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STEM Leader Award Winners
As part of the annual National Science and Engineering Week, held last March, every student in Years 3 and Year 7 participated in the national Primary and Secondary STEM Leader Awards. The theme for this competition was the question “If you were an engineer, what would you invent?” This remarkable STEM Award, managed in partnership with the University of Southampton and Siemens, asked primary children and secondary school pupils across the region to devise an invention and write an accompanying letter and design for it.
I am delighted to announce that Caden, in Year 3, and Greta in Year 7, were shortlisted from over 7,000 entries from across the country, for the Primary and Secondary Awards respectively. Caden and Greta had their work chosen by a panel comprising engineers and university lecturers and post-graduate students to represent our school at the regional South of England Public Exhibition of local school children and pupil's invention illustrations. This was held last week at the Boldrewood Innovation Campus, which is part of the University of Southampton.
Mr Jackson and Miss Large accompanied Caden and Greta and two other students from both Years 3 and 7, to the Campus. Once at the University, we took a bus ride to the campus, where we found the ground floor reception area had been transformed into a display of Southern England shortlisted works. We were delighted to have Greta’s mum join us, and her dad met us there, as did all of Caden’s family.
At the event, we spent time perusing all of the other designs and inventions. We decided that Caden and Greta’s designs, and the quality of their handwriting and presentation, were far better than many of the other entries! After refreshments, we then experienced a ‘rubbish/recycle sorting robot’ that university engineering students had built for the event.
After a picnic lunch and a short bus trip, we then drove back to school. We thank Caden and Greta’s families for joining us and for making the day more memorable for our winners.
