This year, Science club has started off with a bang! A large group of keen Scientists have been attending every Monday lunch time to take part in a wide range of fun and exciting Scientific experiments, investigations and challenges. So far, students have created and raced balloon rockets; explored the wonders of invisible inks; used the chromatography technique to create butterflies; had some fun making multicoloured slime; learnt a technique to create their own sugar crystals and have taken part in a STEM challenge to create the highest spaghetti tower. Science club is open to all Year 7 and Year 8 students. Anyone wanting to attend can just turn up and get involved on Monday lunch times at 12.45pm.

Miss Forrest

As part of the topic “Ecosystems”, Year 8 have been looking at flowering plants. They have explored pollination, fertilisation and have taken part in a flower dissection. Did you know that plants have both a male and female reproductive part (stamen and carpel) and that once fertilisation happens, the seeds and fruit are made?

Mrs Honeyman

7SC6 have recently learnt about the structure of cells. The students each made an animal or plant cell model using sweets and jelly. The first task was to decide which sweet or jelly they could use to represent the different parts of their cell model. They each had to explain why they had made their selections in a peer discussion. They then made their cell models and labelled them, using labels that they had typed and printed themselves without the use of their books. These are now displayed on the wall in their Science room as a celebration of their efforts and high standard of work. Other Year 7 Science classes have also been extremely creative in designing and making cell models for homework. These range from cell cakes, decorated biscuits, cardboard models and many more ideas. Every year there is always something new! This is one of this year group’s favourite tasks and it is a great way to help them learn about the cell, which is an important basic concept of Biology and links to so many other topics. Plus they get to eat them after too!

Mrs Cahill

Maths skills are now included in the assessment of all GCSE Science qualifications. There will be 10% Maths included in Biology, 20% of Maths in Chemistry, 30% of Maths in Physics and 20% of Maths in Combined Science. To ensure that our students are adept at these skills, we teach a numeracy topic at the start of Year 9. In the first half term, the girls studied decimals, standard form, area, surface area, volume, ratios, fractions, percentages, significant figures, mean, mode, median, range, estimates, sampling, probability, conversions and prefixes. To support their learning in class, each student has a Maths skills workbook which is used for homework and is also a useful revision resource for their assessments this year. This book will be a vital resource and will aid their GCSE revision and preparation. To further enhance their learning, in most lessons Year 9 are being shown GCSE questions which allow them to become familiar with the style of GCSE questions and to prove they are not as daunting as they think. Here is an example – can you answer this? Convert 280 μm to mm.

Mrs Goodwill

After learning about the respiratory system and discovering different ways of measuring lung capacity, 7Sc3 observed that their teacher’s lung capacity (Peak Expiratory Flow Rate) was significantly greater than any of the girls in the class. The class identified possible variables that could affect lung capacity, formulated hypothesise, planned and then carried out an investigation to test into height and lung capacity. Hopefully the Year 7’s budding investigative skills will inspire some of the girls to develop into Scientists of the future and help them to make landmark discoveries.

Mr Knee

The Science department is starting its own subject-specific library to encourage the girls to read more widely around Science, broaden their knowledge and deepen their love of reading. During their time at PGHS, students study topics from across the scientific spectrum, from genetics to space science and the chemistry affecting our environment. As the library grows, it will give students the opportunity to delve deeper. They may wish to find out why European royals are so likely to be haemophiliacs, explore the weird and wonderful world of quantum mechanics or find out why travelling close to the speed of light could make you appear younger than your friends. Research has shown that reading for pleasure is important and a paper for the OECD concluded that children who read for pleasure more than once a week do better in maths, vocabulary and spelling tests. All of this is in addition to the increased scientific knowledge that students will acquire. The Year 10 Science ambassadors, Lily and Evie are going to run the library from room 46. If students have any questions about the library or any suggestions of books to add to the collection, please feel free to speak to the Science ambassadors.

Mr Coogan