St Edmund’s Campion RC School – STEM Club

Background

St Edmund Campion Catholic School is a coeducational Catholic secondary school and sixth form with over 1000 students located on the corner of Holly Lane and Sutton New Road in the Erdington area of Birmingham.

Challenge

The school has high levels of disadvantaged pupils and many students feel that an academic future and/or STEM career is out of their reach. In response to this, the school wanted to establish a STEM club for Y7-10 highlighting STEM careers as part of a wider “Year of STEM” project. They had run Science clubs in the past but lack of resources meant limited exposure for students to be made aware of the wider world within STEM.

What impact has it made?

Running a STEM club will be an extremely rewarding experience. They provide the chance to explore and investigate topics, not in the curriculum and work on large scale projects drawing knowledge and developing skills across multiple subject areas to enrich learning. The club provides children with an opportunity to understand the practical applications of STEM in the wider context of the real world and raise aspirations amongst the student body for a STEM career.

Why did they receive a small grant?

The school demonstrated a clear need for additional STEM resources. With a high volume of disadvantaged pupils, it was paramount that the STEM clubs were of excellent quality to ensure that students felt engaged in STEM and inspired to explore the wider opportunities of STEM subjects. Disadvantaged children are among the most likely to miss out on aspirations within science, technology, engineering and maths and the school showed clearly the impact a grant would make on meeting the needs of their young people.

The Millennium Point Trust Grant has enabled us to launch our ‘Year of STEM’ at St Edmund Campion Catholic School. Students taking part in our STEM club will follow a range of projects throughout the academic year, starting with building a motorised glider. Each term will include a trip relevant to the project they’re undertaking to assist their learning and give them some hands-on experience as well as links to industry. We are very excited for the academic year to come and hope our students enhance their passion for STEM-related subjects.

Sabrina Macintosh, Maths Department, St Edmund’s Campion RC Catholic School