Interview with Claire Welsh - Primary Schools Programme Manager

ER To what extent do you feel restricted by the requirements of the national curriculum? And do you get to design and produce things outside of [it]?

CW Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes I like at the public programmes, the people who do the family shows and I think Ah, you know, it would be lovely, just think "oh, I'll do it on this." And, you know, and I'll do whatever I want to do, ((laughs)). And, but then, also, you've got well, you know, you've got then you know, like ten million different possibilities and, so, you know whereas in one sense, for me, I, I think I'm not, I'm not a, totally - I'm not, I'm not a sort of wildly creative being, let's put it that way. So I actually quite like it in that I've got, ok I've got say these 4 things I've got to cover in the show, and then, you know, I get people to all brainstorm and they'll come up with quite a few wacky things as well and then I think, right, well, ok 25 minutes I can, I can make sure I get or, 20 minutes I can cover all the curriculum stuff. What's really going to be, exciting for the kids, on the, yeah, OK, in the, within the topic but, that's going to capture the imagination that's going to make them enthusiastic about it. And I've got time to put those things in as well really.

I need to be a little bit careful cause sometimes we'll put something in, sometimes we use the - we've got a blower like the one with the beach ball and we use that in the shows sometimes to show various different things but the science behind it is quite tricky and, so, sometimes we just show it as kind of like a visual thing and, we, you can talk about, you know, the, the air's pushing up and the gravity's pulling down, but, to go into more than that, I mean once you get the tilt on it, it's going off at an angle and why it doesn't fall down, it gets very tricky. So, we'll just sort of very quickly put in like a sentence about and zoom on and, you know, some teachers don't particularly, you know, like you to half explain something, you know. But, I think it, I think it's quite good because, certain things I've got to cover but, there's always time, if there's something on the topic that's going to look good then we can, we can fit it in. So, I don't think, I don't find it too much of a constraint in a way.

The times that we, that we sort of push the boat out really. Christmas, we can, you know, people are looking for a day out at Christmas, and, yeah, in our flyer we'll put we're covering this that and the other but that might be 10 minutes of the show or something, we'll do a bit on this a bit on that. But we're very free and easy. And also, at end of term, the, the science snack box which is happening in 2 weeks time. There, basically, I'm not saying to people we're going to cover this topic and that topic but we've actually put, you know, this is a chance for us to show, some of our favourite demos from Techniquest. And, you know, I, I can't remember what else I put in, but basically it's, it's to get them enthusiastic. And, we're going to be a lot, lots of prediction, lots of what happens next kind of thing, which are good skills for them to have if they're good at doing those sorts of things, and, thinking of, you know, why something happens, that's going to be, good for their science. But obviously, you're, very free and easy about what you put in there.