The focus was What’s My Question? Any school child would probably say they spent all their time in school answering questions; during STEAM week, we wanted the pupils to ask questions. Through interactions with visitors as well as undertaking challenges, creating art, building, investigating, observing, measuring, testing and much, much more, we encouraged pupils to make discoveries by asking questions.
"The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions."
Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist.
The challenge of the week was for pupils to build a paper aeroplane that would fly to the back of the hall. In some nail-biting battles in our grand finale assembly, there was some exceptional flying demonstrated by many pupils (sadly, not by staff!).
Barleyhurst was lucky to be visited by some very special four-legged friends. The children loved meeting PC Helen and her police dogs. PC Helen explained how the dogs’ noses were so much more receptive than humans’ noses and told us how the dogs could find items, evidence and people without any effort. She was very impressed with the knowledge and understanding the pupils demonstrated as well as the questions they asked.
Not all our activities were Earth bound as Chris (aka The Rock Man) shared his knowledge and samples of rocks and meteorites with the children in KS2. We even got to hold a piece of the Moon and see a piece of rock from Mars!
Year 6 were lucky to spend a morning with STEM FX/Red Bull who put them through their engineering and design paces. Now they all want to work in Formula 1!
Please take a look at some more photographs from our STEAM week in the attached album.
This specialist week was challenging and very busy but lots of fun. We hope that the children will remember the week for a long time to come and remember to keep asking questions about the world around them.
A Greener Globe
10th-14th February 2025
Our spring term Specialist Week was all about coming together as a school community and focusing on the theme of A Greener Globe! Pupils investigated global warming, climate change and how, as humans, we can reduce our impact on the planet.
On the Tuesday all the children experienced an immersive planetarium style dome experience! Each class stepped inside the inflatable dome to be greeted with bright scenes playing out all around them with captivating sounds to match. The children watched as they learned about the changes the Earth is facing as a result of the planet warming up, as well as what we can do to help put the Earth back on the right path.
Each class had a challenge as they went through the week to take photos of the school site, highlighting the beauty of nature and all things green. Classes then chose their favourite picture to submit anonymously into the final competition. It was fantastic to see the creativity and artistic talents pupils demonstrated and choosing a winner ended up being rather challenging!
Throughout the week, pupils completed various activities highlighting the importance of reusing materials where we can as well as enjoying the natural beauty of the world around us. Some of the activities pupils took part in included making puppets from old (but clean) socks, making place mats and new bags by weaving tired, broken plastic carrier bags and some pupils also investigated the impact global warming is having on different parts of the world.
Pupils were also given a second challenge to design water usage posters which could act as reminders about using water responsibly- with a particular focus on not wasting it. These posters were then judged by the school council who choose 3 winning posters which were then copied and laminated and placed around our school.
The week concluded with classes coming together and delivering a performance to the rest of the school on the theme of A Greener Globe. The acts were creative and varied, it really was a great end to the week. Performances included singing, dancing, rapping, poetry recital and musical ensembles!
What a fantastic week! We hope our specialist week will encourage good environment habitats that last a lifetime!