Full STEAM ahead with Nord Anglia's first ever regional festival

So, what is STEAM and why should we, the Primary school community, be excited when it is happening in the Secondary school?

What is STEAM?

Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) play an invaluable part in helping your child to develop academic, social and personal success.

Through practical, hands-on problem solving, your child will develop transferable skills such as creativity, curiosity, resilience, resourcefulness, collaboration and confidence to help pave the way to a wide open future.

Why should we care?

Through Nord Anglia’s collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), ranked as the best university in the world for 7 years in a row (according to QS World University Rankings), we will be able to welcome two of the MIT educational team to our school.

In June this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Aimee Gillespie and Carole Urbano during my visit to MIT. They are both passionate educator’s and believers of how schools can learn from MIT’s approach and its founding principle of ‘mind and hand’.

They will be joining us for the STEAM Festival, however they will also support some of the Primary classes during the ‘Hack the Tube’ competition on Wednesday 3 October.

Added to this, they will also lead some professional development for Primary teachers during a meeting on Wednesday to share their wealth of knowledge with our educators.

Another reason why STEAM matters, is that universities and employers are now looking beyond ‘just academic’ scores and are now looking to students who can also find problems, solve problems and collaborate with others.

STEAM is one way to develop those attributes in a transdisciplinary approach. This is one of the reasons why STEAM is such a good fit for our school.

It compliments the transdisciplinary IB PYP curriculum and supports our students in developing their creativity, collaboration and critical thinking skills through engaging, hands on learning experiences.

I am looking forward to the excitement and engagement that this first STEAM Festival brings and anticipate all of our students benefiting from the focus on STEAM here at Northbridge.

We encourage you to follow the action on our school Facebook account.

Click here for more details on the STEAM Festival.

For more on Nord Anglia’s approach to STEAM follow this link.