Thousands of UK schools are now running after-school ... - Ingenia

SOCIETY
AFTER-SCHOOL
CLUBS
Thousands of UK schools are now running after-school clubs
that give young people sustained, positive experiences of the
creative excitement that engineering and technology can provide.
Ingenia recently contacted hundreds of schools asking about
their experience of running these clubs and specifically about
programming physical devices. Scott Steedman, Editor-in-Chief of
Ingenia, and Anna Paczuska, an education researcher and writer,
considered the responses and give an overview of after-school
club activity.
Brighton College Prep School: their Young Engineers club engineered a series of modifications to a wind turbine blade
to improve their school’s carbon footprint
A new crop of after-school
engineering and technology
clubs has sprung up across the
UK in the past decade. These
clubs are aimed not just at older
pupils already committed to
studying engineering or other
STEM (science, technology,
engineering and mathematics)
subjects, but also at younger
secondary and even primary
pupils. Some extraordinary
projects have been undertaken,
ranging from building a plane to
developing applications for ‘smart’
textiles. Clubs have emerged in
many different types of school,
with gender being no barrier to
access or success. Many clubs are
diverse and inclusive, organised
by staff motivated to increase
the take-up of STEM subjects at
all stages in the curriculum and
perhaps even to stimulate more
young people towards a related
career.
INGENIA ISSUE 50 MARCH 2012 1

AFTER-SCHOOL CLUBS
SOCIETY
SUPPORTING STEM TEACHING
AND LEARNING
The Engineering Engagement Programme run by The Royal
Academy of Engineering has delivered continual professional
development training to over 180 schools and teachers across
the UK. Through this project, schools have been provided
with resources and activities to support and develop their
engineering clubs. Teaching resources have been developed by
the Academy, with activities including designing packaging with
thermochromatic pigment to ensure safe food storage, making
plastics from milk and devising applications for new materials.
STEM activities are also developed by the Academy, exemplified
by the classroom resource ‘Athlete or Machine?’ This investigation
into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics behind
the bob skeleton provides a truly cross-curricular activity, with realworld
applications to Olympic sport. Students are challenged to
design, build and test a model bob skeleton, while optimising for
maximum speed and minimum aerodynamic drag.
The Academy continues to develop and disseminate resources
through its own networks. It also works closely with STEMNET to
support and encourage STEM ambassadors to engage actively
with schools in delivering and developing engineering projects.
A programme of working with teacher coordinators is actively
developing networks with schools not previously engaged with STEM
activities. More information at www.raeng.org.uk/education/eenp/
North London STEM Club participants extracting plastic from milk. Students
heated up whole milk before adding vinegar, causing the protein caesin to
precipitate out of the milk as a white solid. Caesin is a long-chain molecule,
or polymer, and the students were encouraged to mould the solid into
different shapes, thereby making a comparison with other plastics
The approach adopted by
the vast majority of clubs is to
engage young people in ‘real
world’ activities, often using the
latest technologies, to build or
create something that works.
This has enabled thousands of
young people to see the study
of STEM subjects as fun, exciting
and relevant. Club leaders are
consistent in their view that
projects should be based on
themes or activities chosen by
the students themselves and that
they should be ‘hands-on’ and
closely related to what they can
see and experience in the world
around them.
Building eco-friendly
buildings or ‘green’ cars have
been popular choices for clubs,
as has the never-ending interest
in programming machines to
race each other, climb over
obstacles or carry out robotic
tasks. Remote-controlled
cars, jitterbugs and buggies
are commonplace, while
rockets continue to fire the
imagination. In a nod to the
television programme Scrapheap
Challenge, at least one club has
built go-karts from old bicycle
frames. Some clubs have
gone even further combining
‘classroom’ projects with a wider
interaction with their school or
local community based on ideas
related to medicine, health, and
consumer products, such as
clothing.
BUILDING
CONTROLLABLE
DEVICES
One major advance in recent
years has been the availability of
cheap programmable devices
that allow students to design
and make devices that produce
computer-controlled movement.
These allow pupils to experience
the concept of a programming
language and how logic may
be used to structure a series
of commands that control
mechanical devices.
Controlling movement in
a machine can be achieved
using a simple Peripheral
Interface Controller (PIC) or more
advanced microprocessors.
Microchips offer a useful
introduction to programming
without the need for expensive
computer suites. To make things
easier, a range of commercially
supplied kits are now readily
available, comprising simple
programmable devices with
software for as little as £2 each.
School clubs are also able
to purchase reasonably priced
microcontroller systems that
help with an introduction to
programming. PICAXE is a
UK-sourced system based on
a standard PIC microcontroller
chip. Arduino is an opensource
(free to use and develop)
single-board microcontroller.
Both systems are designed to
make the process of controlling
electromechanical devices more
accessible to people with limited
or no programming experience.
Schools also reported using the
GENIE 8-pin microcontroller
system, the Microsoft .NET
Gadgeteer open-source toolkit
and Lego Mindstorms.
The next stage is to consider
more sophisticated systems
such as the $25 Raspberry Pi,
a credit-card-sized computer
that can connect a television
monitor, keyboard and other
peripherals via a USB hub.
Despite its small size, each unit
packs considerable processing
power and can be used as part
of a toolkit for young people
interested in learning about
IMAGINEERING CLUBS
Imagineering Clubs provide
hands-on activities for one
hour a week throughout the
academic year to groups of
around 12 pupils. Most of
these out-of-school clubs
are run by engineer tutors,
providing real-life experiences
of engineering. Offering a
sustained programme of
development throughout the
academic year, sitting alongside
the National Curriculum, they
cover subjects as diverse as
electricity, magnetism, flight
and measurement. Where
possible, the youngsters are
taken on visits to factories and
other engineering facilities to
experience modern engineering
and technology in action.
Bob Young is a retired
engineer and volunteer tutor
at a long-running Imagineering
Club at St Richard’s Church of
England First School in Evesham,
Worcestershire. He finds that as
well as gaining practical skills,
the children are able to grasp
how things work and the science
and technology behind each
model. The youngsters learn to
read drawings, use checklists,
organise their work surfaces and
the disciplines associated with
these activities, gaining personal
confidence and a sense of
achievement by learning through
this practical experience.
Elizabeth Spencer, Head
Teacher at St Richard’s, says that
the involvement with engineers
and the opportunities for the
pupils to visit engineering works
has also proved beneficial with
pupils gaining in confidence
and becoming enthusiastic
about engineering as a result.
More information at
www.imagineering.org.uk
A youngster at an Imagineering Club at St Richard’s Church of England First School in Evesham constructs a Morse key
and buzzer using simple tools and learns the principles of electro-magnetism through practical experience
© The Imagineering Foundation
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AFTER-SCHOOL CLUBS
SOCIETY
The STEM Clubs Support team based at the British Science
Association reports that across the UK some 2,200 schools are part
of the STEM clubs network with new affiliations being made daily.
BUILDING BRIDGES
Class teacher Peter Davison started a lunchtime engineering club at Victoria Junior School in Barrowin-Furness
in 2010. The club meets once a week, has 25 members (Davison says he could have had
50, such was the interest) and is supported by the Barrow Engineering Project which provided the
club with ambassadors from BAE Systems. Activities have so far centred on building different kinds
of bridges and testing them. This also meets the needs of the National Curriculum which requires
children to design something that takes weight, and suggests an object such as a chair.
Most recently the children have designed and built motor- and wind-powered vehicles and their
next project is to design a house. Davison says projects must be relevant to children’s everyday lives
and the more that they involve pupils’ interests and hobbies the better, such as scooters, skateboards
and indeed anything they see as ‘cool’.
Victoria Junior School Engineering Club Children race motorised buggies that they have designed and put together
themselves © Davison
programming for operating
systems such as Linux, and in
developing games or controlling
sensors.
PROGRAMMING
SKILLS
One barrier to the introduction
of programming reported by
some schools has been the
tendency for after-school clubs
to be organised by Design &
Technology (D&T) departments,
whose teachers sometimes
lack the programming skills to
exploit these new opportunities
effectively with their students.
A survey by the Design and
Technology Association (DATA, a
body representing D&T teachers)
found that only a small fraction
of D&T departments were
teaching this part of the D&T
syllabus. The Royal Academy
of Engineering subsequently
developed two professional
development courses for
teachers, ‘Let’s Make It Work’
and ‘Let’s Make It Move’, which
are delivered by Science
Learning Centres across the
UK. These courses focus on
the physical, as well as virtual
outcomes that can be achieved
through programming and
enable teachers to introduce
programming activities to their
classrooms.
FUNDING AND
OUTSIDE SUPPORT
Many after-school engineering
clubs began with some kind of
project funding at the outset
and have continued by using a
combination of school funding,
sponsorship and contributions
from parents. At one end of the
scale, North East Wolverhampton
Academy has launched a twoyear
project with Boeing to
build and fly a two-seat microlight
plane at a cost of £40,000
in conjunction with the Royal
Aeronautical Society and Light
Aircraft Association, which are
providing support in kind.
However, it is not necessary
to spend such large sums to
achieve remarkable results.
Guiseley School in Bradford
has found success in building
go-karts from old bicycles and
collaboration on its robotic
projects with Bradford Model
Engineering Club, approaching
local businesses for support.
In fact, a vast array of
resources, many of them free
of charge or low-cost, has
been developed by a range
of providers to support club
activities. They include kits
and activity sheets on every
aspect of engineering and
STEM ambassador networks of
employees from industry and
students from universities who
visit schools to support club
activities. Career websites, such
as Future Morph, competitions
(such as Young Engineers’ Club
Competition and First Lego
League) and award schemes
for pupils, and start-up funding
for projects are all available to
support club leaders.
CLUBS INCREASING
IN POPULARITY
The first big push towards
bolstering club activity numbers
came from the governmentfunded
After School Science
and Engineering Clubs (ASSEC)
programme which ran between
2007 and 2009 and aimed to
set up 250 after-school clubs
across England and Wales.
Government funding following
the recommendations of Lord
Sainsbury in his 2007 report Race
GREENPOWER CAR RACE
The St Mark’s Young Engineers Club has been running since 2001.
Initially it was started to enter the Greenpower electric car race. The
club members continue to use the Young Engineers Club Network
to select a range of local and national competitions to spur them on.
Damian Smeaton, the school’s Technology Teacher and Club’s Leader
helps the students make solar buggies for the Toyota Technology
Challenge. The club also enters the NPL Water Rocket Challenge and
British Schools Karting Championship, as well as entering several of
Young Engineers’ own challenges every year.
Like so many clubs, it is their Design & Technology technician,
Phil Woodhams, who is pivotal to the club’s ongoing momentum
and impact. The competitions have enhanced the school profile
with some local press coverage and they have involved some feeder
primary schools in their activities. They currently have 25 students
including several girls.
Young Engineers have a range of club resources available to
download at www.youngeng.org/index.asp?page=1203
to the Top was a key element
in the subsequent success
of the programme, which
was managed by STEMNET, a
government-funded body set
up to support STEM initiatives
in schools. The programme
targeted secondary school
pupils with a view to improving
their performance at Key
Stage Three (years 7, 8 and
9) in science subjects and to
encourage them to consider
careers in engineering and
science.
Since 2009, participation
in after-school engineering
and STEM clubs has increased
more than threefold. Indeed,
the number of clubs in the
STEM Clubs network has risen
from 500 in 2009 to around
2,200 schools today, with new
affiliations being made daily.
Operating alongside
STEMNET are programmes
such as Imagineering, the
independent education
charity that takes part in a
number of engineering fairs
and supports over 150 afterschool
clubs led by volunteer
engineers, and Young Engineers,
an organisation that also
supports a national network
of engineering clubs as well
as other activities such as
challenges and competitions
Young Engineers now has 1,800
clubs on their register. Most
of these are in state schools,
and around four new clubs
join the network every week.
The average Young Engineers
club has some 21 members,
a third of whom are girls, and
students are involved in clubs
for around two years at a time.
Additional outreach activities
such as The Big Bang Fair and
the Tomorrow’s Engineers
initiative (a partnership between
EngineeringUK and the
Academy) involve an estimated
50,000 secondary pupils. The
Imagineering Fair, with hands-
St Mark’s Young Engineers Club’s Greenpower team on race day
4 INGENIA INGENIA ISSUE 50 MARCH 2012 5

AFTER-SCHOOL CLUBS
SOCIETY
CARBON ZERO
Four years ago Cathie Serrao, Head of Science at Queens’ School,
a sports and science college in Hertfordshire, identified a need to
raise the profile of STEM subjects in her school. This led to a bid for
funds for an eco-project to build an outdoor classroom to promote
STEM subjects. Both Cathie and Sue Taplin, a Design & Technology
teacher and a Forest School Leader, ran a club called ‘Carbon Zero’
for Year 8 pupils, which engaged students in various aspects of the
environment. The club members constructed the outdoor shelter;
it involved groups of 16 pupils at a time, the majority girls, in
lunchtime and after school sessions.
Now that the classroom is finished it has become home
to a range of other clubs including a Year 8 Engineering Club
and ‘i:Wood’. The sessions incorporate STEM subjects through a
culmination of various holistic teaching methods; exploration
through playful experiences, managing risk with a student-led focus
and time for reflection on learning. Serrao, says the whole project
has resulted in a massive increase of interest in STEM including a
50% increase in the take up of A- level Science and Product Design.
on engineering activities and
opportunities for students to
meet young, working engineers,
attracts over 100,000 visitors
annually.
MEASURES OF
SUCCESS
From the bath bombs of St
Boniface’s College to the model
cyclotron at Orangefield High
School, Belfast, our survey has
found that whether a club is
successful or not from the pupils’
perspective seems to depend
primarily on the confidence and
commitment of the teacher or
club leader and the support they
can muster from local engineers
and sponsors. From a national
perspective, whether the afterschool
club model is successful
or not depends not just on the
activities and their relevance
to the real world, nor with the
number of pupils attending and
their apparent enthusiasm, but
on whether the clubs make any
real difference to the way pupils
think about STEM.
There is plenty of supporting
evidence to show that these
clubs do indeed make an
impact. Some club leaders
quoted figures of 50% increased
take-up of A-level Science and
Product Design, which must be
a positive short term indicator.
Above all, though, the
value of after-school clubs
that have a technical bias
appears to lie in the increased
motivation of the pupils and
teachers towards a common
understanding, firstly of
engineering as a function, and
secondly of engineering as a
career. The active involvement
of major industry must also
Students at Queens’ School laying the wood chippings for the path that
leads to the outdoor classroom shelter
play a role. The opportunity
to strengthen the traditional
model of engineering clubs
to include programming skills
could yet see a further step
up in interest and numbers
across the country. Maltby
Academy, whose girls have
been developing projects for
people with disabilities and
who have now set up their
own company and are talking
to manufacturers, is surely an
exemplar. There is no more
powerful outcome that afterschool
engineering clubs could
deliver than to stimulate the
entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
Good progress has been
made. Now we must promote
the key ingredients for success in
after-school clubs: incorporating
sponsorship from industry,
the integration of software
programming and a focus on
entrepreneurial skills.
BIOGRAPHY
Anna Paczuska is an education researcher and writer. She
taught mathematics and numeracy at schools and colleges
in inner London and then managed a series of wideningaccess
initiatives including a BP-funded Access to Science
and Maths project. She was Head of Access and Widening
Participation at London South Bank University.
The opportunity to strengthen the
traditional model of engineering clubs to
include programming skills could yet see
a further step up in interest and numbers
across the country.
Ingenia’s Editor-in-Chief would
like to thank the following
schools for responding to the
magazine’s appeal for afterschool
clubs information.
Their input allowed a range
of practical experiences to be
included in this article.
Thanks to: Notre Dame Roman
Catholic School, Plymouth; The
Glasgow Academy; St Boniface’s
College, Plymouth; Langley
Park School for Boys, London;
King’s School in Macclesfield;
Orangefield High School,
Belfast; Appleton Academy,
Bradford; Ralph Allen School,
Bath; Framwellgate School
Durham; Guiseley School, Leeds;
Nova Hreod School, Swindon;
Bury Grammar School for
Girls; Keswick School; Keswick
Thorpe Hall School; Thorpe Bay
Hanham High School, Bristol;
Cottingham High School, North
Humberside; Bishop’s Stortford
College; Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’
School; Dame Alice Owens
School, Potters Bar; Maltby
Academy, Rotherham; Portslade
Aldridge Community Academy,
Brighton; Friern Barnet School,
North London; Ernesford Grange
Community College a Science
Specialist School, Coventry;
The King’s School, Canterbury;
Queens’ School, Hertfordshire;
Alperton Community School,
London; Witton Park High
School, Lancashire and South
Camden Community School,
London.
AWARD WINNERS
The STEM Club at Framwellgate School Durham was started four
years ago for pupils at Key Stage 3. The club now has 75 members,
including some year 10 pupils who were part of the original cohort
and enjoyed it so much that they did not want to leave. Enterprise
and STEM Enrichment Manager Catherine Purvis-Mawson
expanded the club to allow these older pupils positions of greater
leadership, managing project teams of younger pupils. She is also
developing an internship programme for sixth form students to
experience real-world placements in science and engineering.
Some of the club’s activities include building a glider and
developing experiments to test its aerodynamic efficiency and
constructing devices based on electric circuits to improve the life
of people with disabilities. Last year, the club organised a schoolwide
design competition for applications of ‘smart’ materials
in clothing, including Kevlar, thermographic, and UV-sensitive
materials, culminating in a catwalk show with the announcer
explaining the engineering principles behind each garment.
This year, club members are collaborating with a partner school
in Jordan to design systems to conserve, re-use, and recycle water
in the desert.
Last year, the club won the Young Engineers’ problem-solving
award at last year’s Big Bang Fair, and a STEMNET award for being
‘the most dedicated club’. As a prize, five pupils will be travelling to
CERN in Switzerland in March 2012.
Students from Framwellgate School Durham wear the clothes that they
made from ‘smart’ materials
6 INGENIA INGENIA ISSUE 50 MARCH 2012 7