STEM

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Parkside Middle School > Our Curriculum > STEM

Our Curriculum

We understand that STEM plays an integral role to pupils' education at Parkside and future life choices.  Parkside is strongly committed to inspiring pupils with regards to the world around them and the future role that they will play in exciting ventures. STEM is integrated throughout the curriculum at all years, as well as being a core focus for many inspiration and engagement events across the school.

We take part in county challenges (STEM works, KNEX), welcome guest speakers linked to STEM careers and provide opportunities for STEM extra-curricular clubs to allow pupils to explore possibilities that might not yet have been invented and solve problems that have not yet been discovered.

We appreciate the need to create fascination, engagement and aspiration within the STEM sector, giving our pupils the opportunities to be inspired to play an active and creative role, whilst making links between wider aspirations and their studies in school.

STEM Works KNEX Challenge

Once again, we had the pleasure of welcoming Sarah into our school for the STEM works KNEX challenge.  Pupils were given the task to create a robot which had the ability to sort items within their model factory.  Their model had to include a robot, a set of shelves and parcels. All the pupils represented the school with excellent attitude, conduct and used resilience to complete the task.

They presented confidently to the group and could answer question about the relevant parts of their design.  The pupils who were selected as the Parkside winners will go on to the final to represent our school in June.

KNEX Workshop 2023

Meet the Astronauts

On Thursday 2nd February, Year 5 had the pleasure of meeting Helen Sharman (the first British astronaut) during a virtual question and answer session. Prior to the event, the pupils were given the opportunity to submit questions which were addressed throughout the exciting live lesson. This activity links to their current Science topic "The Earth and Beyond".
Freddie commented, "I like how it answered all our questions and encouraged children to go to space."
Tyler said, "It was fascinating and encouraged under 18s to go to space."
Josh recalled he, "liked the quotes that the astronauts shared to 'believe in yourself' and 'try your hardest at all you do'."
Helen Sharman

Kids' Inventors Day

On Tuesday 16th January 2023, to recognise Kids' Inventors Day, Year 6 took part in an inventor's challenge.  They were given play dough and spaghetti and set the challenge to create a free-standing structure or a bridge.  They had limited time and resources. All pupils demonstrated excellent resilience to achieve the task.
Kids Inventors Day 2023

Faraday Challenge 2023

On Thursday 19th January, a group of 34 year 8 pupils took part in the Faraday challenge. This is an annual competition that introduces students to engineering, inspires them to consider engineering as a career and helps to develop their practical and employability skills, including team working, problem solving and creative thinking. All teams worked tirelessly all day to come up with a ground-breaking innovation. When it came to the judging, there was only one point that separated the winners from the runner up. A huge well done to the winners Alfie J, Alfie O, Jackson, Charlie R, Charlie W and Harry as project manager.

All of the children were a credit to our school.

Faraday Challenge 2023

Birmingham Think Tank Visit

On Friday 13th January all our year 8s visited the Birmingham Think Tank Museum.

Children got to explore the award-winning science museum and even managed to experience interactive Science shows. The children relished the opportunity to explore the vast number of galleries and historical artefacts, modern interactives and fantastic futuristic facts. The whole of year 8 represented Parkside beautifully and we look forward to taking them on their next trip soon.

Think-Tank-2023

Amazon Factory Virtual Tour

Year 5 were given a virtual tour of the Amazon factory in Manchester on Friday 14th October.  The aim of the trip was to inspire the next generation of tech experts by allowing them to experience the real-world learning of robotics within the factory.  All pupils were extremely well behaved during the event and asked many thoughtful and exciting questions at the end.  One year 5 pupil said “I really enjoyed the tour and liked hearing about the career choices at the Amazon factory”. Another pupil commented that “the robots were like the ones we are designing in DT at the moment”.  Hopefully, we can run this tour with other year groups, later in the year.

Leaves on the Line

LeavesontheLine_2022

On Friday 25th March, all year 5 pupils took part in a STEM workshop "Leaves on the Line" presented by National Rail.  Often our railway lines have disruption due to leaves and other debris preventing our trains from running smoothly.  The workshop posed the problem of creating a product which would allow the trains to run more fluidly along the model tracks.  The pupils created a substance which they tested for viscosity and electrical conductivity to decide if it would solve the "Leaves on the line" problem.

All pupils thoroughly enjoyed the task and worked brilliantly in small teams to solve the problem.

Medical Mavericks

Medical Mavericks 2022

On Thursday 3rd March, all pupils watched an assembly delivered by the Medical Mavericks. During the assembly, pupils volunteer to demonstrate the use of a range of medical equipment (such as an infra-red vein scanner, an electro cardio graph and an ophthalmoscope).

Throughout the assembly, pupils were informed of NHS career pathways (including a vascular scientist, a medical engineer and a cardiac physiologist) and routes into those careers. The pupils were very enthusiastic and engaged throughout the assembly.

One year 5 pupil said "I enjoyed finding out about the different jobs in the NHS that weren't medical".

Whilst another pupil reported "I liked seeing the different medical equipment and seeing what they do".