Could you give up your Saturday morning to teach Physics to a group of excited primary school children? A group of generous-hearted Year 12 students have been doing just that since September. Science School Saturdays saw Tabitha Kayode and a group of A Level Science students from Sydenham High School, link up with Dulwich College Sixth Form students to offer weekend Science classes to local primary school children completely free of charge.

Using lesson plans provided by Dulwich College Science team, the children enjoyed a mixture Biology, Physics and Chemistry lessons throughout the eight week programme which included lots of practical and hands-on sessions which the energetic Year 5 children threw themselves into with great enthusiasm. Whilst Tabitha says she doesn’t think that she teaching will be part of her longer-term career plans, she does plan to do more teaching and volunteering during her gap year after A Levels.

“Although the children were in year 5, they had a lot more knowledge than we had all previously anticipated and I was shocked at how able they were to interpret the lessons taught into the practicals. They were also very hands on and eager to learn about science which also shocked me. A lot of them by the end had said that Physics was now their favourite subject which surprised us all. 

The best part was definitely the feeling that we were inspiring young minds. Knowing that what we were doing essentially planted a seed in them that sparked their curiosity is one of the absolute best bits. Refereeing their egg drop challenges was highly memorable because of the stress of a ton of eggs flying from above in their not so durable cases and seeing the smiles across the kids’ faces who succeeded in what they set out to do whether it was the egg not cracking or their rocket launching all the way past the 2nd floor and having helped them achieve it by joining in.”

Tabitha Kayode (Year 12)