From primary to Priory - Science gifted and talented day

Yesterday we welcomed pupils from our feeder schools for a Gifted & Talented Day with a focus on Science.  Led by Assistant Head of Science, Mrs Massey, the primary pupils were set to task with the Faraday Challenge:

Ease of communication is part of our life, we pick up the phone, turn on the TV or internet to get information.  But when all of these are knocked out by natural events - how do we communicate? 

Task: Students are the engineer rescue team based in the town of Alpha which has been relatively unaffected by the extreme weather. As the engineer rescue team in town Alpha, students must design and build a prototype device to send coded messages to town Beta, and create a code to send a message from Alpha across the mountains for decoding in Beta. There is little time to lose, with a helicopter arriving in a matter of hours to transport half of the rescue team to town Beta to set up the system for testing. 

The five teams competed against one another to see who could design, create and demonstrate the best solution to this real-life engineering problem.   Mrs Massey was very impressed with the visiting pupils, saying this was “an opportunity to research, design and create solutions to genuinely tough engineering problems.  The activity is adapted from a challenge aimed at Year 8 pupils so they did remarkably well”.

The activity draws upon science, maths and design and technology with students demonstrating creativity, innovation, team working, presentation skills and more!

The children had some wonderful ideas to communiate their messages but it was Cop Lane Primary School that transmitted their message perfectly.

Well done to Year 4 & 5 pupils of: New Longton, Cop Lane, Little Hoole, Whitefield and Walton Le Dale Primary Schools.  

Thank you to our pupil helpers: Erin M, Will M, Jake B, Oskar C, Estelle S, Alexis B