The Royal Society

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About the Royal Society

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose, reflected in its founding Charters of the 1660s, is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science, encouraging its development and use for the benefit of humanity. Education is one of the Society’s strategic priorities.

Schools Engagement

The Royal Society promotes excellence in the teaching of science, mathematics and computing while also encouraging and supporting investigative work in the classroom. You can explore all our activities via royalsociety.org/teachers

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Opportunities for primary schools

The Society currently manages the following programmes and events, accessible to primary schools in the UK:

  • Partnership Grants: schools can apply to receive up to £3,000 to run an investigative STEM project in partnership with a STEM professional from academia or industry. Free online training sessions are being run throughout the year to introduce teachers and STEM partners to the scheme and provide guidance through the application process.
  • Tomorrow’s Climate Scientists: a new programme as part of the Partnership Grant scheme that aims to give students not just a voice but an opportunity to take action themselves to address climate and biodiversity issues – to become the climate scientists of tomorrow.
  • Young People’s Book Prize: every year UK schools are invited to join our collection of judging panels who pick the winner of the Young People's Book Prize. Over 450 judging panels receive a free set of shortlisted books. Any school can access the online list of shortlisted books and accompanying accessible activity sheets. Being a judging panel is a great opportunity to enthuse and excite children about science and literacy.

Resources

You can access all of the Society’s resources for schools for free, with no sign up needed, via royalsociety.org/teaching-resources

  • What do you want to know about climate change or biodiversity loss?: In the run up to COP26, engage your students in discussions about climate and biodiversity issues that affect them with these evidence-based resources. The basic sets, available in PDF, PowerPoint, or poster format, are suitable for use with primary age students. There is also an extended 20 Q&A set and further links to enhance teachers’ own knowledge.
  • Why science animations: developed following research commissioned by the Society, these animations aim to support students, and their parents, to be better informed about the relevance of their science lessons and the range of careers that science skills and education might lead to. Suitable for older primary ages.
  • Brian Cox school experiments: to support creative and investigative approaches in primary schools, Professor Brian Cox presents a series of video resources to increase teachers' confidence with experimental science and relates the experiments to the real world. All activities are linked to the primary science curriculum and contain information about science careers.

Working with PSQM

We are pleased to be a stakeholder of PSQM. The process of undertaking a PSQM award aligns with the Royal Society’s strategic aims.