St Mary’s Awarded PSQM Training Status

St Mary’s University, Twickenham has been awarded training status to help partnership schools gain the Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM).

The training status allows the St Mary’s Primary Science Education team to act as PSQM hub leaders so they can assist local primary schools in gaining the award.

The PSQM is a unique award programme which develops and celebrates the profile of science teaching, learning and leadership in primary schools.

Science subject leaders of local schools to St Mary’s can be supported by the University’s hub leaders to achieve one of the three levels of PSQM awards.

St Mary’s hub leaders will facilitate Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sessions over annual cycles to help schools achieve the PSQM status, which lasts for three years.

The hub leaders will help assess the schools’ science provision, help them create an action plan on how to develop it, monitor the progress of the plan and give feedback and assist the schools in creating a portfolio to submit to PSQM to gain full status.

Senior Lecturer in Primary Science at St Mary’s Amy Strachan, one of the members trained as a hub leader, said, “As a primary science education team, being a PSQM hub will enable us to contribute to the development of quality provision of science in our partnership schools. Supporting local schools to raise the quality of primary science will allow us to establish and develop a primary science community of excellence at St Mary’s.”