Electricity North West give Lancashire's youngsters educational masterclass

Bright Sparks is an in-person and online programme operated by Electricity North West, who manage the region’s power network.

The programme, for children aged 7-11, aims to develop children’s understanding about electricity, from building electrical circuits to looking at why it’s important to save electricity, and ways to do so as well as giving the youngsters an insight STEM subjects.

Previously delivered through in-class workshops, these free curriculum materials, adapted because of the ongoing pandemic, have been designed with flexibility in mind and are now readily available to all primary schools across the region.

Electricity North West’s stakeholder engagement manager, Helen Norris, said: “Our Bright Sparks programme has been immensely popular with primary schools for a number of years.

“But during the pandemic we had to re-evaluate how the programme was delivered as our teams could no longer deliver the sessions in-person.

“We’ve worked hard and created a new Key Stage 2 curriculum-linked online service which is readily available to all primary schools within the North West.

“The sessions are proving extremely popular and help provide youngsters with knowledge as to how electricity works.”

Since 2015, the Bright Sparks team have visited more than 700 schools delivering sessions to over 18,000 pupils throughout the region.

Each lesson is designed to build the pupil’s knowledge of electricity, starting with the basics of electricity safety and sustainability, to building their own circuit using different components, before discovering the properties of conductors and insulators.

Ms Norris continued: “Bright Sparks gives our teams the opportunity to promote STEM subjects to a broad range of people from a young age whilst we can also encourage interest and diversity in the industry.

“From such a young age, it gives the children an eye-opener and who knows, they could easily become our future engineers, helping us to deliver the electricity and innovations that we will need to support the exciting developments of a low carbon future.”

The programme is made up of four lessons, for teachers to deliver in their own classroom or remotely.

Each lesson contains educator notes, pupil worksheets and supporting videos and animations which bring the lessons to life.

For more information visit www.enwl.co.uk/about-us/transforming-our-communities/powering-your-future/bright-sparks/bright-sparks-online/. or visit Electricity North West’s education hub by logging on to www.enwl.co.uk/about-us/transforming-our-communities/powering-your-future/.