Physics education grants

Following the launch of our new strategy, the Trust no longer offers physics education grants. We have refocused our funding to provide free professional development support for teachers of physics.

Eligibility criteria

All projects must be focused on physics education in England. Most applicants are expected to be charities and education establishments – it is rare that funding will be given to a profit-making organisation.

All applications should fit with the Ogden Trust strategy and target our priority audiences (visit our About us pages to find out more). Projects must be clearly based around physics and developed with current evidence in mind – part-funding may be considered for general science projects where there is a clear physics component. Projects may be for roll-out of an existing scheme, in which case evidence of impact to date should be included, or for a new idea, in which case there should be sufficient rationale for why it will achieve its goals.

Funding can be requested at any level up to £5,000 but the cost per person should be proportionate to the anticipated impact on that person. Lower priority is given to high impact activities for a very small number of individuals.

Our grants are split into two strands:

• Curriculum support: to support the teaching and learning of physics from 11-18 in the classroom, including equipment for teaching physics, teaching resources and teacher CPD.
• Enrichment activities: to support physics extra-curricular activities for school and college students (4-18) from under-represented groups.

Curriculum support

Who can apply: secondary schools or post 16 education institutions only.

Projects applying under the curriculum support heading should be for the teaching and learning of the core curriculum in England in the classroom. This may include equipment for teaching physics, teacher resources and professional development.

Priority will be given to projects targeting:

• Schools or colleges starting A-level physics,
• Schools or colleges in areas of high deprivation or other socioeconomic need, and
• Support for teacher development relating to core curriculum.

Projects which focus on activity that should be covered through central school funding, for example IT requirements and text books, will not be funded.

Funding is not available for primary schools seeking curriculum support. However, The Ogden Trust offers a number of free curriculum resources for primary physics topics.

Enrichment activities

Who can apply: primary and secondary schools and colleges, and community or extra-curricular organisations (charity, CIC or otherwise non-profit).

Projects in this strand of funding should support the extra-curricular activities of students aged 4-18 who are under-represented in physics. This may include activities based in school such as clubs run by the school or college, family activities or activities delivered by external providers.

Priority will be given to projects which:

• Engage a high proportion of students in areas of high deprivation, on Free School Meals, or other indicators of socioeconomic deprivation.
• Directly relate to and enrich the school curriculum in England.
• Provide a repeat or ongoing experience for the young people.

Schools who are part of a school partnership are not eligible to apply for enrichment funding as they already receive funding through the partnership. Enrichment providers who include partnerships in the target audience for their project may be considered lower priority.

Cost per head for the anticipated impact will be a key selection criteria. Projects to evaluate existing well-established programmes may also be considered. Funding will not be offered for commercial provision of activities. All activities supported by the grant must be free for students to access.

Ineligible for funding

Through our education grants, we do not offer:

• support for individuals, for example scholarships, bursaries, or funding for summer placements, summer schools or international events.
• support for projects focused on international travel, for example CERN trips.
• Support for primary science lab facilities.
• support for the cost of subscriptions for school-level quality marks, awards or similar, for example Primary Science Quality Mark.
• support to participate in national competitions and projects, e.g. Greenpower, First Lego League, etc.
• support for the buy-out of teacher time to run a project.
• support for projects which are led by, or have a heavy component of, a non-physics context.
• support to cover the cost of purchasing IT equipment, data loggers or text books
• funding for legal or other business activity contingency costs.
• support for enrichment activities which consist solely of funding an external provider

Capturing impact has been developed to help anyone working in physics education and outreach with evaluating their activities. You can download this evaluation guide in our publications and research section of the website. The models and approaches have been built around the theories of science capital. The publication includes a series of tools to help evaluate different aspects of activities and some pointers on analysis and ethics. You should consider your evaluation approach when making your physics education grant application.