Marlborough College has recently completed a ten week STEM partnership programme with Broad Hinton Church of England Primary School, called Generation Earthshot.
This was a pupil-led science initiative, utilising our Beko Innovation Centre, in which members of the Sixth Form worked in collaboration with 22 pupils from Broad Hinton Church of England Primary School and the Young Guru Academy. Marlborough is the only UK partner school of the Young Guru Academy, a non-profit, educational and social enterprise organisation based in Turkey, who are behind the Twin Science Kits used in the programme. Activities were based around the UN Sustainable Development goals, and they involved pupils trying to design solutions to world problems. One recent activity, based on how technology can be used to improve people’s lives, involved the visiting pupils designing a robotic hand.
The programme culminated at Broad Hinton on their annual eco-day. Pupils worked together in constructing a ‘living wall’ of plants potted up in recycled plastic bottles, with a solar-powered pump powering an irrigation system fed by rainwater.
Speaking of the STEM partnership, the Headmaster of Broad Hinton Church of England Primary School, Mrs Elizabeth Lloyd, said: “This was a fantastic opportunity to develop scientific knowledge alongside other students. The partnership work is really important to us; it encourages our pupils to think about what they might like to do in the future. We have one young man I can see as an engineer. This work has really caught his imagination and raised his educational aspirations.”
One of the shared ambitions of the partnership between the College and Beko which saw the Beko Innovation Centre become a reality, is that the facility will be used to grow the College’s outreach and partnership work with other schools. The plan is to expand the number of primary school science and technology programmes led by our pupils and to use the facilities of the Innovation Centre to inspire the next generation of socially responsible engineers and scientists.
