SCIENCE DAY

Exploring, Experimenting and Excelling: Science Day at Dersingham VA Primary and Nursery School

On Tuesday 13th January, our school was buzzing with excitement as we hosted a fantastic Science Day, giving children the opportunity to immerse themselves in practical, hands-on science learning.

Children were organised into vertical groups within their key stage and moved around the school throughout the day, visiting different classrooms to explore a wide variety of science topics. This approach allowed pupils to collaborate with children of different ages while engaging in rich scientific discussion and investigation.

Miss Liscsey led sessions on solids and liquids, where children built impressive ice towers before being challenged to decide whether non-Newtonian fluids should be classified as solids or liquids. This sparked plenty of curiosity and debate as children tested their ideas.

Miss Seaman explored buoyancy, tasking children with designing and building boats and then testing how much weight they could hold before sinking. The activity quickly became a favourite as children added marbles one by one to their creations. Miss Seaman commented,

“Children loved adding marbles. Otto even managed to add 50 marbles before his boat sank. The children were amazed!”

In Mr Williamson’s classroom, children investigated electricity and circuit building. They gradually added components and experimented with different configurations, learning how circuits work and how changes affect outcomes.

Our science lead, Mrs Rimmer, who was also responsible for organising the day, delivered a hugely popular session on bottle flipping. She skilfully turned this engaging activity into a scientific investigation by introducing the concept of variables. Children changed the amount of water in the bottle to discover which made flips most successful.

Miss Scott, our Year 5 teacher, brought a Key Stage 3 topic to life for Key Stage 2 pupils by creating red cabbage universal indicator. Children tested substances such as lemon juice, vinegar, orange juice and baking powder to identify whether they were acids or alkalis. Miss Scott said,

“It was great to see children engaged in a principle of science that they will cover later on in their journey to become young scientists (even if my class did smell like cabbage)!”

Mr Siggins, our Year 6 teacher and maths lead, focused on reaction times and reflexes. Children worked in pairs to catch a ruler as it was dropped, then calculated the mean of their results before using a conversion table to turn distance into reaction speed. Mr Siggins commented,

“It was great to see a bit of friendly competition in the class to see who could catch the ruler the quickest. It was also an opportunity to discuss how even if your reactions are currently slower, we can train our brains to react quicker. Mrs White and Mrs Booth even got involved in the friendly competition, with both desperate to see who had the fastest reactions.”

Finally, Mrs Taylor, our artist in residence, combined science with creativity by exploring water resistance. Children then used their knowledge to produce water-resist artwork, using Vaseline, candles and wax crayons to create striking watercolour pictures.

Reflecting on the day, Mrs Warren said,

“It was a fabulous day and in every class I visited it was great to see children involved in practical experiments. Without exception, everywhere I went, children were focused, engaged and enthusiastic. The assembly at the end of the day – a chance to share our highlights and knowledge – really brought to the fore just how much children learned and enjoyed their day. We’ve even had requests from Year 2 to run Number Day in a similar manner.”

Science Day was a huge success, inspiring curiosity, collaboration and a genuine love of learning across the school. We are incredibly proud of our children and staff for making the day such a memorable and enriching experience.