Skype For Schools

Teachers! Would you like one of our Project Team to drop in to your school classroom to answer questions on Derby's Peregrine Falcons. We're willing to travel anywhere in the world to chat with you!

We can offer schools a free, 30-40 minute classroom chat via Skype on some Mondays or Tuesdays. These need to be pre-booked and can be tailored to best meet your class needs.

Children from Brigg Infants School in Derbyshire made these drawings
of our first Skype classroom session 

The activity would be teacher led, and requires preliminary teacher-expert hook-up to plan and schedule the Skype activity. We would expect your class to have already done some peregrine falcon activities, and to have watched our webcameras on Derby Cathedral. Pupils would be encouraged to think about what questions they might put to an expert. For best effect, these questions would already have been sent to us in advance by the classroom leader. 

We also suggest a preliminary Skype hook-up with the teacher a week before to discuss the teacher’s needs, and to agree on how best to approach the session. 

Our Skype session is best scheduled immediately after a school break or lunch period. This allows time to ensure everything is set up and working before the class arrives. With pupils positioned in front of the school webcam, the teacher could invite each one to come up, singly or in pairs, to ask their question. This is not to preclude spontaneity, but is intended to ensure a well-structured session. 

Our volunteer Team member would be happy to explain the background to peregrines starting to live on Derby's Cathedral, or the current position in the peregrines’ life cycle, and what might be expected to be seen on the webcams in the weeks/months ahead.

Following the Skype session, teachers could encourage pupils to do  follow-up work, such as KS1 children doing drawings to show how they class hook-up went, and the responses they got from the Project Team.

This is a new activity for the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project, and is volunteer run. So we may have to give priority to local schools if demand is high.  But for now we can offer Skype sessions only Mondays or Tuesdays, most easily between the local British time of 9am to 10pm. 


Download a  Session Plan  Or contact the Project Team volunteer to discuss availability: peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk