Year 1
Year 1 had a fantastic time at the Science Festival this year. The children attended a Science show based on the story ‘The Sorceror’s Apprentice’ where they saw bubbling and colour changing potions. They thoroughly enjoyed singing along and joining in.
After lunch, they visited the Maker Shack where they experimented with materials, explored how things are made and made their own creations with the help of experts.
Year 2
The Year 2 children met Izzy the Inventor, a girl who loves science and does not believe in magic. However, when Izzy is transported to Fairytale Land, she must use her scientific skills to outwit trolls with slime and launch water balloons in order to get past terrible ogres.
On this magical science adventure, author Zanna Davidson helped the children think up their own amazing inventions and invited them to act out part of the story.
After the talk, we enjoyed our picnic and then had lots of fun in the Maker Shack. The children spent time building, throwing, weaving, balancing, creating and much more. They then wrote a wonderful recount about the fantastic day they had had.
Year 3
Year 3 enjoyed an exciting and inspiring trip to the Cheltenham Science Festival. The children took part in a fascinating session called “What if…?”, where they explored big scientific questions and were encouraged to think creatively about how science can help us understand the world around us. The session sparked lots of curiosity, with pupils enthusiastically sharing ideas and predictions.
Year 4
The visit started with time in the Discovery Zone where the children could have a go at a variety of exciting activities. Using virtual reality headsets, they followed instructions to make a car, they pedalled bicycles to create electrical energy and used Nerf guns to discover facts about the blood. Afterwards, we were entertained learning lots about water- from why things float, how water spins and what happens when its squeezed – some of us got wet at this point.
Year 5
Year 5 entered The Arcade at the festival to see a mix of historic arcade games, cryptic challenges, and exhibits from various tech and cybersecurity partners. A few of the activities they enjoyed were having a go at controlling drones, designing houses to be made 3D and playing air hockey. Next, they met two scientists from the National Space Centre and thought about what would be good to pack on a visit to the planets, learning lots of facts about everything related to space, all featured in a new book called Space Tour.
Year 6
Like some of the other year groups, we loved exploring in the Makershack. Making things out of recycled materials, using amazing cardboard cutting machines to create and cut out our own designs, keep ping-pong balls aloft with hair driers and construct enormous 3D structures using tessellating shapes were some of the highlights.
Having learned about evolution in the year, we went to the Town Hall on a ‘Choose Your Own Evolution’ adventure led by Jules Howard. We began as fairly static under the sea creatures many million years ago and, by making decisions about our future characteristics, chose our own evolutionary paths leading to modern day descendants. Taking different routes we ended up as humans, domesticated dogs and monkeys!
