ASDC trustee Chas Bishop gives evidence at UK Astronomy inquiry

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Chas Bishop: There is a network of about 60 science and discovery centres across the UK, so access is really important. They are in cities and rural areas. It is really important that people feel as if they have somewhere local to them. Transport and access remain a problem, so most science centres will have a community programme or an outreach programme to make sure they can get beyond their natural catchment. Science and discovery centres are really good at taking a difficult subject such as astronomy and presenting it to audiences in a way that they can understand and appreciate. We are talking about audiences with, at one end, no understanding whatever of the subject—that is often the parents, not necessarily the children—and the experts at the other end. The majority of our audiences are made up of families with children aged up to 13. To answer the previous points that have been raised, preschool is critical, so we make sure there is a lot of provision for that. We tend to aim a lot of our programming towards 11, 12 and 13-year-olds, on the basis that younger children want to be 11, 12 or 13, but 13-year-olds do not necessarily want to be younger. Having really exciting and engaging content for that age group is critical. In addition, most science centres—certainly the National Space Centre in Leicester—will have a schools programme that supports the curriculum being taught in schools. For the younger children, you are looking to get them excited and to engage them in a topic. They have to have fun— there is no question about that. As they move up through the age range to upper primary and lower secondary, you might start to try to help with their confidence in the classroom and their attainment. There are some science centres with the resources to look at older children and pathways into further and higher education and the world of work, which I can talk about a bit more.

Chas Bishop: How do we define “hard to reach”? We go into prisons. We have a programme at the moment funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for alternative provision for excluded children. I will answer some of your questions in instalments because you are talking about investment.

There is a huge role here for universities to play. We agree that there is only one Maggie [referring to Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock], but there are lots of other role models who are coming through the university system. We employ them during weekends and holidays and in the community as science explainers and communicators. We take them out into these communities. They might be coming from first or second-year science or space-related courses. It is really relevant to students who are a few years younger because they can talk about their very recent experience. Some fantastic people across the science and discovery network are working in science centres but are from universities and further education colleges. They are not Maggie, but they are brilliant and do the job of standing on stage, or work one to one with students. They are brilliant teachers who are getting to know students. As often as not, it is about the cultural references they have. Is space science and astronomy being talked about in the family set-up, for example? How can we bring in the adults, parents or guardians? They might have very little confidence in their own ability, but you want them to help to push. You might get teachers or community leaders who are brilliant at encouraging the kids when we are not there to turn up.

As to how we measure success, if you are in a community and someone comes back half a dozen times, you tend to give incentives. If you come once a week for six weeks, you get a ticket to the National Space Centre where you can show off the work you have done in those six weeks to your parents, who come along as well. There are prizes and all sorts of things. We now have 26 students who have been more than 20 times to one of our current community initiatives. They come every week and they are so keen. Then you can say, “What do you think about course options at school? What do you think about a space engineering programme?” We have a science course going on in parallel with an immersive design course at Leicester College offering this breath of provision, which is not the frightening academic route necessarily but keeps them in the engaging context of space, science and astronomy and allows them to express themselves through it. Interestingly, we talked earlier about sport and dance. We have used sport in physics; we have used dance in physics. There is a lot of provision when we talk about the hard to reach for those who might have hearing, sight and physical impairment. Neurodiversity is a big thing— accessible afternoons, closing the place to everybody else and making sure it is nice and quiet for a small number of people. There are all sorts of different requirements out there, but I would come back to role models. Maggie is at the top of the iceberg, but I promise you that there are lots of others. There is also a huge female bias in astronomy.