Whytrig Middle School have been involved with Science Technology Engineering Mathematics learning since 2018 when Alan Edmiston visited as a science ambassador to support the development of enquiry-based learning in science. During his visits, Alan has been delivering STEM sessions across year 5, 6 7 and 8. His sessions have focused on mathematics and science, often involving fun experiments that get the pupils thinking outside of the box. The sessions have been very 'hands on' and 'thinking' based.

As part of this work, Alan has been involved in a project in conjunction with Metro Kids Africa and Stanley, Black and Decker to develop teacher training in Uganda to promote new and inclusive ways of teaching and therefore develop life chances of children in Uganda. Alan has been delivering high quality STEM sessions to WMS pupils, which have been filmed and will be made into a DVD that will be used for teacher training in Uganda.  Last week, Alan focused on science and brought bicarbonate soda rockets and sheep hearts into year 5 in order to get the pupils collaborating hands-on. The pupils of 5C and 5B loved these messy activities and are now working on their own reviews of the session to send to the students of Uganda. Our pupils and staff have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this project and have really enjoyed not only the cross culture links with schools in Uganda, but also participating in exciting and challenging STEM sessions.

The next step in this project is to set up some links between WMS and the schools in Uganda so that we can continue to learn and grow from each other and set up strong links between our schools. Alan will be working with the school council on this in the new year. As a school, we are honoured to have been selected to be part of this exciting project and look forward to developing the links with Uganda even further.

STEM WMS autumn 2021