Interactive learning programmes have been widely trailed for children and adults alike, across a range of subjects. In a bid to boost children’s interest in the sciences, Queen’s University Belfast has made history by taking on a new pharmacy-based programme.

The Pharmacists in Schools initiative, which welcomes schoolchildren aged from eight to 14 to discover more about applied science, invites youngsters to leave their classrooms behind for a trip to the School of Pharmacy’s dispensary. It is hoped that the programme will benefit over 400 pupils in twenty local schools, giving them the opportunity to become pharmacists for a day and to encourage them to consider studying science-based subjects for a career in a profession such as pharmacy.

Staff and undergraduate students from the School of Pharmacy will visit schools and use props to give children the opportunity to prepare medicines in response to prescriptions, label the medicines and dispense them. In this way they learn how pharmacists use scientific and medical knowledge to make medicines and to advise patients on their safe and effective use.

The initiative is being supported by Northern Pharmacies Trust.
Dr Ryan Donnelly, co-ordinator of the Pharmacists in Schools scheme, explained that the programme promoted pharmacy as a changing profession and gave an insight into the developing, associated roles. “Within pharmacy there are many roles; compounding and dispensing medications, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy and providing drug information and education and, increasingly, delivering frontline healthcare and clinical services,” he said. “Pharmacists are the experts on drug therapy and they are the primary health professionals who optimise the use of medication to deliver positive health outcomes to patients. For any young person it is a career choice with tremendous scope.”

Professor David Woolfson, head of the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s, said: “Programmes such as Pharmacists in Schools are a great way to engage with community. One study highlighted how a third of students studying science and engineering at one university had made their choice by the age of 12. I have no doubt that Pharmacists in School will create a sense of wonder and enthusiasm in those pupils who participate in it. And even if they do not go on to study pharmacy, they will have a real understanding of what pharmacists do and their importance in the community.”

Meanwhile, participating schools are already beginning to see the value of introducing a vocational element to learning at a younger age. Mary Keating, principal of St Brigid's Primary School in Glassdrummond, County Armagh, is very impressed by the concept. “The Pharmacists in Schools programme provides a great opportunity for children to engage with science and to learn about the extended role the pharmacist plays in the community in advising people about their medicines and on maintaining healthy lifestyles,” she said. “The children at my school really enjoyed their experience being pharmacists for the day.”