STEM Week

Over the two weeks we have the following visitors from within our school community (made up of parents, governors, neighbours, and staff family members):

Geologists; An embryologist; A pilot; A zoo keeper; An AI engineer; A maintenance engineer; An MD of a design agency; A physiotherapist; Scientists; An online safety expert; An archeologist; Mathematicians; A Chief financial officer; Someone working in renewable energy; and someone working in wearable tech!

Some children are visiting the National Physical Laboratory and Teddington School’s tech labs, and all children will be completing a range of design and technology projects.

Why?

To inspire a generation of scientists and engineers, and all manner of aspiration in our children. And to bring their learning to life!

How can I get involved at home? 

Hopefully the children will have come home motivated to create cardboard creations. This website offers great activities to support the inner engineer in you all!

Year 4 have had a great time this STEM week working on their DT project - 'pavilions'! We researched different pavilions around the world and their uses and then experimented with how to make the strongest structures possible using cocktail sticks and plasticine. Their task was to use this knowledge to design and build their own pavilion for some kind of event. We saw some amazingly creative designs for all sorts of events, from concerts to pool parties, from royal garden parties to weddings - the St John's Party Pavilion Company can do it all!  Y4 also enjoyed a visit from a Geologist

Dr Tim Pullen from King's College London worked with a group of Year 6 pupils to help them prepare for science demonstrations to the rest of the school. They investigated acids and alkalis, making a pH indicator out of beetroot and red cabbage. They made a bang with vinegar and bicarb, investigated non-Newtonians fluids and finally made Cartesian divers. The Year 6s did really well explaining their experiments to their audience. 

The Head of Science from Teddington School led an exciting assembly this week! He spoke to the whole school about the importance of STEM for the future and demonstrated the 'awe and wonder' of Science with different explosive experiments! These included: elephant's toothpaste, a whoosh bottle, flame tests (how different metals produce different coloured flames) and what happens to potassium when it's added to water! What a brilliant way to ignite the children's passion for Science! Mrs McAloon 

We are so proud of our six budding rocket engineers in Y5 who represented St John's at the annual NPL Water Rocket Challenge! Their enthusiasm on the day was infectious! They competed against 39 other teams - largely from local secondary schools - and were proud to come in third place by round 2! After round three, we placed ninth overall and narrowly missed out on a trophy for the longest flight time. The winning team had a flight time of 7.5 seconds and our longest flight time was 7.2 seconds! Most importantly, the children had a wonderful day and worked brilliantly as a team! Mrs McAloon & Mr Nicholls 

Y6 have been having fun learning about food technology at Teddington school, and cooking up delicious stir fry!

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