Enriching the primary curriculum via education - industry liaison

Abstract

This article describes:

collaboration between a primary school, a manufacturing firm and a teacher training institution

enrichment of the primary curriculum via education-industry liaison to improve mutual understanding between industrialists and those involved in education.

Introduction

Visits by secondary school students to industry, often on work experience in Years 10 or 11, are commonplace; visits by primary school pupils to industry less so. This paper records the experiences which resulted from a partnership between three institutions: a primary school (Coton Primary School, Coton, Cambridgeshire), a manufacturing firm (Ciba-Geigy Plastics, Duxford, Cambridgeshire) and a teacher training college (Homerton College, Cambridge). In their separate ways all three institutions already had experience of education-industry liaison prior to the project that is described here. Coton Primary School had undertaken topic work involving horticulture and the marketing of plants, whilst Ciba-Geigy and Homerton College had collaborated on industry-based problem-solving projects for primary teachers and trainees with chemistry or physics as their main B.Ed. degree subject.