As part of our Together to Zero initiative, we set out to work with local schools to raise aspirations for young people to pursue exciting sustainable career opportunities in the local region. It’s safe to say that we’ve been doing just that!
Here’s a full list of the schools that took part:
St Theresa Catholic Primary School
De La Salle School
Holy Spirit Catholic Primary School
St Mary & St Thomas CofE Primary School
Rainford High School
Holy Cross C of E Primary School
Merton Bank Primary School
Two of the key partners we’ve worked with to help achieve our goals within this strand of the side of the project.
CreativeHUT is a company that helps to inspire children and ignite creativity amongst students – which is why we thought they would be a perfect partner.
Over the past couple of weeks, the amazing team from CreativeHUT has visited both Primary and Secondary Schools with the objective to engage all students with a unique robotics challenge specifically designed for St Helen’s clean, green and advanced manufacturing theme. The aim is to develop and enhance participants’ digital skills and their ability to interact with technology, specifically Robotics. Teams worked together to build and program a robot using the Lego Education Spike Mat, all the sessions were interactive and the students were fully engaged and excited to program their robot.
The challenge is themed around clean and green manufacturing, careers, and technology, focusing on local industry hoping to inspire the future workforce. For example, in one of the Robotics challenges the children had to code their robot to complete the route which was a map of St Helens – key businesses, such as Glass Futures, were displayed as land-marks on the map.
Participants were encouraged to embrace friendly competition and mutual gain and that helping each other is the foundation of teamwork. Post experience days – students will need to find a problem, develop a solution, and create an elevator-style pitch video for their solution. Designated mentors will be required to review each project.
We at St Helen’s Chamber felt the sessions were a complete success, the participants really enjoyed themselves! The teachers were amazed at how these groups interacted with each other and had fun. The CreativeHUT trainers were inspiring and engaging and kept the students interested and challenged throughout the session!
Here’s some feedback we spotted on socials from one of the children’s parents:
Today was the BEST DAY EVER in school! – Lola, Holy Spirit Catholic Primary
How amazing is that!
