School partnerships

The School Partnerships programme works with local clusters of schools and established collaborations, as well as providing regional support through place-based partnerships. Across all of these partnerships, the Trust encourages and facilitates schools to focus on:

• teacher professional development to help improve the teaching of physics; empowering teachers so they can inspire their students to take physics further.
• the wider learning environment, including support for technicians and teaching assistants, and investment in physics learning spaces and resources.
• enrichment through family and community group engagement, and networking with local employers to provide a range of broader physics experiences for pupils.

A partnership is encouraged to organise activities that enhance the teaching and learning of physics. Examples include enrichment activities, trips, events to promote careers awareness, family events and extra-curricular clubs (physics/astronomy). Activities should be accessible to all schools in the partnership.

The Trust aims to launch a new partnership in each region at the beginning of the academic year.

How do partnerships work?

The School Partnerships programme provides funding and support over a period of five years. Partnerships are encouraged to work across primary and secondary schools, and can include any state funded schools, schools with no specialist physics teachers, schools with a higher than average free school meal percentage and rural schools. Independent schools can be included and should be encouraged to share their resources and knowledge.

Partnerships are led by a partnership co-ordinator or physics lead who is based at a designated hub school – funding is managed by this school. The co-ordinator or lead receives a limited time buy-out to establish the partnership; all partnerships receive support from Ogden regional representatives.

The Trust provides annual CPD and resources for all primary schools in partnerships, including Phizzi Forward which supports the use of Phizzi CPD resources and curriculum mapping in a partnership’s fifth year. KS3 Physics CPD for non-specialist physics teachers is available to partnerships in their first year. Support and CPD for partnership technicians and teaching assistants is also available.

Our new partnership technician network is currently being piloted. It is designed to enhance technicians’ knowledge and skills through CPD opportunities, connect them with our experienced Ogden Trust technicians who they can contact for support, and help facilitate their role as technicians.

One primary school in each partnership can apply to have a Phiz Lab; secondary schools can apply for funding to support a visit to CERN.

All of our partnerships are supported by a network of regional representatives.

Applications for new partnerships are open each year between September and February.
Interested? Find out more about the partnership programme, available funding and the application process