Background

The Shropshire Astronomical Society (SAS) is a county-wide group for anyone interested in the STEM subjects especially astronomy, star-gazing and space exploration. SAS meet regularly at various venues throughout the county and are keen to raise public awareness of astronomy. The society membership encompasses interests ranging from people observing using CCDs, to those content to read all about astronomy and watch the sky at night time. The society encourages members to pursue their passion for astronomy in whichever way they most enjoy.

Challenge

This is an outreach project called Community Astronomy. A group of society members have dedicated their time to out-reach activities working with Cubs, Brownies, U3A, National Trust, Women’s Institute, Shropshire Libraries, Young Farmers, Ironbridge Gorge Museums, Shropshire Wildlife Trust, Shropshire Festivals as well as various requests from village and community halls to carry out a variety of presentations and workshops.

What impact has it made?

Thanks to the additional funding from the Millennium Point Charitable Trust, Shropshire Astronomical Society plans to build on its recent successes and grow this community project which aims to stimulate a general awareness of the science of Astronomy, further the knowledge and skills of its existing members and conduct observations and report them to members and co-ordinating bodies.

Shropshire Astronomical Society plans to achieve this by:

Why did they receive a small grant?

Shropshire Astronomical Society presented a clear proposal which seeks to bring together local communities using space and science with an engaging programme of events and activities.

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This is a project we feel very passionately about and have been developing over a long period of time. Thanks to some additional funding we’ll get to upgrade our society’s existing presentation equipment in order to reach more people and communities by being able to present outdoors, and at venues without the appropriate equipment. The enhanced events will provide rural communities the opportunity to learn about what they have been observing in the night sky each evening as well as all engaging young people and encouraging an interest in STEM subjects. At the same time it will help keep rural village halls vibrant and active for the local communities.

Stephen Szwajkun, Chairman, Shropshire Astronomical Society

Background

City Road Primary School is situated in the Rotton Park area of North Edgbaston.

Challenge

With support from Millennium Point Charitable Trust City Road Primary School will create a Sensory Garden for its Early Years pupils. The EYFS (early years foundation stage) outdoor area has been chosen as the dedicated space for this project.

To start the project KS2 children will create designs based on a given criteria (outline of the area, needs of children in Early Years, budget and safety aspects). The winning design will be a combination of ideas from children in each KS2 year group.

The garden will feature plants (herbs and flowers), solar panel lighting, wind chimes, suncatchers, mirrors and bird houses. Building raised beds for fruit and vegetables is also included in the project with room for expansion for a solar water feature, a seating area for quiet time and a colourful path linking all the areas depending on budget.

The design aspect of this project will build pride in the school and children will hopefully develop a great sense of ownership for the development of the garden. Once built, KS2 children will be timetabled to maintain the area and be responsible for its upkeep as part of their science curriculum. This will ensure that the sensory garden will continue to build the school community and that it will be maintained for years to come.

The sensory garden will provide a great stimulus for developing communication, social skills and an understanding of the world. The design and build of this project will promote STEM throughout the school and community and create a sustainable area which will support teaching and learning for all children as part of the Early Years outdoor learning strand and KS1 and 2’s Science curriculum. This should inspire children’s aspirations and understanding of STEM careers.

What impact has it made?

All pupils at City Road Primary will benefit. The early years children will have daily use of this exciting learning space to develop communication and social skills, whilst the older children in other year groups will have a sense of responsibility as they will have time to maintain the area in the future. Sessions in the sensory garden will be embedded in the school’s curriculum, thereby ensuring that it will form part of the teaching of STEM subjects in subsequent academic years.

There are four key milestones during the project:

Why did they receive a small grant?

The sensory garden project showed a great opportunity for developing the students communication, social skills and understanding of the world through the process of building this project. The project is a great example of promoting STEM throughout the school while developing young students skills set.

We are so excited about this project. A high percentage of our children are from a minority ethnic background within a socially deprived area. In the locality, there is a growing number of families living in overcrowded houses with no outdoor space and as a result some of these children have little or no experience of growing plants outdoors or of the natural world. This project will expose them to new experiences which they would not otherwise have, understanding sustainability, growing and the importance of outdoor learning through play.

Many of the KS2 students involved in the design of the garden have younger siblings in reception and nursery, and will remember and discuss their time in the same area. The Sensory Garden will emphasise how we are linking learning across the school and promote the excellent work the children have done. We hope to celebrate with a grand opening once the garden is complete!

Sarvjeet Jandu, Assistant Head Teacher, City Road Primary School

Background

Founded in 1527, Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School is the third oldest school in the West Midlands and is one of the leading state schools in the country, offering education to boys and girls from Years 7-11 and sixth form.

Challenge

The school’s new timekeeping project is aimed at Key Stage Three pupils, specifically those in year 8, with a focus on students designing and making their own working clocks, using the new laser cutter the grant will help buy. STEM plays a massive part in the school’s culture, including a specialist STEM block which opened in 2017 and science A-Levels the most popular in terms of uptake.

What impact has it made?

This project has allowed students to raise their skill levels and give them access to areas of DT (Design Technology) they would not normally cover in lesson time. Expected interest in the project has resulted in the school making the decision to run the project twice during the academic year.

The funding has also allowed the school to support outreach work with local primaries, which will develop Key Stage Two pupils and give them access to cutting edge technology, inspiring them to consider a future in STEM.

Example of the equipment in action is below:

Laser Cutter

Why did they receive a small grant?

Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School presented a clear proposal which identified a challenge within the local area. They put forward an insightful and imaginative project which brings STEM to life in an engaging manner. Similarly, they seek to extend the legacy of the project through outreach to other schools in the local area, widening the overall impact the grant would have on STEM education.

 

This is an interesting application of the capacity of the laser cutter; it gives the students a physical and working product at the end, and exposes them to CAD and CAM processes. It’s also outside of the realms of projects they might undertake within the confines of the curriculum.

“We have focused on Key Stage Three because due to curriculum restrictions our pupils do not have as much exposure to the practical elements of Design Technology as we would like. Ultimately, it’s our aim to encourage greater numbers of pupils opting for Design Technology as a GCSE subject; we then aim to put on A-level courses in the near future, to support design and engineering careers.

Skye Bowen, Head of Design Technology, Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School

Background

South Bromsgrove High School is a co-educational, secondary school and sixth form with academy status, located in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.

Challenge

The initiative funded by the grant forms part of a much wider international project, based in The Netherlands, called HiSPARC. It’s a way of applying practical STEM learning to the real-world environment in order for students to feel more engaged with the curriculum.

It is a network of cosmic ray detectors situated in schools and universities that feed their data into a public database, allowing students to analyse it and carry out original research. They can start with a simple task, which might be looking at the variation between night and day or winter and summer, and move on to more complex investigations including looking for sources of the cosmic rays somewhere out there in space.

Atmospheric conditions are a factor in the number of cosmic rays hitting the detectors, so the automatic weather station which the grant will fund will extend the scope of the school’s investigations as well as those of other students in Britain and The Netherlands that use HiSPARC. In addition, each project completed can be submitted for a CREST Award at Bronze, Silver or Gold, depending on the level of challenge.

The remainder of the grant will ensure that more staff at South Bromsgrove High School can also be trained to lead groups of students to help build capacity and expertise on this project.

What impact has it made?

Planning, staff training and a very visual session building cloud chambers to watch cosmic rays making vapour trails that are visible to the naked eye is planned for October, followed by the purchase of the weather station in December, recruitment of the students and then the weather station installation.

By Easter 2021, South Bromsgrove High School hopes to apply for and be awarded some CREST certificates. To complete the launch of the weather station, there is an exciting opportunity for students to present their projects to others who have done similar work at an annual conference next year.

Why did they receive a small grant?

South Bromsgrove High School presented a clear proposal which identified a challenge within the local area. They put forward an insightful and imaginitive project which brings STEM to life in an engaging manner.

This is a project that has really grown at South Bromsgrove High School. It started off as one student joining as part of a summer school run by the University of Birmingham and as it was relatively easy to join and accessible from any computer with internet access, we decided that it was worth pursuing. We first installed our own detector and now with the support from Millennium Point Charitable Trust the project will evolve into something even bigger and for generations to come.

STEM subjects are a key component of the curriculum here. Our science department is very successful, having four students leave in 2020 to take up science subjects at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Space topics always stimulate interest and don’t have an inherent gender bias either, so we hope to encourage as many students to take part and look forward to unveiling our new weather station enhancing the project even further.

Steve Clark, Career Lead and Assistant Head of Science, South Bromsgrove High School

Background

King Solomon International Business School is Birmingham’s first all-through (4-19) Christian free school with a student body of 1,200 students. Part of the Woodard Family of Christian Schools, it specialises in international business and entrepreneurship.

Challenge

King Solomon International Business School in an inner-city school which has a student body comprised 97% BME, with a high percentage of which from low-income backgrounds. Latest statistics show that only 6.2% of UK domiciled students enrolled in STEM-related subjects at UK universities are black (4.8% Black African, 1.2% Black Caribbean, 0.2% Black Other). Its ambition is to close the diversity gap through a fully realised STEM programme of extracurricular activities which encourage pupils to engage in STEM and pursue related careers.

What We Funded
What impact has it made?

The range of projects aims to engage everyone at the school, from ages 4-19, a total of around 1,200 pupils.

Why did they receive a small grant?

The project reflected the passion of King Solomon and the Parent School Partnership has for engaging the student body in STEM education with a clear objective to increase diversity in the STEM workforce. Activities were well presented, creative and demonstrates a sound strategy for achieving their goals.

Technology and STEM is a basic skill we all have to understand – at the school, we now talk about ‘the three Rs plus T’, where T stands for technology. Through the funded projects, we want to increase STEM engagement opportunities across the whole school, both Primary and Secondary. We are an inner-city school in Birmingham – 98% BAME – and we want to make sure that this traditionally marginalised group is not missing out on opportunities for STEM learning and careers in STEM. We have identified gaps in the children’s exposure to STEM learning; we want 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.

Jane McLeod, Lead Chair, Parent School Partnership

About the recipient

The Aston Villa Foundation is a registered charity that delivers the community and social responsibility work of Aston Villa Football Club.

With a mission of ‘Working Together to Enrich Lives’, the foundation and its partners work with people from a variety of backgrounds in Birmingham as well as supporting the wider ‘Aston Villa family’ through schools, football in the community, disability, health and wellbeing, education, interventions and community relations.

What’s the project?

STEM Stars will see the development of a new STEM programme in six schools, all within a three-mile radius of Villa Park. The funding will be used to purchase a Sphero robot package (which includes robots and a small pitch) that uses football to engage young people in coding. The money will also pay for training and some of the staff delivery.

Using code, the robots can perform specific functions – such as motion and direction, colour and light, and sensor-controlled reactions, allowing students to be creative with their programs. Teachers and students can use the robots for STEM learning through activities such as navigating a maze, painting, mimicking the Solar System or swimming across the water. The Aston Villa Foundation staff will also work with the schoolchildren to programme the robots to recreate Villa goals from the current Premier League season.

STEM Stars is an extension of the PL Primary Stars education programme which is already delivered by the Aston Villa Foundation to schools in Perry Barr, Erdington and Ladywood. However, none of the schools currently engage in STEM activities.

Challenge

The area around Villa Park has high levels of income deprivation and education deprivation. Education deprivation is intrinsically linked to income and social deprivation. This means children from low-income backgrounds, particularly marginalised backgrounds, have less opportunity to attain higher education and employment status.

The schools targeted in the STEM Stars project have a high percentage of BAME and high levels of income deprivation (top 3% nationally) and education deprivation (top 8%). The purpose of this project will be to better engage young people with STEM education and raise aspirational levels through the use of football and robotics.

What impact has it made?

The project will impact a cluster of schools withing the Aston area. It will provide children with an opportunity to engage in computer science in a fun and engaging way they otherwise would not have been able to experience due to the lack of resources and funding within their own schools.

Why did they receive a small grant?

Aston Villa Foundation presented a clear proposal which identified a challenge within the local area. They put forward an insightful and imaginitive project which brings STEM to life in an engaging manner.

The funding will allow us to be innovative with our provision in schools and make a difference within the local community by equipping the next generations with potential skill sets of the future and looking positively ahead in an ever-evolving technological world.

It will provide us with a further opportunity to have a positive impact on children and schools, by enriching their curriculums through this unique programme to experience, learn and develop through STEM, with the power of football and the club as a key instigator to unlocking learning potential.

Paul Hughes, Schools Manager, Aston Villa Foundation

Background

Bishop Vesey Grammar School (BVGS), Sutton Coldfield, expanded in 2016 to include a dedicated science, tech, engineering and maths (STEM) block in order to support the growth and development of their pupils.

Their aim is to become a flagship design and technology institution, which would not only engage their own students but become a central DT hub for other schools and work on live briefs with local businesses and the community.

Challenge

Like many schools, BVGS has very limited budgets to fund materials for their STEM block. Despite multiple fundraising activities, they were struggling to afford satisfactory materials to support their students.

What impact has it made?

They now produce specific activities in both curriculum and extra-curricular time.
The machinery is used by all pupils, aged 11-18, as well as local primary school pupils as part of their outreach programme.
In addition, a Design School/Club has been established within the school where a mixture of school and real world briefs are given from actual businesses in order to give students vital experience to help ignite their passion and inspire their real world careers.

Why did they receive a small grant?

They demonstrated clearly a passion and commitment to the advancement of learning and education for their pupils.
Particularly, the grant would serve a legacy through an outreach programme, which would benefit other under privileged schools in the area and the forward thinking plan to involve real world organisations in the development of their student’s education.

In today’s technologically driven world, now more than ever it’s important to prepare young people for the future.
Having the support of the Millennium Point Charitable Trust has enabled our school to get one-step closer to realising this goal, and with it, has opened the door to a number of amazing opportunities we otherwise would not have had.

Brian Davies, Business Development Manager, Bishop Vesey Grammar School