Full STEM Ahead!

The children and staff recently participated in our second annual STEM Week. Throughout the week, the children took part in a range of investigative activities to encourage mathematical and scientific thinking and problem solving. They also listened to a range of guest speakers and participated in workshops such as Robotics, which was led by the staff and pupils of St Anthony’s School For Boys.

The main focus of STEM Week was a whole school project which required the girls to design and make an invention that would help the environment in some way. Pupils thought of initial ideas in school, then finalised their designs at home. The girls made their inventions out of 100% recyclable materials, which included a range of innovative ideas such as solar powered air filters, rubbish collecting robots and recycling sorters.

A particular highlight of the week was our whole school trip to the Science Museum which we all thoroughly enjoyed! Our Reception, Year 1 and 2 pupils visited a range of hands-on explorative exhibits, including the Garden and the Pattern Pod. The Garden provided the girls with an opportunity to explore floating and sinking by watching water rush down from a huge bucket into a series of pools, which helped them to explore ripples, bubbles, scooping and pouring. They experimented with balancing and moving materials using wheelbarrows, a bucket hoist and a snake chute.

The multi-sensory Pattern Pod gallery encouraged the girls to investigate patterns in the world around us, allowing them to explore patterns in different ways. This helped them to develop their understanding of a range of mathematical concepts including symmetry, 2D shapes and 3D patterns by observing, experimenting, problem solving and classifying.

Our older pupils particularly enjoyed the ‘Wonderlab’ where they explored the curriculum themes of Forces, Electricity, Light, Sound, Matter, Space and Maths. The gallery captivated the imagination of the Year 3 and 4 girls through more than 50 cutting edge exhibits and immersive experiences. The girls adopted the role of scientists, investigating each exhibit carefully.

Another source of great interest was the arrival of some new additions to our school! Seven chicks hatched from our hatching kit which led to much excitement and provided a real life opportunity to learn about the life cycle of chicks, as well as their habitat and environment.