IMPROVING LIVES : POWERING DREAMS

THAT’S THE ART OF ENGINEERING

We were delighted to be awarded an Engineering Education Grant grant to deliver this day in these three primary schools by The Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET) and The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (The IMechE).

‘Improving Lives/Powering Dreams’ Days

It was a Careers Day with a difference, these are very special STEAM Co. Days not only showed children how Engineering Improves Lives but also how their studies, especially the STEAMskills connect to these exciting careers and the various ways of getting there - whether via vocational or academic pathways through an apprenticeship or degree (or both of course!)

We stressed that it’s hard work, but worth it and highlight the important role that the support of family and other carers in school communities play as these sessions were jointly run by members of the school community, using STEAM Co.’s STEAM Co. Day model.

Not unlike the ‘Co Co Code Days’ we delivered for Google during Europe Week of Code, they consisted of the following key elements:

• All School Assembly - a roller coaster journey through the STEAM skills and how they power engineering, and how it improves lives on many fronts. This exciting talk will focus on positive role models and diversity and show how engineering is a multipath creative career that is open to everyone.

• KS2 Activities - for the rest of the day, groups of chidren took part in activities linking back to the key themes and story introduced in the assembly.

GIVE ME A CLUE!!

Until we get the films up here, we don’t want to give too much away, needless to say our audience will have to hold on tight and Dream Big. If you want some idea of what to expect, take a look at the film above of the CoCoCode Days we ran for Google During Europe Week of Code last year.

One thing we will tell you is that we think Creativity is a critical skill that our young people will need and that will underpin this session.

Have a look at the film here to see what a STEAM Co. Days looks like and the role that famous and inspiring people can play, without even being there by being STEAM Co. Inspirators.

OUR SPECIAL INSPIRATOR

Our Young People are often obsessed by famous people, celebrities.

We feel we need to give them real role models which we call ‘Inspirators’ and develop activity packs with them that can be delivered by School Communities as you can see in the above film.

We were delighted to work on this project with a very very special and off the scale inspiring person.

Mamta Singhal MIET is possibly one of, if not THE coolest Engineer in the country and is helping keep the Great into Great Britain when it comes to celebrating our country’s creativity in terms of Innovation and Engineering.

A former Young Engineer of the Year, she works very hard as a fantastic STEM/STEAM role model for girls and diversity across the country.

She has certainly had some of the coolest engineering jobs going, having literally been a Toy Engineer at Hasbro , an Innovation ‘Chocolate’ Scientist at Mars and a spell with Design Leaders Dyson.

We beamed an exclusive contribution from Mamta to the schools we visited from The Pod and White City in London.

EMBEDDING CAREERS EDUCATION

Our inspiration for this series of sessions also came from a school leader in a challenged school community in the North of England.

We read Jonathan Lear’s Chapter ‘Careers Education’ in the excellent book ‘The Working Class’ by Ian Gilbert of Independent Thinking and our friends at education specialists, Crown House Publishing in South Wales.

In it he talked about the need to embed aspiration and careers thinking into every day of a child’s education, the critical importance of sowing seeds in primary school or engaging and relevant project based learning.

We visited Jonathan on our SUmmer of Love Art UK Tour and he gave us some invaluable insights that helped inform our #EEGS Grant application.

He essentially echoed Prof Guy Claxton’s words to us: “As Parents, teachers and Society, our responsibility to our young people is to help them understand what they want to be great at, and help them follow their dreams”.

We have to help them find their passion, their art. What might connect them to other people.

For us, this session was all about the Art of Engineering.

WHERE, WHEN, HOW?

Thanks for EEGS funding we were able to offer this fantastic day to primary schools at no charge in the following areas and were blown away by the response:

• Monday 5th Nov - Sheffield, South Yorks

• Tues 6th Nov - Scunthorpe (Conference)

• Weds 7th Nov - Hull, Humberside

• Fri 9th Nov - Birmingham, West Mids

• Whenever - Your School?

Don’t worry too much, even if you weren’t one of the lucky winner, sign up anyway as we can arrange to bring it to your school.

Give and take

Time is tight and STEAM Co. is used to aiming high and coming somewhere close and will do our best to deliver something vaguely as promised but ask you to bear with us. We've not had any complaints so far.

Safeguarding

Our number one priority on STEAM Co. Days are the young people, both their enjoyment, education and safety and we take safeguarding very seriously. The host school’s safeguarding policy overrides all others and a copy of ours is available on request and will be provided prior to the day.

We cannot guarantee that all our and our partners teams will have DBS clearance and all our team and their DBS status will be suitably identified and treated subject to the host school’s safeguarding policy. DBS certificates will be provided for all members that have them.Community engagement

Community engagement with schools is very important to STEAM Co. so we'll need you to commit to get at least 8 carers engaged, these may be parents/guardians, local voluntary organisations, secondary children or employers. This is not a deal breaker as we're keen for this day to be enjoyed by any school, regardless of their setting.

Marketing

A condition of entry is that schools agree for STEAM Co. to film the Day for marketing use by them, The IET and The IMechE online, broadcast and other social and traditional media. The school will have full rights of review and approval for any film and photographs print to broadcast. We will do all this within the safeguarding and permissions policies of the chosen schools and do not want any school or child to be excluded from this opportunity due to their individual permissions and will either ensure they are not filmed or are anonymised in photos and films, again subject to school approval.

Anything else?

As is often the case round here, this plane took off before we'd finished building it. If you can think of anything we haven't, do let us know in the above form.

Thanks for your interest and support.

All you have to do is complete the form below by Weds 24th October and we’ll do a draw the last week of half term and let everyone know Monday 29th October.