LATEST NEWS

It has been a busy month for STEAM with the launch of Design Club which followed the Year 7 Careers/Enterprise day. In addition there has been a lot of work behind the scenes as students and staff prepare for several STEAM events coming up.

The Robotics Club has been meeting five nights a week, preparing the robot for the upcoming competition that will take place on 7th February in Cambridge.

Year 9 Textiles students have been finalising their entries for the IET Fashion Competition and will be submitting their entries before the end of January.

Additionally we have been busy preparing STEAM days for Years 7-9 working with Thorpe Park, Brentford Football Club and the Institute of Engineers to name but a few. Watch this space for more details.

Year 7 Careers and STEAM Event

On their first day back following the Christmas break, students in Year 7 took part in an Enterprise Day. This was delivered by Novartis UK in conjunction with Employee Volunteers and the school.

For two hours students worked in teams with a member of staff from Novartis. Each pupil took on a different role including; Project Manager, Technical Manager, Marketing Manager, Sales Manager and Finance Manager. The students planned their app and then worked on their own role but within a team to create a presentation of their idea. Following lunch the students then had an opportunity to present their idea to the rest of the groups and the staff from Novartis judged the best ones.

There were lots of creative ideas throughout the event but one that really made us all take notice was an app designed to help people who are deaf communicate with those who are not deaf. Another group had an idea of an app that raises money for charity through a variety of games.

The students really inspired all the adults at the event and the verbal feedback given to us was outstanding. Staff at Novartis told us that they had a wonderful day and that the school felt like a really nice place to be. They were very impressed with our pupils' attitudes and engagement and they had a great day.

Following the event we received a very positive e-mail from Employee Volunteers who said: “Initial feedback from Novartis is lovely; volunteers had an inspiring day and I hope your Y7 pupils got a lot from engaging with them.”

The Year 7 students have another event coming up this month where they will be working on designing a rollercoaster for Thorpe Park!

Following on from the success of the Year 7 Enterprise Day, some students signed up for Design Club: a weekly club after-school that is hosted by Design Club's founder Noam Sohachevsky. Noam imparts his knowledge as a designer, guiding students through the process to design and prototype an App.

In week one, students were introduced to one another and Noam; they then made their Design Club pledges and started to think about the design process.  In week two, students started to mindmap ideas for their app and started to prototype using Marvel.

Students have been showing great enthusiasm and promise as tomorrow's designers!

We look forward to sharing their work with you as it develops.

Mrs Robjant