Engaging with Schools: building successful STEM outreach education projects is a one-day, in-person workshop in Canterbury for organisations looking to support STEM education in schools.

We are all aware of the skills shortage in science, technology, engineering and maths, so how can we work with schools to create a stronger pipeline for our future STEM workforce?

Engaging with Schools will help you and your organisation to plan and develop STEM outreach activities that have a positive impact on the young people you engage with.

Why should I enrol?

• You will go away from this course with practical ideas for appropriate, engaging and beneficial STEM outreach activities to deliver to young people of school age.
• You will benefit from the expertise of the two course directors with 60 years of schoolteaching, leadership and outreach experience between them and meet with a business leader with a strong record of schools engagement.
• You will have time to think about your aims and those of your organisation and to discuss these with course leaders and other participants.
• You will consider the practicalities of implementing your plans and given advice on how to manage the logistics and administration of activities in schools.
• You will see examples of successful strategies that have a positive impact and discover methods of measuring this impact.

Download a flyer here.

Who should enrol on this course?

• organisations in STEM-related industries that want to ensure a skilled future workforce and engage with young people locally
• people in those organisations with responsibility for outreach, schools engagement, education and training, HR, CSR (corporate social responsibility), community liaison
• the course is designed for individuals or groups of people from organisations. Two or more booking from the same organisation can attend at a discount
• Organisations looking to book the course leaders to lead Engaging with Schools exclusively for their workplace can get in touch here.

What will be covered?

• what are the aims and intended benefits of our STEM outreach?
• possible modes of engagement: resources, online engagement, school-based events, workplace visits
• critical evaluation of exemplar outreach projects
• meet corporate partner with proven experience of industry-school engagement
• gaining confidence in engaging with school-age children
• planning an outreach project
• designing impact evaluation
• an optional tour of the EDGE Hub

Course details

• Date: Thursday 26 October 2023
• Time: 10am – 4pm, including breakfast pastries, buffet lunch, drinks
• Venue: The EDGE Hub, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury CT1 1QU
• Places are limited to maximise interaction
• Cost including all course materials: normal price £350 pp; introductory offer £200 pp until 2 October
• 10% discount for two or more colleagues booking together from same organisation – use coupon code MULTI10

Course directors: Christina Astin has over 30 years’ experience of STEM teaching and leading departments, as well as training teachers and advising schools. She has delivered successful STEM outreach projects for many corporate and charitable clients and is Chair of the Planet Possibility Consortium. She is well known for her work on cross-sector partnerships and is author of Partnerships WorkBook. Christina is a Fellow of both the Institute of Physics and the Chartered College of Teaching.

Jeremy Thomas is the Abingdon Science Partnership Lead and has 28 years experience of STEM teaching and outreach. He has established many successful links between industry and schools and run events bringing the two sectors together, such as the ATOM science festival in Abingdon.