Schools Events

We regularly attend and run events so that students can get a taster of being a statistician in medical research. We have been working to grow our own event, Maths Meets Medicine. Maths Meets Medicine is a whole day of activities aimed at Key Stage (KS) 3 students hosted at a university, which varies each year. We are always keen to be involved in larger STEM or careers events for school students as well as running our own events. Find out more about our recent events below.

Maths Meets Medicine


Schools Events 1
We ran our last Maths Meets Medicine event at the University of Reading. Year 10-11 students from three schools attended the event. The day consisted of three statistical themed workshops, which introduced topics such as clinical trials, placebo response and cost-effectiveness of medicines.

Both teachers and students enjoyed participating in our pretend clinical trials for new asthma and Alzheimer’s disease medicines and analysing their own data through a t-test or chi-squared test. There was lively discussion during the workshop that tasked students with choosing only 1 out of 3 new drugs to provide on the NHS.  The day concluded with an active Q&A session with a panel of undergraduate students, placement students and statisticians working in the pharmaceutical industry.

Regional Career Fair


PSI volunteers ran a mini clinical trial game at their stand as part of the Bucks Skills Show. The event featured stands from over 100 organisations and attracted over 2,000 11-19 year olds across two days. Visitors to the stand played the role of asthma patients and were randomised to either placebo or a new drug, Breatheazy. Students had to blow into a Peak Flow Meter (adapted to give lower scores for placebo) and their data was analysed in an app. Students used various plots and statistics in the app to decide whether the new drug appeared effective or not.

Lots of students really engaged with the activity and enjoyed finding out more about our industry and the statistical profession. Parents were equally pleased to find out about a career where maths and statistics are applied. We hope to be attending more careers fairs soon.

Schools_Events_Stand

If you would like to run any of the workshops used at these events yourself, please visit our Classroom Workshop page for full instructions and resources.

Visit our events page and Facebook page for information on future events or get in touch via our contact us page if you are organising an event you would like PSI to attend.

Upcoming Events