show that we're not going to forget in a while. Students from across the whole school in all year groups were invited to attend and learn about the chemistry of combustion; about how fire is a chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidising agent such as oxygen, which releases energy in the form of light and heat as the chemical bonds rearrange into new and more stable products.

Well, that's the science bit. Now for the demonstrations:

Sulfur reacting with oxygen

The science of sparklers - Iron filings

Cannon Fire! Ethanol burning in oxygen

Burning methane trapped in soapy bubbles

Whooosh! - Ethanol vapour

We'd all like to thank Dr Whannel for taking the time to put this on for us, although I suspect he enjoyed it just as much as we did.

January 2025

Scientists in Schools Symposium

For the past 3 years The Cooper School has been lucky enough to be involved in this initiative.

The talks we were presented with today were from PHD Student Lorin Loftus and Vaccine Production Scientist Dr Patience Brace. They treated some of our Year 10/11/12 students to an introduction to viruses; talking about how viruses are spread, how they are contained and how they can be used as tools to deliver gene therapy treatments for some pretty serious genetic disorders.

"Informative and well articulated"

"An amazing experience"

Lorin Loftus

A graduate student of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford. Lorin focuses on vaccine development for emerging and outbreak pathogens.

Dr Patience Brace

A Senior Vaccine Production Scientist with the Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility at Oxford University.

"This has persuaded me to follow a career in Science"

Viruses are so small that they're hidden in plain sight, but it's easy to see their big impact on our world and health. Lorin showed us how pandemics are spread and explained the work of the virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists who are tasked with trying to protect us.

Viruses are brilliant at infecting our cells and transfering their genetic information. Dr Brace showed us some of the mechanisms they use to insert DNA into our genome leading to a variety of diseases. She then went on to explore how scientists are using these viral mechanisms to transfer healthy genes into patients suffering from genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis.

Our students listened with keen interest and asked our guests some great questions.

"The Cooper School has gone viral"

We'd like to thank Lorin and Dr Brace for their time and the OIBC for making the arrangements. We can't wait for next year.

I think it's safe to say our students have caught the science bug!!

December 2024

Merry Christmas!!

My classroom is decorated with this magnificent Christmas Chemis-tree and the Science Department wish you all a very happy and restful break when it comes.

Take care.

Mr Upstone.

Why I Love Science - The Finals

Back in November (see below) The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, part of the Science & Technology Facilities Council, organised a Science Essay Competition with the title "Why I Love Science".

16 students from The Cooper School entered and 2 were selected to attend a celebration of finalists at RAL's Harwell campus. Both students were asked to produce a video presentation to be shown on the night which demonstrates their love of Science. All finalist students from all schools were treated to a tour of the Rutherford Appleton Labs facilities, incliding the Diamond Light synchrotron, as part of an evening of activities and celebration along with their friends and families.

We are all so proud of Zac and Elliot who came joint runners up in the whole competition.

Runners up - Well done both!

See Zac & Elliot's video presentations here:

Why I Love Science - Zac Blyton.mov

Why I Love Science - Elliot Hill.mp4

"Thank you for giving him the chance to take part in this Science Prize"

"Really like the way he has looked at the impact of Science on his everyday life"

"He has learned a lot from the process"

November 2024

Visit to Royal Veterinary College

A group of our Biology students visited the Royal Veterinary College's London Campus where they had the opportunity to find out about world-class science discovery and their Biological Sciences degree programmes.

Students were able to explore:

Fun science activities including using microscopes in the teaching labs
Drawing workshops in the anatomy museum, not usually open to the public
Groundbreaking research through hands-on activities
Mini-lectures
A tour the London Campus
The RVC’s BSc and MSci Biological Sciences programmes
Speak with academic staff, researchers and hear from students across all of the RVC’s undergraduate degree pathways

The students were asked to write a brief summary of their visit. This is what they had to say:

"We were lucky enough to be able to the Royal London Veterinary School where we were shown around campus and what facilities they had to offer us as prospective students, they showed us what they had to offer us and what was required of us to be able to get in. There’s various different courses they have to offer like; biochemistry, veterinary nursing and veterinary medicine in general. There’s a gateway year course that you can partake in which consists of various different placements in various different locations which we think would be very fun - a few of them even involve just cuddling baby animals which doesn't sound like a bad way to get a degree. It’s located not far from the Camden tube station which was very easy to get to, we had to get a train to London and then a few tubes to get to it but it was easy enough and would be accessible to get to and from home to visit family in Bicester. When being shown around, we were able to go into the preservative room where we weren't able to take pictures so cannot show but it contained lots of glass jars with different body parts of different animals. It was really disgusting actually and we wanted to leave the room as it was really freaky.

Overall, it was an amazing experience and we’re so glad we went. It has opened our eyes to some of the opportunities available to us and has definitely given us food for thought about our futures."

Why I Love Science - Essay Competition

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, part of the Science & Technology Facilities Council, have organised a 500 word Science Essay Competition for students in Years 7-8. The title of the essay is "Why I Love Science". 16 students from The Cooper School entered and amazingly 2 of them have made it to the finals.

A hybrid celebration of entrants will be held at RAL's Harwell campus, where finalists and their families will be invited to attend in person. All other entrants will be able to join the celebration online. I'll post details of the event once I know more.

I'd like to personally thank these amazing 16 students for their efforts:

Isabella, Gabriel, Zac, Jaxon, Shumirai, Paulina, Jack, Aidan, David-Christian, Elliot, Ike, Alfie, Dylan, Joshua, Aaron and Mannat.

I'd also like to showcase a selection of the essays here:

Our 2 finalists:

Zac.pdf

Elliot.pdf

A selection of our other entries:

Mannat.pdf

Aiden.pdf

Shumirai.pdf

Aaron.pdf

Jaxon.pdf

Isabella.pdf

Paulina.pdf

Ike.pdf

October 2024

Visit to Diamond Light Source

A group of Year 12 Science students visited the Diamond Light Source at Harwell Science Campus near Didcot. Diamond run the UK's national Synchrotron, a huge electron accelerator which emits high energy light.

The machine accelerates electrons to near light speeds so that they give off light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. These bright beams are then directed off into 32 separate laboratories known as ‘beamlines’. Here, scientists use the light to study a vast range of subject matter, from new medicines and treatments for disease to innovative engineering and cutting-edge technology.

Samples to be studied are placed into the beams and investigated in one of four ways:

They analyse way the light scatters off the surface of the samples.
They look at how light is absorbed by the samples.
They measure how much the light is diffracted by the samples.
They detect the fluorescence given off by the samples.

From these investigations, scientists can work out the fine structure of the samples right down to the atomic level.

90% of the work done by Diamond is provided free of charge to academic institutions as long as their results are made publicly available. Beamtime needs to be booked several months in advance but the results are truely impressive. Applications have been wide ranging so far and seem limited only by our imagination. For example:

Work has been done to image a 3.7 million year old fossilised skull. The detail was so great, they could see the imprints made by blood vessels and use these to interpret the type of diet she ate.
Ancient scrolls have been studied with such precision that the ink could be read without even unfolding the brittle paper.
The structure of virus particles can be matched to the structures of potential vaccine drugs with a view to increasing vaccine efficacy.

Our students, shown here waiting to attend their tour, found the visit fascinating and they expressed afterwards how much they are now motivated to follow a STEM career.

"An amazing opportunity to see how all sciences are used in the world of work, and a fantastic chance to see how what we are learning at school is used in real life."

Standing above the main storage ring - not so much a ring but a 50 sided polygon

(a pentacontagon).

The main storage ring - accelerated electrons are guided inside vacuum tubes by huge magnets.

Inside one of the beamlines - light is emitted from the storage ring into a beamline each time the electrons change direction.

"I have such a passion for physics and it was amazing to see it in action and to learn about how all the different sciences can work together to make such brilliant discoveries."

"it was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced before."

"It was a very interesting and insightful trip, and has made me excited about possible careers I could have in STEM."

If students are interested in following a career at Diamond, they do offer a variety of work placements for school students, three different level 3 apprenticeships which could lead on to higher education courses, and then once you have your degree they also offer a number of PHD Studentships.

Apart from at Cooper School, of course, I'm struggling to think of a better place for a scientist to work. I think I've seen the light!

September 2024

Do you plan to attend Medical School?

InvestIN provide a series of free webinars aimed at helping students explore the options available to them once they leave school forever. Their latest one about making it into medical school provided some great insight and advice for any student wishing to study medicine at university and beyond. The webinar discussed the various routes to becoming a medical doctor as well as offering some advice about which courses to apply for, in which universities and how to succeed in the entrance interviews.

As with any competitive courses, the med school entrance interviews are going to be tough. This webinar gives students a number of tips and advice about how to prepare, what types of work experience they should be looking to gain and which skills to develop beforehand.

With permission from InvestIN, the webinar slides are reproduced below. Make sure you visit the InvesIN site as they have many other online free webinars for you to attend as well as giving you the chance to view past events. Their next one will explain the university application process for all other undergraduate degree courses

Making it into Medical School - Student & Parent Event Slides.pdf

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