Sports at Southville Primary School
Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street
Lessons with the Lionesses
Southville Primary School had the priviledge of being invited to bring 25 of our girls to Downing Street on the 8th March for the #LetGirlsPlay campaign. Not only did they get to meet the prime minister, but they got to meet three of the Lionesses (England Woman's Football team) Beth Mead, Jill Scott and Ellen White.
The campaign has been fighting for equal access to sport for young girls in school, and has resulted in the government pledging to equal access in formal lessons and extracurricular sessions, and for each child to have a minimum of two hours of PE per week. The full package of support for schools from the Government includes more than £600 million over the next two years to improve the quality of PE and sports in primary schools.
Teen Tech
On Tuesday the 25th of April, 10 year 6 pupils represented the school in a project called ‘TeenTech’ held at Roehampton University. It was a uniquely collaborative event to help the children understand more about opportunities available to them.
The activities on the day were divided into 3 zones:
The Insight Zone provided the children with a series of short, employer led activities to surface skills and raise awareness of the range of careers available in STEM. Hands-on and engaging, designed to spark interest in the applied sciences and technology with real world examples.
The Challenge Zone provided young people with longer challenges helping young people develop problem solving and creative skills using science and technology.
The Innovation Zone was where the children worked in their teams to share their City of Tomorrow building models with industry ambassadors. They presented an informal pitch about their ideas to the judges. There was also an opportunity to look at the buildings created by other teams and share peer reviews. The children were thrilled and very proud of their designs and creations and spoke confidently of what buildings of the future will look like and how they will work and be powered and how their designs will serve the needs of the community in light of the problems we face today. The three buildings from Southville won awards for the ‘Best Domestic Space’ and the ‘Most Environmentally Friendly Building.’
The Great Science Share
This year students from Year 5 were invited to represent our school at The Great Science Share hosted at St Mary’s University in Twickenham. The aim of the Great Science Share is to get children excited about science – raising the profile in schools and communities and encouraging young people to be inspired into science and engineering. The 11 children that presented at the event were asked to split into two groups, working collaboratively to formulate scientific questions and select one key theme for enquiry. The groups worked together as part of an after school club to plan investigations, hypothesize, collect data, analyse results and present in a format of their choice.
On the day of the visit to St Mary’s children were asked to split into an A and B team to take turns in presenting their findings and answering questions about their experiments. Children were also asked to explore the other investigations presented by other schools and encouraged to ask questions and think scientifically. The day was a fantastic chance for children to get hands on with science and meet with experts in the field, such as senior scientists from The National Physical Laboratory. The day concluded with a campus tour which inspired many to go away and think about their path to Higher Education.