Paula Dunn’s school, Snape Wood in Nottingham, has just come out of special measures.

Eighteen months ago, Paula, 47, took over the science co-ordinator’s role and has won praise for her work from the inspectors. She has won the Trustees’ Award, for recognising achievement in challenging circumstances.

“When the school was failing, all the children did was copy work off the board. Now, all our lessons are hands-on, and it sticks, even with the less able children. You have to stimulate children and get them doing lots of observation, and to have lots of differentiated words displayed and try and do at least two or three investigations a half-term. I take loads of photographs to share with them and don’t linger too much on written recording of work.”

Winning lesson For reversible and irreversible changes, Paula had one group of pupils looking at how cooling would affect different foods, and another group melting things over candles. They looked at which things, such as chocolate, cheese, butter and sugar would change, and then change back again, and which ones, such as scrambled eggs and coffee, would burn.