Family Learning Night: space

December 11, 2017

“Lovely, confident and helpful children for the activities. Thank you very much! We will be adding some space, science, star related pressies to the Christmas lists I think!”

- family member of a child who attended the Family Learning Night

With almost 100 guests from three different schools packed into Gillespie Primary School’s bottom hall to learn about space, our first Science for Life Family Learning Night was a stellar success!

Held on the evening of Tuesday 6th December, the event consisted of seven interactive workshops, ranging from rocket design and planetary science investigations, to space dancing and constellation card making. These were collaboratively planned and hosted by children from two of our partnership schools, with the support of Gillespie and Pakeman Schools’ Scientists in Residence. The Gillespie Lab Committee and the Pakeman Science Ambassadors met beforehand to plan and practice their workshops together, and their families were invited to attend and participate in the workshops.

This event was put on through the SfL Child Leadership Hub, which focuses on developing child leadership of science. Children from Thornhill’s Science Ambassadors team and their families, as well as Thornhill’s Science Lead, attended as special guests.

The children who put on the event loved meeting and working with children from other schools. As the children from Pakeman Primary put it, they particularly enjoyed “collaborating with new people and making a new friend” and “doing the experiment and learning about the surface of the Moon”

Next term the Child Leadership Hub are planning to put on a Children’s Conference for child leaders of science across our SfL partnership schools to share what they have been up to in their schools. Our hope is that collaborative events will enable the sharing of good practice in child leadership of science, and also make it more manageable for science leads to put on science events and invite special guests to their schools.

Written by Carole Kenrick