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Kent Festival of Physics

Kent Festival of Physics

 21 Jan 2025 | views: 404 | Event

Saturday 15 March 2025, 9am-4pm
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Faversham, ME13 7BQ

We are delighted to announce that the Kent Festival of Physics is back for its seventh year being delivered in collaboration between The STEM Hub and Physics Partners, with special thanks to the Colyer Fergusson Charitable Trust for their generous funding, making this day of physics possible.

As in previous years, the event will be supported by Christina Astin and James Bennett along with host venue Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School.

Everyone is warmly invited to this full day of training and workshops for all physics teachers, specialists, non-specialists, ECTs, trainees, and technicians across the South East and beyond.

Throughout the day there will be sessions covering key physics topics for KS3, KS4, and KS5, offering hands-on practical activities and ideas to make your teaching even more engaging. All sessions will be delivered by expert physics teacher trainers.

This unique event is also an excellent opportunity to network with colleagues from across the region and explore locally available resources. Whilst the programme is primarily tailored for teachers, technicians are more than welcome to attend and may benefit from the more practical workshops.


Keynote Speakers

Sir Martyn Poliakoff and Simon Poliakoff

Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff FREng FRS will talk about his experience of using YouTube videos to bring science to a wider audience to help inspire a new generation of scientists. Physics teacher Simon Poliakoff (Sir Martyn’s son) will share a variety of practical strategies to effectively use videos to support physics teaching in schools and colleges including using videos to reduce cognitive load. The father and son pair first delivered this talk at the 2025 ASE conference.


You can expect a full day of physics workshops featuring a keynote speaker, TeachMeet, TechMeet exhibition, free raffle, and complimentary lunch and refreshments.

The workshops include:

  • Using AI to enhance physics teaching
  • Hands-on astronomy activities to challenge students beyond GCSE
  • Required practicals for A-Level
  • Required practicals for GCSE
  • Teaching waves
  • Teaching energy
  • Teaching forces & motion
  • Inclusive physics teaching
  • Maths in Science: Proportional reasoning – a maths superpower to help students to understand and succeed in science
  • Maths in Science: Rearranging equations and estimating – building strong foundations to help students enjoy and understand the physics
  • Using simple models and resources to aid student understanding
  • Supporting neurodivergent students and teachers
  • GCSE Electricity required practicals, demonstrations vs class practicals vs videos vs textbooks
  • Teaching motors and generators
  • Teaching KS3 electricity so students understand the concepts

Message from the organiser and supporter

Christina Astin has organised and supported the event since its inception. She highlighted: “Helping to organise this event for physics teachers in Kent is one of the highlights of my calendar! The buzz of 120 teachers, technicians, trainees, exhibitors and teacher-trainers chatting about physics over a scrumptious lunch means that all the hard work invested is totally worth it. We know it builds teaching confidence, subject knowledge and local networks and we’re looking forward to our SEVENTH year!”

Sally Smith CEO of Physics Partners commented: “I’m delighted that Physics Partners are supporting this year’s Festival of Physics, made possible through the generous funding of The Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust. These events are always fantastic, and whether this is your first time attending or your seventh, I look forward to welcoming you for a fun-filled and inspiring day of Physics”

Feedback from last year

  • “Thank you for the brilliant Kent Physics Day. I had a great day and have already used things learnt on the day in the classroom.”
  • “Both TeachMeet and TechMeet provided valuable platforms for knowledge exchange and networking within the educational community.”
  • “The event offered valuable professional development opportunities, with teachers gaining new insights, ideas, and confidence in their teaching approaches.”

We hope you can join us for this amazing day of physics.

Cost: £10 includes a full day of physics including the exhibition, raffle, certificate and complimentary refreshments and lunch.

The booking link below will take you to Canterbury Christ Church University's payment gateway (shop.canterbury.ac.uk) where you can pay online and book your place.

BOOK YOUR PLACE »

The day has been made possible to the thanks of the following supporters including: Physics PartnersColyer Fergusson Charitable Trust, Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, the amazing facilitators, The STEM Hub and Canterbury Christ Church University.