STEM Learning Enthuse Partnership

In early 2019, The Mead Teaching School was selected to become an ENTHUSE Partnership school, in collaboration with STEM Learning. ENTHUSE Partnerships aim to inspire young people into STEM subjects and careers; STEM Learning fulfil this by enabling groups of schools and colleges to improve young people’s achievement and engagement in STEM.

By becoming a partnership school, we are able to access a wide range of support from STEM Learning, including:

• Teacher CPD
• Resources which are free, curated and quality assured
• Teacher placements
• STEM Ambassadors
• STEM Clubs

This proven model for achieving lasting improvement in STEM will enable us to develop a tailored two-year programme to improve STEM knowledge, skills, confidence and career aspiration.

You can read more about the partnerships here, and we’ll be keeping you up-to-date with all of our activities via our blog posts below. If you have any questions about the STEM CPD we are offering to our alliance schools, please get in touch via email.

Term 6 2019

We kicked off the final term of this year with a cross-Trust Professional Development Meeting focused on Science Moderation. All teachers attended a year-group specific meeting, and received statutory information and documentation on expected standards for the end of their Key Stage in Science. They also gained examples of work for each standard to use when comparing to their own class work and moderating. Assessment information was given with the expectation that the class assessments will be completed by the end of the academic year so that any gaps in understanding are identified and can be planned for early on.

Across KS1 and KS2, we now have a clear, consistent and accurate understanding of where all of our children are in relation to expected standards in Science. 

12th July 2019: A micro habitat enquiry and observation at Pewsey Primary School. Our question was ‘Do all mini beast live in the same habitat?’ We looked at two different micro habitats and are in the process of observing mini beast found in each location. We are collecting data on numbers found there, which we will then make into pictograms to answer our question

9th July 2019: Lindsay Palmer and Jenny Chislett meet with Steve Hacker from STEM Learning and Alison Simpson from Malmesbury School to plan out our training dates for next year

3rd July 2019: Year 5 loved having teachers from John of Gaunt visit them this afternoon. They completed science experiments to find the most effective prototype for a helicopter. 

28th June 2019: Paper helicopters! This week in Year 4, we have been putting our investigative skills to the test by experimenting how wing length affects how a paper spinner will fall. Conclusions and analysis to follow next week. 

27th June 2019: Jenny Chislett, our Enthuse Project lead, met with Tracy Boulton, Head of School at Castle Mead, and Lyssy Bolton, Executive Headteacher, to talk through progress on the project and confirm dates for Jenny’s residential CPD next year.

25th June 2019: Lindsay Palmer, our Head of Teaching School, and Jenny Chislett, our Enthuse Project lead, met with Carol Sampey from the Primary Science Teaching Trust meet to plan more training and coaching activities during 2019/2020. Some brilliant events to look forward to. Watch this space!

24th June 2019: Jenny Chislett, our Trust lead for science, meets with Steve from STEM Learning to review progress on the project so far and plan next steps 

21st June 2019: Tim from Bristol ChemLabs delivered an amazing science assembly for the Year 5 and 6 children from Castle Mead School, River Mead School and The Mead Primary School. Mrs Young, Year 6 teacher at Castle Mead School, said:
“The assembly was a fantastic opportunity for the children. They all loved it and were very keen to share all their scientific learning with other teachers, friends and parents back at school. They thought the assembly was funny, exciting and informative. A number of the children spoke about how they now want to be scientists / chemists so that they can do more experiments and learn more about the world. For some of our children they have never had the opportunity to experience anything like this in museums or open days so it was an amazing eye opening opportunity for them. Lots of them asked if we could go and visit a science lab or do more science experiments at school before the end of the year.”

10th June 2019: The Science Leads from Castle Mead School, The Mead Primary School, and Pewsey Primary School meet to plan

5th June 2019: Teachers from across the Trust meet for Science Moderation

Term 5 2019

We have really enjoyed diving into the detail of the project, mapping out a timeline of activities, CPD and STEM-related event for our children that will take place over the next two years. We’re enjoying working collaboratively with the Science leads from all three of our Trust schools, and have broken for half term with several dates in the diary for Term Six. We will be meeting as a group to moderate Science in Week 1, and will meet again the following week to plan for the remainder of the term.

17th May 2019: Lindsay Palmer, Head of Teaching School and Jenny Chislett, Trust Lead for Science, meet to plan the timetable of events from 2019-21

Term 4 2019

Where it all begins! We travelled to York on 3rd April 2019, to join Cohort 12 and kick off our partnership with STEM Learning. Lindsay Palmer, Head of Teaching School, and Jon Hackett, teacher and Science Lead for The Mead Primary School, endured planes, trains and automobiles to get to York from Trowbridge after school, and were kindly hosted by the University of York for the night.

The following day we attended a briefing with the other schools in the cohort, and put our practical Science skills to the test!

The whole induction experience was hugely inspiring, and we arrived back just before the Easter break tired and slightly travel-weary, but incredibly excited about what the partnership will mean to our teachers and children.

4th April 2019: Starting as we mean to go on, with a fabulous breakfast provided by the University of York

4th April 2019: Getting to grips with building our own glider as part of the induction day