What benefits are there for teachers?

Café Scientifique relies on the support of teachers to attend cafés, enthuse students, help with organisational details (such as venue and timing) and act as a bridge when students leave school. For much of the time this support could be minimal, although we hope you will find it enjoyable and stimulating. Schools seeking Specialist Status have to provide evidence of new initiatives and starting a Café Scientifique may well be seen as an appropriate activity.

Avenues of approach aren’t restricted to science. Because the topics are being questioned and debated, rather than taught, the initiative may come from teachers of religious education, democracy studies, politics, citizenship courses or media studies. Indeed this has already happened at one London comprehensive school, where a media studies teacher is incorporating a café into the study of how well the public are informed about science.

Cafe Scientifique will be student-, not teacher-led. Although a café might seem an extra burden on an already heavy workload, we’d stress that, ideally, you will only be the link between your students and the project, not the organising force behind it. In addition there might well be benefits in the form of extra input into the curriculum and a valuable personal link with university colleagues.
 

Click the buttons on the left for further information.

To download these pages in PDF format pack click here.

The students' information pack can be downloaded here.

Feedback

We want to know how the experience of being a cafe organiser worked for you, learn from our mistakes and see what we can do better. So we'd be grateful if you'd give us some feedback.

• To complete the Organisers' feedback form on-line, click here
• To download the form as a Word document, click here

NEW - Cafe Scientifique Forum

The new forum for help, support and problem solving for cafe organising teams.