posted by Carol Lyon, Schools & Learning Support Officer (STEM), Schools and Learning
Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAISE)
Programme information
Background
The Wood Foundation is a proactive venture philanthropy funder, focusing on creating economic activity to help people help themselves, providing business development and capacity support, in addition to funding. The Foundation invests in a range of economic, community and enterprise activities in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the UK, this includes a strong portfolio focusing on youth philanthropy, global citizenship, developing Scotland’s young workforce and childhood poverty. The aim of The Wood Foundation is to develop and support individuals to become independent, contributing and caring members of society.
In partnership with Education Scotland and Scottish Government, The Wood Foundation is launching a new programme to provide strategic support to secure improvements in primary science education in Scottish schools. The ambition of this programme is to ensure all learners experience highly-engaging and motivating learning experiences in the sciences that will enable them to contribute effectively to society as scientifically literate citizens. The programme will also seek to equip learners with skills for learning, life and work thus enabling them to access a wide range of stimulating and rewarding careers, including those within science and STEM sectors.
Angus Council is one of ten local authorities invited to participate in the Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAISE) programme. This pilot programme will last for a total of thirty-three months. Five authorities are currently involved in phase one of the programme. Angus will be one of a second tranche of five authorities to join the programme from August 2017. Following a period of review, the programme may be extended for up to a further five years so as to benefit all local authorities in Scotland.
The successful candidate, appointed to the post of Primary Science Development Officer, will be responsible for raising aspirations in science education within Angus Council for a period of 23 months (August 2017 – July 2019). The secondee will work closely with other partner organisations including Education Scotland, Scottish Government, Scottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC) and other local authorities, to achieve the aims of the programme and ensure it aligns to national priorities and policies. This includes alignment to the emerging National Strategy for STEM, the Developing Young Workforce programme, National Improvement Framework, Scottish Attainment Challenge, Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy and promoting gender balance in STEM.
Aims of the programme
- To build capacity at local authority level to coordinate support for science, and to support sustainable and long-term improvements in science education
- To build the confidence, skills, knowledge and enthusiasm of primary school practitioners in relation to the teaching of the sciences (both in terms of content and pedagogy) by providing high-quality professional learning. This includes the provision of experiential learning to build capacity for the effective delivery of practical investigations.
- To raise attainment and achievement in primary science, with a particular emphasis on supporting those learners most in need
- To support the authority in their efforts to raise levels of engagement in primary science education, including providing opportunities to sustain and extend the impact of current participation in the SSERC Primary Cluster Programme
- To ensure that learning and teaching in the sciences reflects the principles of curriculum design and improves outcomes for learners by ensuring they are sufficiently challenged, motivated and understand the relevance of science both to them and to society as a whole
- To ensure that learners develop skills for learning, life and work and that progress and achievement is assessed, monitored, tracked and reported on effectively
- To promote effective cross-sector progression in the sciences, from early years to primary and from primary to secondary school
- To create effective opportunities for practitioners to network, share, collaborate, mentor and co-create with their peers.
For further information please see the attached job description. PSDO job description
Following our return from the summer course we decided to start a Chinese club for younger pupils in our school to share our experience of the rich and beautiful culture in China. Currently our club boasts around 20 pupils and runs weekly. So far we have not only taught them some Mandarin but we have also enjoyed teaching cooking, food tasting, art and games. In addition to running the club we compiled a video and presentation about our time in China that was shown to the entire school and we hosted the Guangzhou Cantonese puppet show in our school.
