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Workplace Science Challenge |
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School: Kelvin Hall School,
Hull |
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Fellow: David Mansfield |
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Email: d.mansfield41@virgin.net |
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Final Report: |
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Overview |
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Yorkshire Forward, the local regional development
agency, identified as part of the Future Horizons
Project shortage skills in industries that
were important to the sustained economic wealth
of the Humber region. The main industries
for the region were categorised into six cluster
areas of biosciences, food, drink and agriculture,
ports and logistics, advanced manufacturing
and engineering, chemical industries and digital
industries. The industries in the region have
a strong science bias. From the local labour
market information published by Yorkshire
Forward I identified the shortage skills common
to all regional employers were leadership,
communication skills, problem solving, analytical
skills, ICT skills, literacy and business
awareness. Working with Humber EBLO, who established
contacts for me with regional businesses,
I visited these industries and identified
experiments that are routinely carried out
in the workplace that could also be carried
out by students at school and promote use
of the shortage skills. |
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Aim |
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To develop a secondary school
online science investigation competition,
Workplace Science Challenge, that promotes
the use of the shortage skills identified
by employers in the Humber region. |
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Achievements |
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A Web-site has been developed,
www.wsc.org.uk
that incorporates science investigations
for each of the six cluster areas that are
matched to the Key Stages 3 and 4 science
curricula. An article advertising the Web-site
featured in the TES Teacher on November 26th
2004. |
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Evaluation |
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Eight secondary schools registered
their interest to compete in Workplace Science
Challenge. These schools though did not submit
any entries. Feedback from the schools highlighted
that they did not have time to type in the
names of students so that their details are
already on the certificates they would receive
for participating in the competition. They
all agreed that the competition was a good
idea and they especially liked the bank of
work related science investigations. My focus
this year was more on writing the science
investigations and designing the Web-site.
It was difficult to consider potential teething
problems with the process of running the competition
until this was actually done. The competition
will run again next year with Humber EBLO
advertising the competition in schools and
taking over the administrative tasks required
to run the competition. We will also look
at the registration process for the competition
and consider ways of making this less arduous
as this seems to be the main stumbling block
for teachers not entering students into the
competition. |
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I received positive feedback
from teachers outside the Humberside region
that further supports the concept of Workplace
Science Challenge. An e-mail from a Head of
Science in Hertfordshire reads “My Head
Technician found an article about your challenge
idea in TES Teacher magazine and we were desperately
disappointed that we couldn’t join in
the challenge. We think this is a fantastic
idea.” |
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A study of the statistics for
the Web-site shows that it has generated a
lot of interest and is becoming increasingly
popular since its launch in November (see
Fig. 1), despite not advertising it with any
of the Search Engines. |
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Fig. 1 Trend seen in
the number of visitors to the Workplace Science
Challenge Web-site since its launch in November
2004.
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Interestingly 54% of the visits
are from the USA and the remainder from the
UK. Apart from the Homepage the most popular
page on the Web-site is the investigation
index, receiving 81% of the hits from visitors. |
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Conclusion |
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The popularity of Workplace
Science Challenge, over 25000 single hits
since its launch in November 2004, suggests
that there is a need and a strong interest
for such a Web-site but perhaps not in its
current format as a competition. The statistics
strongly suggest that the Web-site should
instead be a database of work related science
investigations that are a resource for teachers
world-wide. |
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Future Developments |
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I shall investigate the potential
to secure funding that will develop Workplace
Science Challenge as a world-wide database
of work related science investigations. This
could be achieved as a collaborative project
with Gatsby Technical Education Projects and
the Industrial Trust. This would also tie
in with my school’s bid for science
college specialist school status. |
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How being a Gatsby
Teacher Fellow has benefited me and my school |
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I felt that my selection as
a Gatsby Teacher Fellow for 2004-05 provided
recognition of my ideas in a National context.
The project benefited my school with the collaborative
links I now have with Gatsby, local businesses,
EBLO, colleges and universities. These links
coupled to a large increase in science GCSE
results, circa. 35%, in the last two years
has prompted my Headteacher to approach me,
as the Head of Science, to write an application
for Science College Specialist School Status.
This could lead in the near future to a promoted
post at Senior Leadership level. |
