Health Education England working across Kent, Surrey and Sussex (HEE KSS) has worked in partnership with Skills UK and Kent Education Business Partnership (EBP) to introduce ‘Careers and Curriculum’ Events for Key stage 2 & 3 taking place all over Kent.The project is aimed at 10-14 year olds and is written and mapped against the Curriculum.
The aims of the programme are to inspire young people, to capture their imagination early, to gain a greater understanding of the world of the NHS and some of the skills required to work within it. Roles and departments feature heavily so that the young people become familiar with the language of the NHS.
All the students were able to complete practical science experiments moving around stations that included Microbiology – Biochemistry – Osteo-Physiology – Respiratory Physiology- Dentistry.
The initial pilot include 9 schools, 240 students and 18 teachers.
Feedback included: 'Today has really inspired me to become a scientist and I am looking forward to doing Chemistry, Biology and Physics in secondary school’ Pupil
‘This was a brilliant way to inspire young children to become passionate about science and to understand the kind of roles they could aspire to. The children were so focused and seemed to have a really good understanding of the five ‘departments’ where they had completed experiments. The enthusiasm of the children and the adults was just great, it was a totally different to what I was expecting. I would highly recommend visiting schools to all colleagues’. Student Radiographer (third year)
'This was a brilliant day for the class and really piqued their interest in science. All of the children were engaged, especially during the practical activities in the morning. The scientists were very patient and pitched the learning at exactly the right level for the children’ Teacher
HEE KSS are looking at how this can be rolled out further and development of a teacher lesson pack.