CPD Courses

We provide a wide range of staff CPD courses in Primary Science. These can be half or full-day sessions or split into shorter twilight sessions.

A 90 minute twilight session is £250, half day (3 hours) is £350 and a full day is £550. Travel expenses outside of the South East of England will also be added at cost.

Contact us for more details and to discuss your requirements. 

Sessions available include:

AI for Schools: Unlock the Power of Ai

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming education, offering powerful tools to enhance teaching and learning. However, with so many AI products on the market, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. How can AI help save time, improve lesson planning, and support students effectively? What are the potential benefits—and risks—of bringing AI into the classroom?

In this engaging and practical workshop, you’ll explore how AI and other digital tools are already shaping education. Discover how these technologies can streamline lesson planning, facilitate low-stakes assessment, and enable adaptive teaching to meet diverse learner needs. You’ll also gain hands-on experience with effective prompt writing to generate high-quality text and image-based resources for your lessons.

This workshop isn’t just about technology—it’s about making AI work for you as a teacher. We’ll discuss real-world applications, ethical considerations, and best practices for using AI responsibly in education.

Danny has recently written a guide to AI in Primary Science for the Association for Science Education and brings a wealth of experience in teacher training and educational technology. His insights will help you navigate the AI landscape with confidence and make informed choices about integrating AI into your teaching practice. He’s written about AI in the classroom here.

 

Enhancing Primary Science Teaching

This workshop will give your school advice and support on delivering and embedding the Science curriculum across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

Including:

• Implementation of the national curriculum for science
• Guidance on covering session content
• How to build in progression across the years
• Activities to use in the classroom
• Ideas for integrating technology

The session can focus on particular topic areas or can be a more general overview of the whole curriculum.

Working Scientifically

Working scientifically is at the heart of an outstanding primary curriculum. This course will give you lots of practical and innovative ideas to plan for engaging and manageable practical lessons.

With a focus on the types of scientific enquiry, you will be supported in developing children’s independence and confidence as they ask and answer their own questions. You will learn how to plan for a progressive working scientifically curriculum and discover a range of resources and activities to implement in your school.

Getting Science OFSTED-Ready

With the arrival of the new Ofsted inspection framework for primary schools, the focus is now shifting towards whether a school is teaching a broad and engaging curriculum to its children. What will science look like if OFSTED take a deep dive into it?

This session will cover the things schools need to consider to be prepared for an Ofsted inspection of primary science. It will look at how you can demonstrate your Impact, Intent and Implementation. Based on the ideas Danny shared in this article for Teach Primary Magazine. and this blog post.

ICT in Science

Looking for ways to make better use of technology in your science lessons? We can provide a number of different courses, adapted to your needs.

Such as: 

• ICT in Science (primary / secondary)
• Using Visualisers in Science
• Digital Microscopes
• Datalogging in Science (primary and secondary)
• Creative ideas for your Primary Science classroom.

Online Safety

Danny is an accredited CEOP Ambassador and can deliver online safety training to your staff, students, and/or your parents.

A staff meeting covers:

• The requirements of online safety within the classroom
• The potential online risks faced by pupils when using internet technologies outside school
• Content of an online safety curriculum from EYFS to Y6
• Professional responsibilities and staying safe when using social media
• Useful resources

A parent session covers:

• Helping them understand the dangers of being online
• Raising awareness of the online risks to their child
• Strategies to help keep their children safe
• Alerting them to the potential impact on their children of their own online life
• Signposting to support resources
• Parents support page here

I can also deliver sessions to student teachers on an ITE course as a 2 hour zoom session that could fit into your ITE programme.

 

Interactive Whiteboards

We can show you how to make the best use of your Interactive Whiteboard in both Primary and Secondary school classrooms and also at colleges and university level.

We can provide Bespoke Beginners and Advanced sessions and either Subject specific or general sessions. We’re also happy to deliver sessions to student teachers on ITT courses.

We can deliver training on:

• SMART Notebook
• Promethean ActivInspire and Classflow
• Prowise Screens and Prowise Connect
• Figjam

A typical session includes basic use of the board using the whiteboard tools, creating interactive resources using simple tools and practical ideas for the classroom

Google Workspace for Education

Google Workspace for Education is a collection of learning tools specifically tailored for use in schools and colleges.

With Google Drive, Docs, Slides, Sheets and Forms, G Suite for Education contains all the essential web-based applications required for teachers to enhance teaching through technology.

We can provide an introduction to GSuite for Education. This includes an overview of collaborative tools including Drive, Docs, Slides, Forms, Sheets and Classroom. Danny is a Google for Education Certified Trainer.

About Danny Nicholson

Danny is an independent trainer and consultant. He is a former science (biology) teacher and now delivers ICT and science training to teachers all over the UK as well as overseas.

He is a PGCE Science lecturer for NESTT (formerly Billericay Educational Consortium) and Essex and Thames SCITT on their Primary teacher training course, and also delivers science and ICT sessions on several other PGCE and B.Ed. courses at primary and secondary level. He delivers training for STEM learning and for several Science Learning Partnerships in the South and East of England. He is a hub leader for PQSM.

Danny has written science textbooks for Heinemann and is one of the authors of Switched on Science for Rising Stars and Reach Out CPD for Twig. If you wish to book him to come to your school and deliver training then please contact him here.

* additional charges may be added to cover travel and accommodation expenses.

Testimonials

Quotes from recent Interactive Whiteboard training days:

“Brilliant. Inspired me to think about using my whiteboard for far more. I shall have to try out making some of the starter and plenary activities shared”

“Fantastic – I learnt more today than on my PGCE”

“An extremely useful and enjoyable day”

“Very Impressed. Possibly the best course I’ve ever attended”

“Lots of really great ideas. New skills learned, others revised. Lots of thinking about application. Great”

“A great beginning to my interactive adventure”

“Useful ideas – lots to take away and use”

“Impressive amount of good ideas on using the Smartboard”

“Inspiring!”

“Very enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenter”