Chemistry Provision for Primary Pupils: The Experiences of 10 Years of Bristol ChemLabS Outreach

Bristol ChemLabS, the UK’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in practical chemistry, delivers numerous outreach activity days per year for thousands of primary school pupils annually. These mainly comprise demonstration assemblies and hands on workshops for pupils in the main. The activities support the UK’s Key Stage 2 science curriculum, to raise scientific understanding among the teachers and to raise pupils’ science skills and aspirations and are used by overseas universities to with the same advantage objective. The Bristol ChemLabS Outreach programme is self-financing. This paper highlights the advantages of the programme to the pupils, their teachers, the postgraduates that help deliver the workshops and to higher education institutes. The paper also provides a blueprint for anyone wishing to do such work.