Highlights from 2006/7

It has been another year of success in the science department that has seen many changes in both staff and curriculum.

Mr Goulding was appointed head of cluster in January, Miss Mathurin was formally appointed in March and Mr Manzoor has done a fantastic job for the last two terms before Miss Siddique becomes our newest member of the department in late July.

There have been changes in the curriculum at KS4. The year 10s are now following AQA core science. The new course very much focuses on Science in the news and how science is related to everyday lives. It has been a challenge but an enjoyable experience; we are expecting success when the grades are published in August. The year 11s will now be following either the Additional or Applied science route. The applied science is particularly exciting, it looks at science in the workplace and the girls will be expected to produce a scientific report on a company.

As usual there have been many trips and events during the year.

The whole of year 7 were taken to London zoo for the day. Here they competed in a quiz about animal adaptations to win individual and group prizes. As well as been a very enjoyable day, it was also educational fitting into the ecology unit of the year 7 scheme of work. The girls looked at how animals are adapted to their environment and how feeding relationships can be affected by humans, disease and pollution. All the students were exceptionally well behaved and a lot was gained from the experience.

The department held an extremely successful science week in March. The event helped to raise the profile of the department within the school and the local community. The week included a whole school science quiz; this ran for the duration of the week and allowed forms from all years to compete against each other. Two guest speakers were with the department for the week. They brought in live owls and snakes, the girls were allowed to touch them, getting a real feel of how they have become adapted to survive in their environments. The event was primarily aimed at the year 7 and 8 girls, but many other year groups gave up their own time to see the animals.

Several primary schools were invited in to see the animals, during this time they also experienced secondary science. They were set a challenge to separate iron, salt and sand using a range of equipment. The children rose to the challenge and several groups achieved the admirable task of obtaining pure water. All the children received certificates of achievement and a science goody bag to remember the day.

The department again ran trips to ImperialCollege, this year a group of aim higher girls attended a day in order to raise their aspirations in science. This involved lots of practical work; making a giant fruit battery, exploding gases, using lasers to measure the distance to the moon and separating complex mixtures. A group of 8 gifted and talented girls had an experience of degree level science in May. They separated their own DNA and successful carried out gel electrophoresis on a bacterial DNA sample in order to identify which micro-organism was making a patient ill.

The department has also given up a considerable amount of their own time running revision groups for year s 9, 10 and 11. The staff are now looking forward to recharging the batteries and starting another successful and exciting year in September.