Our CEO Abbie Vlahakis and members of the Millennium Point Charitable Trust were invited to King Solomon International Business School to unveil a plaque commemorating our support for their eco-friendly STEM garden.
The “Breaking The Barriers To Stem” project is a great example of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) education projects we fund in the West Midlands region. It was great to catch up with staff and pupils at King Solomon, seeing the positive impact the project has had.
(Pupils from King Solomon International Business School holding the plaque, with Abbie Vlahakis, Millennium Point CEO and Jean McLeod, Head of PSP.)
Who’s running the project?
The project is managed by a parent’s voluntary organisation in partnership with King Solomon International Business School – Birmingham’s first all-through (4-19) Christian free school, which specialises in international business and entrepreneurship. The Parent School Partnership (PSP) was established in 2015 by parents of pupils who attend the school. To this end, PSP activities have been by donation of time, gifts and resources from willing parents and community partners – and now Millennium Point.
What’s it all about?
An inner-city school in Birmingham with a high proportion of BAME (Black, Asian and Ethnic Minorities) pupils, its ambition at the start of the project, was to ‘break barriers’ and increase STEM engagement across the entire pupil population, whatever their gender or ethnicity, through a series of onsite activities, workshops, clubs, as well as STEM-related off-site trips. For a lot of children at the school, this will be their only chance to experience this kind of specialist learning in addition to the national curriculum and the aim is for them to be immersed into the world of STEM; give them opportunities that they otherwise would not have to boost STEM participation and be excited about the possibilities of careers in STEM.
The PSP and school has identified gaps in the children’s exposure to STEM learning and wants to reach individuals from urban, challenged or hard to reach backgrounds by providing all of this free of charge to prevent barriers to their involvement.
The project includes the following:
- Code Club – an after-school club designed to immerse students in the world of code – HTML, Java, CSS etc.
- Eco-friendly sensory wildlife garden – designed to help students explore science in a practical way and learn about life cycles, growing, plants, climate, habitats, weather. The Code Club will create a QR code for the various plants and environments, which can be scanned to get the information about the optimum climate for growth etc.
- Equipment – for a variety of science and maths experiments, including one which will measure the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels in classrooms and outside areas.
- Excursions – a range of STEM-related school trips, including Dudley Canal and Tunnel Trust; Planetarium at Thinktank; Jaguar Land Rover Wolverhampton; Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
What impact has the project made?
The project has been a breath of fresh air to the school, offering opportunities within STEM, that without the funding, would not of been possible. The garden has helped pupils explore science in a fun engaging way, developing their education around life cycles, growing plants, climate effects, habitats and weather.
It was also fantastic to hear the positive impact the “Code Club” has had on the pupils. Pupils have been immerged in the world of code, with top technical practices such as HTML, Java and CSS being learned at the school.
These skills go a long way in providing the pupils a brilliant opportunity to kickstart their career within STEM.
How the Millennium Point Charitable Trust can help you
The Millennium Point Charitable Trust is committed to supporting the growth of STEM education in the West Midlands region, through funding, resources, projects and events.
Explore what we do or get in touch to see how we can work together.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
The Millennium Point Charitable Trust has announced it has reached a landmark £30m in STEM support to organisations across the West Midlands over the last seven years – including £4.98m in the last financial year alone.
Opened in 2001, Millennium Point is a landmark public building in the Eastside of Birmingham city centre. Inside, it is home to 17 versatile event spaces including a 354-capacity Auditorium, meeting rooms and offices, and tenants, including ThinkTank and Birmingham City University (BCU).
Commercial activity that takes place in the Millennium Point building feeds back into the Millennium Point Charitable Trust. This enables the charity to donate to, invest in, and facilitate STEM-related projects, events and initiatives in the West Midlands. This has included over £2.7m in STEM grants to schools, not-for-profits and charities in Greater Birmingham and the Wider West Midlands.
In addition, the trust funds £16,650 in STEM degree scholarships annually, in partnership with Birmingham City University. To date, scholarships have totalled over £83,000.
Abbie Vlahakis, CEO of Millennium Point said: “Promoting STEM education across the region is what we do – increasing the opportunities for the next generation via some of the most exciting career paths available.
“As a meeting and events space, the last 18 months has been incredibly challenging, but it’s fantastic that we have continued throughout to contribute to the West Midlands’ myriad of exciting STEM projects and initiatives.”
The trust has also announced an extension to the deadline for applications to the Millennium Point Charitable Trust STEM Grants Programme 2022, which is now 5pm on Friday December 17th.
Paul Hughes, Schools Manager at the Aston Villa Foundation, commented: “The STEM grant we received from the Millennium Point Trust funded our innovative STEM Stars project, which has allowed us to add a new dimension to our provision and provide children, teachers and schools the opportunity to embark on their STEM education journey helping to develop skills of the future and make a real difference.’’
With STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) funding grants of up to £20,000 available, the trust has moved the deadline to give more organisations time to apply for money that can often be life-changing for young people and their future careers.
The latest round of funding in 2021 saw a wide range of successful, creative STEM projects – from a proposal to build a fully operational light aircraft to STEM training toolkits for schools.
Abbie Vlahakis added: “Every year we are impressed and inspired by the applications we receive for our small grants programme, and this year has been no exception – and I’d urge any organisation looking to fund an exciting STEM project in 2022 that there’s still time for their idea to be considered.”
To apply for a grant, please click here.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
Don’t miss out on an introduction into the world of NFTs and explore the opportunities of a digital future in this exciting event taking place at Millennium Point this Saturday.
A Digital Future With NFT Talks takes place at Millennium Point on Saturday 11th December 2021, 5pm-11pm. This is the perfect event for anyone that is interested in the NFT space, that wants to learn more and connect to the NFT community.
Who are NFT Talks?
NFT-Talks is an educational brand created for the NFT space. They believe that NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) are the future and want to play their part in creating awareness to help build the NFT community.
NFT-Talks aim to deliver digestive content about the NFT space for anyone with little to no experience to consume.
What is an NFT?
Non-fungible tokens (NFT) is at the forefront of cutting edge technology and has been the highlight of the year disrupting the Art, Sports & Entertainment, Music, Gaming and Fashion industries so far.
A Non-fungible token is a cryptographic token called ERC-721. This token represents proof of ownership to any digital asset it has been linked to, which is then recorded onto a blockchain.
What to expect on the evening of the event?
The first hour of the event will kick off with a live “NFT Talks” podcast with an anonymous digital artist from the UK “KidEight”.
Taking place after the podcast, listen to a panel of industry leaders and creatives, who will be talking about the future of the NFTs in Art, Music, Digital Fashion & Collectibles followed by a Q&A session.
The event will also include a VR/Metaverse demo, live Art and Music performance, before ending the evening with a chance to network with like-minded individuals and talk about the NFT space.
Limited tickets available so don’t miss out!
Don’t miss out on the exciting world of NFTs and book your place now by clicking below. Tickets are priced at £11.37 (including fees) each.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
STEM Grants application deadline is now extended until Friday 17th December 2021. For more information or to apply please click here.
Every year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust Small Grants programme gives out grants of up to £20,000 to support science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education projects in the West Midlands. We have funded many different projects across all areas of STEM, supporting learning development for young students.
Here is another great example of the type of work we do, this project was funded in 2019 and shows the power of what the grants funding can achieve for STEM organisations.
Who are Birmingham Botanical Gardens?
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are a 15-acre botanical garden situated in Edgbaston, and one of the most popular attractions for families in the region. There is plenty on offer for visitors with outdoor events including film screenings and performances, along with access to four stunning glasshouses, a playground, tea room and garden gift shop.
Why did they apply for a Millennium Point Grant?
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens reached out to the Millennium Point Charitable Trust to help support it’s Sensational Science project. They wanted to address a ongoing issue where primary schools lack the resources and skills to provide laboratory style and specialist science learning experiences for young people. Sensational Science is a new, original interactive education workshop designed to enable school children to investigate plant DNA and undertake scientific experiments into the science behind plants in a laboratory-style session at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
The aim of the project is to inspire and generate more interest around Science, while developing young peoples skillsets and implementing more science and STEM subjects at school.
Sensational Science impacts 1,000 pupils
The results of the project have been fantastic with KS1 and KS2 primary school pupils benefitting from practical experience of scientific investigation. The project is being led by an award-winning education team, with 35 sessions taking place, covering 1000 pupils, many from deprived and marginalised backgrounds.
The project demonstrates the practical application of STEM within a green space which elevates their knowledge of STEM in a fun and imaginative way.
Botanical Gardens “thrilled” with the outcome of the project
Our STEM Grants team caught up with The Botanical Gardens and they couldn’t of been any happier with the outcome of the project. They commented:
“We are absolutely thrilled to have been awarded a small grant from Millennium Point Trust. As a direct result of this grant, we can deliver an exciting programme of bespoke workshops enabling school children to investigate plant DNA and undertake scientific experiments into the science behind plants in a laboratory-style workshop at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
The funding will enable us to deliver a minimum of 35 workshops during the year 2019/20, and provide opportunities for up to 1,000 primary school children from Birmingham and West Midlands schools to ‘work scientifically’.
We are especially delighted that this grant will help support the prohibitive costs of travel for up to 20 of our most deprived local schools, a cost we know to be a barrier to some of our closest inner-city schools. With your support, we are able to provide the additional benefit to schools of being able to access the Gardens in general -where they can stay for as long as they choose!
We would like to put on record our thanks to Millennium Point Trust for their support for our work and their hugely important commitment to developing the STEM agenda in this region.”
About educational grant funding from Millennium Point
Educators, Charities and Not-for-Profits within the West Midlands Combined Authority can apply for up to £20,000 from Millennium Point to fund their STEM activity.
The STEM Grants application deadline is now extended until Friday 17th December 2021. For more information or to apply please click here.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
Originally set to close on Friday 3rd December 2021, the STEM Grants application is now officially extended to Friday 17th December 2021 to give everyone a chance to apply this year. Over the last five years, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust has awarded over £2 million to charities, not-for-profits, community groups and schooled to further STEM education.
Millennium Point STEM Grants are available from £1,000 to £20,000 to individual applicants to support science, technology, engineering & maths (STEM) education in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands.
You can apply here.
Robots, Sensory Gardens, and an Automatic Weather Station
With STEM the possibilities are endless! Millennium Point Charitable Trust has previously seen the rewarding outcome of past projects such as Bishop Vesey Grammar School – STEM Robotics Club. South Bromsgrove High School had an insightful and imaginative project with their Automatic Weather Station. Millennium Point also saw a fantastic Sensory Garden achieved by City Road Primary School.
You can read more about our fantastic case studies here.
Need some help applying?
We want everyone applying to have the best chances of success. That’s why our fantastic Trust Team have put together some useful information on our website. If you have any questions have a look at our frequently asked questions page, you can always contact our team with any other queries. You will also find our STEM Grant Applicant Guidance there too. The guidance intended to assist organisations in applying for funding from the Millennium Point Trust’s STEM grants programme.
Anyone applying can also look at our latest blog with tips on applying for the Millennium Point STEM Grants.
Book with Millennium Point and help support the future of STEM
Everything Millennium Point Charitable Trust achieves is made possible by the commercial activity that takes place in our landmark building. It all feeds back into the Charitable Trust, enabling it to donate and invest in STEM-related organisations, projects, and initiatives.
When booking events with Millennium Point you are widening your CSR and supporting the local region. Find our how and more about our 17 unique event spaces here.
Don’t Delay, apply for our STEM Grant today!
The deadline is now extended to Friday 17th December 2021, you can apply via our easy to download form on our website.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
