Primary Science Fair 2014

On Thursday 20 March we hosted over four hundred pupils from twenty primary and prep schools from Redbridge, Waltham Forest and Essex for Bancroft’s fifth annual “Primary Science Fair”.  Pupils were entertained and, of course, educated by a wide range of exciting and often highly original interactive stands presented by our L6 science students.  Amongst other activities, pupils got to discover all about bubbles and their properties, they created lightning, made their own slides for microscopes and confronted their fears in a hair raising moment!    These stands were all subjected to judging and the winners of the competition were Laura Allirajah, Priya Gohal, Harris Nageswaran, Anika Patel and Avantika Sood with “Attraction”; in second place was “Bubble Blast” by May Al-Shawk and Eva Botha and “Chemluminescence” by Anna Fostiak, Emmaline Okafor and Shivani Sheth was placed third.  The event was a great success, and the children went back to school truly inspired about science.

The visitors were also treated to a chemistry demonstration which showed how various reactions result in the production of different colours; they got their chance to make and launch their own rockets on the school field and went home wearing necklaces containing their own DNA!

Science co-ordinator at Nightingale Primary School, Laura Cordes, said, “It is a really inspirational day; It’s fantastic for our pupils to come along and see all the exciting things that they can do in science when they get to secondary school.  It really inspires them about science and all the possibilities it holds.” and Laura Johnson of Wanstead Church School said, “This was a fabulous opportunity.  The children loved doing all the experiments themselves and it was great that so many activities were was hands-on.”  The response was equally positive from the children with Jake Steele of Wanstead Church School saying, “The chemistry demonstration was my favourite; I loved seeing what happened when the chemicals were mixed together.”