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Ryders Hayes STEM Project!
​Ogden Trust Partnership: Fostering a Love for Physics
Ryders Hayes is proud to be the lead school for a local Ogden Trust Partnership, a five-year collaboration aimed at promoting high-quality physics education. The Ogden Trust, founded by Sir Peter Ogden, is a charitable organisation dedicated to ensuring every young person has access to excellent physics learning.
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Over the next five years, we'll work with our partner schools to provide exciting opportunities for students and teachers alike. This includes hosting enriching events such as science fairs, workshops, student showcases, and competitions to spark curiosity and passion for science. Our teachers will also participate in professional development sessions to keep their teaching skills sharp and ensure our students receive the most current science education possible.
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Our partner schools in this initiative are:
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New Invention Learning Academy
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Fallings Park
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Holy Trinity
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King Charles Primary
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Shelfield Academy
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St Nicholas Church of England
The Royal Society: Investigating the Future of Robots
Our Year 4 students are embarking on an exciting project titled 'Will Robots Take Over the World?', made possible with a grant from The Royal Society. This hands-on research project will allow pupils to explore the world of robots using real-world scientific methods.
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Students will conduct primary research by interviewing people who work with robots and meeting an engineer. They will also conduct secondary research by examining the history of robots and their current applications. Using programmable Bee-Bots, they'll test hypotheses like "Do Bee-Bots always travel in a straight line?" and "Does the surface affect how well the Bee-Bot can travel?". Through this investigation, they will be able to form their own conclusions about the future of robotics.
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The Royal Society's program provides schools with funding for students and teachers to collaborate on research projects with a qualified STEM expert. This experience helps students develop practical skills and gain first-hand knowledge of STEM careers.
STEM Jobs for the Future: A European Project
One of our teachers has been selected as one of just 23 across Europe to join the "STEM Jobs for the Future" project, organised by Science on Stage Germany. This two-year initiative aims to seamlessly integrate career guidance into STEM education.
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The goal is to help students understand how the skills they learn in science, technology, engineering, and math are crucial for future careers, especially in emerging fields like sustainability, artificial intelligence, and big data.
Collaborating with teachers from across the continent, we will develop innovative digital teaching materials and interactive learning modules. These resources will help provide our students with ongoing, relevant career orientation. The project will kick off with its first meeting in Berlin from November 7th to 9th.
CLEAPSS Partnership: Building Core Scientific Skills
We are partnering with CLEAPSS (Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of Science Services) to embed essential scientific skills into our curriculum. We want to ensure our students have the fundamental abilities to become great scientists.
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To make learning these skills fun, we have a science ninja reward system. Students can earn stickers for demonstrating key abilities in science lessons, including observation, recording, using equipment, and measuring.
CLEAPSS also provides our teachers with professional development, ensuring they can effectively instil these vital skills in our pupils. This partnership is part of our ongoing commitment to strengthening our science curriculum.
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For more information on any of these initiatives, please contact:
Claire Raxworthy-Cooper
Science / STEM Lead
Rolls-Royce Schools Prize for Science & Technology
We are a ROLLS-ROYCE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PRIZE WINNER!
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We investigated “How will STEM technologies help us achieve a sustainable future?”
At Ryders Hayes Academy, our project was a whole school investigation into the different ways that STEM technology is currently used in industry and consider how it will help us in our everyday lives in the future. Using STEM software and hardware kits (SAM Labs), pupils created innovative systems and built their code, to provide sustainable solutions to problems within a real-world context. Each year group investigated the ways that STEM technology is used in our everyday lives including: creating recycling systems; exploring autonomous driving; using solar power cars; building theatre sets; using technology in animal care; and designing a Mars rover.
Through our Black Country Careers Hub 2030, we worked with industry partners to support our learning by visiting sites virtually, to see technology in action, considering technologies of the future and applying our learning to designing systems for the future, within a context of sustainability.
The Friends of Ryders Hayes (our PTFA) engaged with our local community of parents and wider family members to have the opportunity to share with pupils their experiences of using technology in their workplace. As part of our digital classroom, we hosted parental workshops for each year group to foster home learning and raise aspirations in STEM careers. Our project culminated in a showcase for families, pupils and industry to come together to celebrate the work produced by pupils and how they have applied their learning to how STEM technologies will help us achieve a sustainable future.
We are delighted our project has been recognised as being collaborative and innovative. Well done to all of the project team!
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https://careers.rolls-royce.com/united-kingdom/stem/science-prize
