Rose Hill School came together as a whole community to celebrate our annual STEAM Week. Every year we investigate a different question which helps build on the development of language, logic and problem-solving skills within the classroom and beyond. We have looked at a wide range of topics in recent years including flight and robotics. This year we posed the question – ‘What’s the Matter?’.

Our theme was pervasive through the whole curriculum from maths to music for the entire week. We kicked off with an action-packed assembly hosted by our very own Mr Agnew, Mr Izzard and Dr Tuck. We harnessed the power of solids, liquids and gases to topple objects, were blown away by giant smoke rings and created theatrical moulded masks in seconds, in order to be reminded of the three states of matter (even the youngest audience members reminded us of the fourth state of matter – plasma) and how they behave.

Ben from Explorer Dome enthralled the youngest children in Reception all the way through to our eldest Year 8 pupils with his Solids, Liquids and Gases shows. We watched as balloons somehow disappeared, incredibly used a banana as a hammer, fired dry ice rockets across the theatre and witnessed the explosive energy inside our breakfast cereal (it blew us away)!

In the Upper School, Year 7 and 8 children were privileged to hear from one of a parent who gave two fascinating talks on her career as a civil engineer. The children loved hearing about her experiences, challenges and how her role incorporates all elements of STEAM.

At the other end of the school, our Kindergarten children turned solids into liquids and vice versa when creating art from frozen paint and cooking scrumptious tiffin cake with melted chocolate and crushed biscuits.

Other highlights included: marvelling at the properties of Oobleck (gloopy, slimy and solid), a non-Newtonian fluid, that acted as both a solid and a liquid in science; designing, making and decorating pencil toppers made from smart plastic in DT and composing pieces of music that represented the changing states of matter using GarageBand, keyboards and a range of percussion instruments.

We ended the week by bringing all the knowledge we had gained together by competing in an enthralling inter-form Kahoot! quiz, hosed by special guests Sooty and Sweep! A fantastic week was had by all and we are already excitedly planning for next year……