PPE Awsome Athletes Goes National

Awesome Athletes is a complete science day package on the theme of human, animal and machine movement. It brings the expertise of professional university researchers, packaged in a format that is accessible to primary school teachers and fun and exciting for children. This project provides all the resources, materials and know-how to put on such an event. It also includes a mechanism to allow the day to be disseminated to many more schools than would be possible through the conventional route of a researcher from the University visiting a school.The day begins with a multimedia, scripted, assembly to introduce both the subject and the concept of a research science as a way of discovering information about the world. Following the assembly, class teachers can 'pick and mix' a selection of activities, each targeted at a National Curriculum area. These activities cover a range of subjects (including drama and literacy) but all have a science element. All activities suggest work to do beyond the day to extend the learning opportunities beyond the day and also the school setting. At the end of the day there is a plenary session, which can be either class or whole school based. This takes the form of a computer based competition/quiz where the children answer questions using remote control type handsets. Feedback and further guided discussion can easily be incorporated in this session.In addition to delivering the day 'in person' to 30 schools in the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire LEA areas, the Awesome Athletes team will put on 4 seminar based workshops to widen the dissemination of the day to representatives of 200 primary schools nationally. These workshops will include presentations by the researchers and a primary head teacher to introduce the principles behind the day and demonstrate how the resources can be accessed. The schools participating in these workshops (and the local schools) will become members of a 'cooperative network' where issues can be discussed, problems solved and new material and practice shared. Additionally, similar seminar will be given for community outreach organisations from other universities to encourage wider dissemination of the movement themed day and to suggest that it be employed as a strategy for other primary science engagement activities.