Able Students – Science

Science

Head of Department/Contact: Naomi Edgell
Email nedgell@penryn-college.cornwall.sch.uk

All KS3 students have the opportunity to join Science leaders who meet once a week at lunch time. They raise the profile of Science across the school and organise and run events and assemblies. They also run, plan, resource and deliver primary school workshops in school for our primary feeder schools. Previous years have gone into primary schools to deliver science days. These provide excellent opportunities to develop leadership qualities within a science field. Year 8 and 9 able students are selected to take part in our STEM club. This year we have secured funding from the Royal Society to run a wind and water tunnel project. Four students will then be selected to go up to the Royal Society in London to deliver a presentation on this work. Trips are organised to visit STEM companies which broadens our able students understanding of the world of Science. We have close links to the university of Exeter (Tremough campus) and have secured funding to deliver a Remote operated underwater vehicle (ROV) project where our STEM club will build and design scientific experiments around the Cornish coastline.

Students are set from year 7 through to year 11. Able students are pushed in class to complete stretch activities which run alongside the whole class taught content. Tasks range from answering more in depth questions relating to the topic being taught or answering higher level questions which require a great deal more thought and understanding linking different areas of the curriculum. Year 10 and 11 able students are taught triple science. This gives them the opportunity to secure three separate sciences of Biology, Chemistry and Physics instead of two with the combined double award.