On 21 November visiting teachers from four schools in Taunton met at King’s College to perform and discuss required GCSE practical work. The teachers, from The Heathfield Community School, Taunton Academy, Wellington School and King’s College Taunton looked at the specific heat capacity of aluminium, sand and water; and the transfer of thermal energy by radiation. … Read more
A Physics Partners Network meeting was hosted by Worth School on Tuesday. Nine science teachers from schools in the Crawley hub of Physics Partners attended the two-hour session, which focused on how the topic of energy is covered in the new GCSE syllabuses. The Crawley hub is collaboration between the Institute of Physics and schools … Read more
A workshop for some schools in the West Kent hub took place on Thursday 13 October at Sevenoaks School. Five teachers took part with the afternoon led by Steve Sharp of the Sevenoaks Physics department. Experiments included a ‘demolition ball’ to demonstrate energy transfer; a pea shooter experiment: finding the muzzle velocity of a propelled ball bearing; … Read more
At the recent Cornwall teacher workshop on at Truro School, we had a sharing session where each delegate could bring their best ideas or demonstrate a teaching tool. Ben Lloyd-King from Richard Lander brought along his new ‘Heath Robinson’ wave machine. Simply constructed from wooden dowel, sandwiched between two layers of duct tape, it provided the … Read more
The Cornwall Physics Education Partnership held its first teacher workshop on 10 October at Truro School. Delegates from eight local schools attended – Bodmin College, Camborne Science and International Academy, Falmouth School, Humphry Davy School, Penair, Richard Lander School, Truro High School and Wadebridge School. Led by Adam Laity (Head of Physics, Truro School) and … Read more
[dt_highlight color=”” text_color=”” bg_color=””]An update of recent Physics Partners schools meetings.[/dt_highlight] Liverpool 12 September 2016 Six schools met at St Francis Xavier College in Woolton to agree a programme of six meetings this academic year. They will work on the new Key Stage 4 syllabus in Physics.Two other groups of schools, based at West … Read more
King Edward VI School Birmingham hosted two outstanding lectures in its Performing Arts Centre on Thursday 30 June. The first was on Gravitational Waves by Andreas Freise, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Birmingham. The second, on The Higgs Bosun and The Large Hadron Collider was given by Alan Barr, Professor of Particle … Read more
Take nine exhausted end-of-term science teachers, some radioactive sources, a few bags of Skittles, some play-dough and mix in a few dodgy sporting analogies – and you have all the ingredients needed for a successful Physics Partners training session! We started with some true/false statements to break the ice and tease out some themes. This … Read more
As of September 2015, practical work in A-Level Physics is no longer assessed through examination – but it’s still a core part of the curriculum. We’ve been keeping a close eye on the support and resources available to teachers, and we think there’s a gap. To start filling it, we teamed up with physics teacher Alom Shaha to … Read more
The enthusiasm of the facilitators for all things physics was infectious. Inexperienced staff at Harris have been given the confidence to teach physics in an engaging and challenging way. New and innovative teaching strategies have been demonstrated to ensure a positive impact on T&L in the classroom at Harris academies. S3 Physics have been used … Read more
