Fishkeeper Fry for Parents

Thanks for your interest in Fishkeeper Fry – our exciting, free interactive learning programme developed for primary school children by Maidenhead Aquatics.

Now approaching its fourth year, our Fishkeeper Fry programme is an interactive learning programme, designed by the fishkeeping experts at Maidenhead Aquatics to support national curriculum primary science themes and is absolutely free of charge to teachers - its sole purpose being to develop the next generation of responsible fishkeepers and fishkeeping hobbyists. There is absolutely no payment required from schools at all and at the end of the programme schools can opt to keep their aquarium and fish free of charge assuming they are happy to continue to look after and maintain their aquariums once the programme closes.

Maidenhead Aquatics and our supporting partner, Fluval,  provide all schools selected to take part each year, with all the equipment and learning resources they need to set up their own aquarium in their classroom, including the aquarium and all associated equipment and a range of fish which they will learn all about - supported by their teacher. There is no cost to the school or the children taking part and the benefits of the programme are many including:

1. Visual learning - Children can see how their efforts in tasks carried out affect the aquarium and its inhabitants. 
2. All aspects of science can be taught from the mini eco-system; from water chemistry, to how fish eat and the nitrogen cycle
3. Other key learnings can be filtered in around the subject, such as language, geography and history
4. Valuable lessons in being responsible and caring for animals
5. Teamwork - Working with classmates to ensure the aquarium is looked after and tasks are carried out
6. Encourages children to look beyond their everyday life on land, use their imagination and consider the underwater world evolving in their classroom
7. Aquariums have been proven to provide a calming atmosphere for people and studies have found that there is a loss of tension when fish are present in the classroom.

Each week teachers are asked to select a Fishkeeper of the Week as the child in their class who has embraced core tasks and associated work in the class in learning about and caring for their aquarium and fish. They will also share with us a range of work and photos of your child’s class working on the programme so that we can share these on our and our supporter, Fluval’s website and social media channels (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).  Please note we will only share images where full parental consent for photography has been obtained from you by your school so you can be sure that only content that you are happy to be shared publicly on our website and social channels will be shared.

The programme is designed to be delivered in its entirety by your child’s school if the school is selected to participate and this will be either as part of the school day or as part of a lunchtime or extra-curriculum club. Some schools have included a visit to their local Maidenhead Aquatics store to see more fish and meet the store team supporting their class, but this is optional. Places are limited so if you think your child would like to learn more about keeping fish as pets and understanding more about the joys of the underwater world, please speak to your child’s school and ask them to sign up here.  

Please refer applications for Fishkeeper Fry here!

Please note whilst we warmly welcome interest from parents and other family members we can only accept formal applications to the programme from the teachers at schools who will be delivering the programme to their classes as it is their time commitment that the success of the programme will rely on. So, if you are not a teacher but know of a school or teacher who would be interested in taking part do share this page with them and encourage them to get involved.

As the 2020 programme gets going in January we will be sharing some highlights and updates from the programme with you on this page so do check back to see what our schools have been up to in January.

Towards the end of the programme, we’ll also have some fantastic offers on the equipment that was used in the programme for parents of children who took part to purchase at very special prices, so that you can set up your own aquarium the same as the children have in their classroom at home should you wish and carry on the learning in the comfort of your own home.