A potted history of Cavendish outreach

Image: Example of school locations of those visiting Cambridge Physics Experience events.

The Cambridge Physics Centre Lectures and Physics at Work continue to be flagship events of Cavendish Outreach in a landscape where what it means to ‘do outreach’ has significantly evolved. Sadly, the problems for physics education in schools have not improved as much as might have been hoped given the effort and resources that has been put into outreach over the last 30 to 40 years.

The number of students studying physics remains lower than they were in the 1950s, although 2024 has shown a glimmer of hope with a 12% increase in the number of students taking A level physics in England. However, there was little movement on the proportion of women taking A level physics which remains at around 23%. There continues to be a shortage of physics graduates going into teaching, resulting in more than 20 years of under-recruitment, compounded by the fact that too many new teachers leave after a relatively short time. The National Foundation for Educational Research school workforce census data shows that about 10% of science and mathematics teachers leave the teaching profession each year.

When I [Lisa] began in educational outreach at the Cavendish in 2006, I was able to review our offer and consider what other initiatives we might include in our portfolio. Arranging a scientist to visit a school is a lot easier logistically for teachers than arranging a school trip but experience had shown that visiting a university department was a key factor in encouraging future undergraduates and changing their perspective that ‘it is just not for me’. We began two new programmes, one for teacher continuing professional development and one for their students – the Cambridge Physics Experience. The Cambridge Physics Experience (CPE) was designed to address two factors. The first factor was meeting the need from Cambridge colleges to provide departmental visits and experiments for their visiting school students. Secondly, to provide a sustained programme of multiple interventions and engagements for students as they progress through their secondary education from year 7 to 11 and on to sixth form. It is perhaps unsurprising that research has shown that one off interventions can be inspirational but struggle to achieve long term impact or to change student perspectives. CPE engages students regularly throughout their education, embedding the impact of our work.

The Cambridge Physics Experience continues today with half-day interactive experiences for students in year 7, 8, 9 (key stage 3) and year 12 (sixth form) with Physics at Work providing an interactive experience for year 10 and 11 students. The original objective of the Cavendish outreach programmes was to provide opportunities for those schools and students within a sensible travel time of Cambridge – perhaps up to a 70-mile radius. However, the programmes have become so successful that schools are travelling from far and wide.

Brenda’s legacy lives on through her donation to provide funding for travel bursaries and teacher cover bursaries for schools and students who would otherwise struggle to be able to attend our events (outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/bursaries).

The evolution of the Cavendish’s outreach continues, endeavouring to increase the flow of budding physicists with new programmes for primary schools delivered by the current outreach team of Jacob Butler, Steve Martin and Nicki Humphry-Baker. These programmes aim to counter the drop off in interest in science that occurs in early secondary. Locally, primary school teachers are offered training and class sets of experiments to nuture the scientific inquisitivenouss in primary school students, so that they can build on that as they progress through secondary school.

Further afield, a primary programme with similar aims called Think Like a Scientist is developed with primary schools in Rochdale in collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Admissions Office, the University of Oxford and the Rochdale local authority. This programme will take a cohort of students chosen from primary schools in Rochdale and build their skills and confidence in the physical sciences throughout a year-long series of activities.

Both programmes will raise aspirations, while giving the students the tools to achieve their ambition, which is an idea that runs through all of the outreach programmes. The pipeline of future physicists is vital for our UK economy and long may the Cavendish continue to encourage the next generation of problem solvers and world-leading scientists.