British Science Week

British Science Week is a 10-day national celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM). This year’s theme was time and there were exciting events at Embley Prep this week, and the launch of some longer-term activities. 

We welcomed Jennifer O’Farrell, a pharmaceutical and biotech patent attorney from D Young & Co, for a whole-school assembly about her job. Jenny describes and defines inventions to create patents and led a workshop with Years 5 and 6 where the children were challenged to create their own inventions to solve a real-world problem. The children had a brilliant time discussing possible solutions, figuring out how their inventions might work and deciding which part could be patentable!

Nursery to Year 6 met the puppies of Deefer, our Prep School dog, for the first time. Years 3 to 6 will be following the puppies’ development, having witnessed the early stages of their formation before birth. Years 1 to 6 explored the fascinating world of mini beasts using VR headsets in a fully immersive 3D experience. They enjoyed viewing the world from the perspective of the intriguing invertebrates they might find in their own gardens including beetles and bees!  

In Science lessons and STEM Club, pupils across the Prep learnt about how time is recorded. Year 1 and 2 explored how the sun moves across the sky and it can be used to tell the time. Years 4 to 6 created pendulum timers, investigating how changing the swing can affect how the timer works, and Years 3 and 4 experimented with jelly – learning about how long it takes to set and what factors influences this. In Natural Sciences, pupils explored our extensive grounds, identifying trees, plants, invertebrates and birds. We will conduct a similar survey at another point in the year and see how our recorded species have changed over time.  

We were excited to launch our Key Stage 2 Art project, exploring how trees change over time. Each year group is designing their own tree to represent one of the four seasons and these will be displayed in the Lewis Hall. And British Science Week saw the launch of our ‘I wonder…’ box – encouraging children to be curious about the world around them. We have partnered with Hamiltonian Dynamics and their scientists and engineers will answer the children’s questions about any aspect of how our world works.