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As part of this year’s British Science Week, 1,800 pupils from 10 schools across England are being given the opportunity to take part in interactive science workshops hosted by Public Health England (PHE) scientists.
From pupils extracting DNA from their own cells using household products, to a science and health-related game of Pictionary and quizzes on air pollution, the aim of these workshops is to inspire the young people to consider a career in science and showcase the variety of areas within science they could pursue.
British Science Week is an annual 10-day event, with this year being its 24th year running. It encourages organisations, professionals in the science sector, science communicators and the general public to hold events that get people involved in scientific activities.
This year, PHE is expanding its reach to 10 schools across 3 regions: the North (Manchester, Salford), South West (Bristol, Cheltenham and Torquay) and South East (Harlow). During the week, there will be 25 PHE scientists leading interactive science workshops for pupils aged 13 to 14 years old.
The scientists taking part specialise in a range of disciplines, including toxicology, microbiology, environmental public health, microscopy, vaccine research and epidemiology.
Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of PHE said:
It’s important that the current generation of scientists informs and inspires the next generation, and shows young people the range of routes and opportunities they can pursue within world-leading UK science. We are thankful for the scientists taking part in British Science Week workshops across the country, and hope that their efforts encourage the pupils to consider a career in science as a viable and exciting option.
Sarah Robertson, Senior Environmental Health Scientist at PHE said:
I speak for all of the scientists involved when I say that we are excited to take part in British Science Week and showcase just a few of the many disciplines within science to the students. Although a large proportion of our time is dedicated to research, outreach work such as these interactive workshops is also our responsibility, particularly to highlight the breadth of our roles to young people. Science and research are imperative in our world and we must ensure that the future workforce continues to be made up of talented and passionate individuals.
PHE is in the process of creating a world-leading centre of excellence for public health research, improvement and protection, and a new headquarters, at the vacant GlaxoSmithKline site in Harlow. This will involve relocating facilities from Porton in Wiltshire and Colindale in north London, as well as the current central London headquarters. PHE Harlow is expected to be fully operational by 2024.
Rural communities will be given more options to convert agricultural buildings into family homes to better meet local housing needs through planning rule changes, announced Housing Minister Dominic Raab.
Changes to permitted development rights will mean up to 5 new homes can be created from existing agricultural buildings on a farm rather than the maximum of 3 currently permitted.
Currently several hundred new homes each year are created through conversions of agricultural buildings, and these changes are expected to boost these numbers further.
The changes will help communities make the best use of existing buildings to help meet local housing needs more efficiently, while at the same time ensuring they remain in keeping with the character of the area and safeguard people’s privacy.
Government is also giving applicants an extra year to convert further storage and distribution buildings into new homes that will help relieve local housing pressures.
Housing Minister Dominic Raab said:
We need to be more creative if we are to meet the housing needs of rural communities.
That’s why I’m changing planning rules so rural communities have more flexibility on how best to use existing buildings to deliver more much needed homes for families.
This is part of our comprehensive reform programme to build the homes Britain needs.
The new measures will also help farmers adopt the latest innovations in modern farming practices by increasing the size limit of new agricultural buildings on larger farms from 465 square metres to 1,000 square metres.
Permitted development rights are a national grant of planning permission which allow certain building works and changes of use to be carried out without having to make a planning application.
The rights are subject to conditions and limitations to control impact and to protect local amenity.
The amended development right for the change of use of agricultural buildings to provide up to 5 new homes will allow for:
To further support housing delivery, applicants will have a further year in which to benefit from the temporary permitted development right for the change of use of buildings used for storage and distribution to residential use. The right will be extended by a year until 10 June 2019.
The regulations to come into force on 6 April support the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s focus on making the most effective use of land or buildings in the draft revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework, announced earlier this week.
Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns will be joined by endurance athlete Richard Parks and representatives from youth, faith, diaspora and sport groups in Wales at a celebration of the global relationships forged by the Commonwealth when he hosts a Commonwealth Big Lunch in Cardiff Bay later today (12 March).
The Commonwealth Big Lunches, launched in partnership with the Eden Project, will take place across the Commonwealth between Commonwealth Day (12 March) and 22 April. The initiative is part of the official celebrations leading up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London next month.
Alun Cairns will celebrate the international and local connections created by the Commonwealth at a Big Lunch event at Caspian Point and encourage people to get together to celebrate their Commonwealth connections right across Wales.
The Commonwealth is a unique family of nations made up of people bound by shared histories and values.
To celebrate these bonds and our diversity, I’m delighted that the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales is hosting a Commonwealth Big Lunch right here in Wales, bringing members of our local communities together to celebrate what we have in common, as well as recognising the unique and diverse nature of the Commonwealth.
I’m looking forward to seeing every part of Wales come together to cement friendships, share food and fun with the people they live alongside at their own Commonwealth Big Lunch events between now and April. They offer wonderful opportunities for people of all ages to bring our great Commonwealth family alive in new ways as we work towards a common future – a future I’m incredibly hopeful for and the role Wales has to play in it.
The Commonwealth summit, held between 16-20 April, will see leaders from across 53 Commonwealth countries coming together in London and Windsor to address shared global challenges and discuss how to create a better future.
With the theme of ‘Towards a Common Future,’ leaders will focus on delivering a more prosperous, secure, sustainable and fairer future for all Commonwealth citizens.
Teaching excellence will be rewarded and poor quality teaching exposed under a new rating system for English universities, the Universities Minister has announced today (12 March).
In a global first, Universities Minister Sam Gyimah has launched a new tool that will rate universities either gold, silver or bronze by subject – holding them to account for the quality of their teaching, learning environment and graduate outcomes.
By extending the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework – or TEF – to subject level the government aims to:
The Department for Education has today launched a 10-week public consultation, seeking views on the design of the new framework. This will run alongside a pilot of the scheme, which has 50 universities and colleges taking part, including the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), De Montfort University and the Open University.
Universities Minister Sam Gyimah said:
Prospective students deserve to know which courses deliver great teaching and great outcomes – and which ones are lagging behind.
In the age of the student, universities will no longer be able to hide if their teaching quality is not up to the world-class standard that we expect.
The new subject-level TEF will give students more information than ever before, allowing them to drill down and compare universities by subject. This will level the international playing field to help applicants make better choices, and ensure that more students get the value for money they deserve from higher education.
The plans announced today will build on the progress already made under the first wave of TEF – which awards universities with an overall rating of gold, silver and bronze. This new framework recognises that outcomes and teaching quality differ not just by university but also by course, and will allow students to look behind provider-level ratings and access information about teaching quality for a specific subject.
Those universities and colleges taking part in the pilot scheme for subject-level TEF are working with the sector in academic years 2017/18 and 2018/19, with the intention that the first full year of subject-level TEF will take place in 2019/20.
The new framework will take into account student feedback, drop-out rates and graduate outcomes to help deliver the objectives of the review of post-18 education launched by the Prime Minister last month, ensuring that students get the value for money they deserve from higher education.
The Minister will also launch an Open Data competition, the first of its kind in the UK HE sector, which will use selected government data on universities so that tech companies and coders can create apps to help prospective students decide where to apply.
This competition will build on the government’s recently published Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset, which gives information on employment and salaries after graduation. By democratising access to information about courses and their outcomes, it will help all applicants, regardless of their background, make better decisions and get better value for money.
The Universities Minister added:
Our new Open Data Competition will open up Government data on universities for the first time. It will harness the creativity and enterprise of coders and tech businesses to create new tools to help applicants get value for money. And it puts government data to work for students, democratising the information Government holds about universities.