Okehampton Primary School held a day of experimental whizzes and bangs for children from four local primaries as part of the official opening of its new Phizzilab science lab last week.

Joined by Sonia Teruel from The Ogden Trust, a charity which works with local schools to provide hands-on science, the children enjoyed an exciting Energy show and ‘Crawlers’ workshop led by Wonderstruck Science.

After a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the classroom henceforth decidated for experiemental science, children from Okehampton Primary, North Tawton Primary, South Tawton Primary and Hatherleigh Primary competed in a ‘Physics Olympics’competition.

The children took part in activities looking at floating and sinking, gravity, air resistance and propulsion. Congratulations went to Hatherleigh Primary who demonstrated excellent scientific knowledge and were declared winners of the trophy. Another highlight of the day was when a pulse jet was ‘fired up’ on the playground. It was so loud, it set some of the teachers’ car alarms off!

Hannah Radbourne, Science leader for Okehampton Primary School and Dartmoor Ogden Partnership coordinator said: ‘It was an absolutely fantastic day. We have waited a long time to be able to show off our Phizzilab. Having a bespoke space to carry out scientific investigations has been a huge boost to our children’s scientific education. The children of our school and partnership have had a very memorable day with many now saying they definitely want to be scientists!’

Jayden Horncastle, Year 6 science ambassador at Okehampton Primary School agreed, saying: ‘It was really fun and I enjoyed everything about it; particularly blowing things up because we can’t usually do that.’ All the children taking part left full of excitement, enthusiasm and very keen to explore more science. Okehampton Primary School is part of the Ogden Trust Primary Partnership which aims to deliver inspiring, hands-on science to the school’s pupils, raising the profile of the subject and encouraging the children to believe they can be scientists.

The partnership means the school is able to support physics teaching and learning for itself and other local primaries in the DMAT. Science leaders from each of the partnership schools meet termly to plan an exciting and inspiring programmes to encourage children to explore science through hands on experiements and the Phizzilab has provided a space to do this.