Last week, was British Science Week and what an exciting time we had! Children were involved in lots of activities around school, including assemblies, at lunchtimes and during their regular science lessons, as well as taking part in live, online lessons with hundreds of other schools.

This year’s theme was ‘Curiosity: What’s your question?’ which was very much encouraging children to be asking questions about anything and everything in the world around them!

Assemblies focused on key scientists, including Tim Peake and Albert Einstein.

At lunchtimes, our science ambassadors welcomed children to their classes to take part in science-related colouring, animal word searches, colouring scientist bookmarks, guessing objects from images taken under a microscope and looking at real objects under a microscope (that one of our science ambassadors kindly brought into school).

Have a go and see how many objects you can identify from the microscope images (answers available on request).

Microscope images

During their regular science lessons, children were involved in a crime scene investigation to work out (from gathered evidence) who had stolen the after-school club biscuits!

Children visited the crime scene and were introduced to the crime and what they needed to do to solve it. There were 4 suspects and children analysed ink from a ransom note (using chromatography), examined a footprint and fibres found at the crime scene and analysed biscuit crumbs left at the scene to help them decide which of our suspects was guilty. (See individual class pages for further photos).

There was lots of accusations and speculation during the sessions but children had to prove who had committed the crime, not just guess!

On Thursday, KS1 took part in The BIG Farming QUESTion Show, a live, online session exploring four curious questions sent in by pupils:

• How do you train a sheepdog?
• What do all the buttons in your tractor do?
• When a cow poos, where does it go?
• How do farmers care for the wildlife on their farm?

On Friday, KS2 took part in a live, online lesson answering the question ‘How does Science turn Fields into Feasts?’ The session explored how farmers, scientists and chefs work together to transform fields into the feasts to celebrate Eid al‑Fitr, while uncovering the science behind every ingredient.

A massive ‘thank you’ to the science ambassadors – your enthusiasm and commitment was amazing and the week wouldn’t have happened without you!

Dr. Roberts

For British Science Week, we have decided to run our own poster competition and would love to have as many entries as possible.

Imagine that you discover an animal or plant that has never ever been seen by anyone before – design a poster to tell people about your amazing discovery.

Your poster should include:

• The name of your animal and plant, including its scientific name;
• A drawing or picture of your newly-discovered animal or plant;
• The features of your animal or plant that help it to live and survive (think about what it looks like, its habitat, what it eats, how it behaves).

Make your poster creative, eye-catching, colourful and informative (it can be on A4 or A3 paper). Please ask if you need any resources.

There are examples of posters in school to help children understand the kinds of things to include.

Prizes for the best posters!! We look forward to seeing your poster entries!

Closing date for entries Wednesday 15th April.

More news about what we’ve been up to in school during British Science Week to follow very soon …

Dr. Roberts

As part of British Science Week 2025, children in different classes took part in various live online lessons (Science Farm LIVE), along with hundreds of other schools in the UK. During Amazing Adaptations Day, Darwin class met a cow geneticist who explained how different breeds of cow are adapted to different climates – comparing a native UK cattle breed (the Belted Galloway or Beltie) and an African cattle breed (the Zebus or camel cow). We learned how the different breeds have adaptations to enable them to survive in different habitats, why farmers and scientists use selective breeding to breed animals with different traits  and even experienced the live birth of a Beltie calf!

We then learned about a flock of sheep in Wales that have been selectively bred for their climate friendly features – they burp out less methane (a greenhouse gas) so have less impact on global warming. The aim of the project is to reduce carbon production from sheep farming, which will be more environmentally friendly.

Next, we learned how selective breeding and adaptation in plants can help create climate change resistant crops and finally, how we can try to reduce our food waste at home by eating all of the food that we buy (‘loving our leftovers’) and cooking zero-waste dishes (such as cauliflower cheese using the whole vegetable – it looked delicious!).

Please see below what we’ve been up to at our first two Science Club sessions. These are for KS2 children – I will arrange a club for KS1 children in the future.

Dr. Roberts

25/2/25 – week 1 (‘Magic milk’)

In our first session, we looked at ‘magic milk’ where food colouring is dropped into a shallow plate of milk then washing-up liquid is dabbed into the spots of food colouring using a cotton bud. This causes movement and bursts and swirls of colour which amazed the children!

We wanted to investigate what was causing this so discussed what variables we could change. Children then decided one variable that they were going to investigate in their group – type of milk (whole, semi-skimmed, skimmed), type of washing-up liquid (Fairy or Tesco) or type of liquid (milk or water).

Children measured out the same volume of milk for their investigations using a measuring cylinder and completed their investigation.

Each group shared their findings and we talked about what they had observed and what might explain their observations. We discovered that the fat content of milk produced different results – and that water behaved differently to milk because it contains no fat. The higher the fat content of the milk, the more dramatic the effects of the colour bursts as the washing-up liquid rapidly disperses the fat. We discussed how washing-up liquid is designed to break down fat on your dishes to make them easier to clean which would explain this behaviour in milk. We talked about improvements in our investigations and what we would do differently if we repeated this activity.

Everyone enjoyed it and came up with some excellent scientific theories!

4/3/25 – week 2 (‘Fizz balloons’)

This week, children were presented with the challenge of how they could blow up a balloon without blowing air into it! After some head-scratching and discussion, we worked out that we could use baking soda and white vinegar which would react together to form a gas (which we discovered was carbon dioxide). After watching a video, we found out that baking soda is a base and vinegar is an acid – bases and acids react together to give off a gas.

Children decided one variable that they were going to investigate in their group to understand how it affected how well the balloon was blown up – amount of baking soda; amount of vinegar; type of liquid reacting with the baking soda (white vinegar, lemon juice (also acidic) or water); size of bottle; type of balloon (round or long).

Children used a measuring cylinder to accurately measure the volume of liquid and measuring spoons for the baking soda.

Children completed their investigations then shared their findings – we talked about what they had observed and what might explain their observations. We discovered that vinegar and lemon juice both reacted with baking soda to produce gas that filled the balloon, however, water did not react at all (no gas was produced). The reaction with lemon juice caused more fizzing which bubbled up into the balloon – could lemon juice be a stronger acid than vinegar? We will investigate this further another day. When more baking soda was used, there was more fizzing but it did not make a massive difference to filling the balloon with gas – maybe it ran out of vinegar to react with? Using a bigger bottle made the balloon inflate less – the carbon dioxide filled the greater space in the bottle rather than being forced into the balloon. Longer balloons were harder to inflate than round balloons – we agreed that this is also true when you try to blow them up; it is harder to force air into a long balloon.

We talked about what we would do like to investigate further – is lemon juice a stronger acid than vinegar? Is water an acid?

Another week of amazing investigating!

Science Ambassadors

We have recently selected Science Ambassadors from across the school who are children with an enthusiasm for science that they want to share with others. Their role is to help promote and develop science at our school, including supporting teachers during science lessons and helping promote events such as British Science Week (see below).

Here are our new Science Ambassadors who are already stepping up to the challenges of the role – well done to all of you (it was a tough choice to choose you due to so much interest)!

British Science Week (7th to 16th March)

Next week is British Science Week, an annual event to celebrate all sciences and their importance in our everyday lives, promoted by the British Science Association. The theme for this year is ‘Change and Adapt’. During the week, children will be taking part in live online lessons with hundreds of other schools, will be bringing data to life by creating a giant, whole-school graph showing how our height changes over time and are encouraged to enter a national poster competition (see below).

Poster Competition – Create a poster using the theme of ‘Change and adapt’. Your poster could show:

• how plants and animals adapt to changing seasons or surroundings;
• how humans have adapted to changing technology;
• how we can adapt our behaviours to protect the environment from climate change;
• your favourite science experiment and how it shows change.

The more creative the interpretation of the theme, the better! All classes have received details about the poster competition and have seen last year’s winning entries to give them some inspiration. Posters need to be on A4 or A3 paper which school can provide, if required. We would love to see lots of posters being entered – deadline for entry is 31st March 2025. If anyone requires further information, please let me know and I am very happy to provide it.

Dr. Roberts