As part of the Stimulating Physics Network a limited number of schools will receive intensive support , which is outlined below. To find out if your school is eligible for this support, please contact your regional representative via the regions page.
If your school is not eligible for intensive support, the Network still provides global support which is available to all schools, including:
Stimulating Physics Schools
The following support is available to Stimulating Physics Schools:
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Teaching and Learning Coaches
Our network of Teaching and Learning Coaches works intensively in partnership with selected schools to reinvigorate a culture of physics. In these schools there is support for teachers and some work directly with pupils. This model was developed in the Stimulating Physics pilot and consists of visiting a school, working with the senior leadership team and science department to identify their needs, and providing a bespoke programme of support. This might consist of:
- In-school, intensive, tailored support for non-specialist teachers of physics based on the Supporting Physics Teaching (SPT) resources, to improve subject knowledge, pedagogy, confidence and enjoyment of the subject. A Stimulating Physics Network school may request a session, or a sequence of sessions, on a topic of their choice and arrange a time that fits in with their scheme of work (e.g. two sessions on forces a month before teachers are due to teach the topic to year 8).
- Follow-up support for teachers in the classroom by planning and co-teaching lessons.
- Guidance on establishing triple-science GCSEs.
- Access to existing support, such as Science Learning Centre courses, Secondary National Strategy support and an introduction to a local specialist science college, the Triple Science Support Programme from LSN and the Physics Factory.
- Direct teaching of pupils, supported by a dedicated teaching and learning ambassador (“physicist in a van”), who will visit each school and provide highly interactive and engaging taster lessons along with demonstration lectures.
- Enrichment activities (e.g. Ashfield Music Festival).
- Support to encourage girls to engage with physics, including managing groups in the class for maximum pupil engagement, using contexts that allow physics to be seen as a socially relevant and applied subject, and using role models in an appropriate and timely way.
- Advice about how to integrate careers guidance into the curriculum.
- Online support for teachers.
- E-mentoring of Key Stage 4 (KS4) and KS5 students (Big Bang Blogs).
- Summer schools for teachers.
Summer Schools
Each year we run four-day residential summer schools: two at the National Science Learning Centre in York and two at Worcester College in Oxford. Each summer school consists of three days of intensive hands-on workshops led by the Physics Network co-cordinators and the Teaching and Learning Coaches. The programmes focus on developing subject knowledge and pedagogy and they are suitable both for first timers and for returners. Find out more on the summer schools page.